Survivor: The Gallery Scene

Oh my are we behind! Catching up on reading Art Daily, we saw this news release about Bravo's next reality show, being developed by Sarah Jessica Parker, which plans to do for artists what Project Runway did for designers. Auditions are coming up in L.A., New York, Chicago and Miami, and a few more details on the show's development can be found here. For casting instructions, check out Bravo's site. Project Runway and Top Chef both made sense, those fields (design and cooking) having as much craft as art to them, and Top Design sort of did, but how exactly Bravo plans to pit, say, a concept-heavy installation artist like Felix Gonzalez-Torres against a lushly impressionistic painter like Wayne Thiebaud, to give a hypothetical, is going to be interesting, and possibly confusing, to watch.

Young Dawgs: Alexis Richardson

Alexis is almost done with her internship here (she only has a week left!), and here's her second-to-last blog post:

I can’t believe that I only have just a week and a day left with GMOA. I have so much respect for art now compared to before I started working here. My favorite type of art that I enjoy looking at is the Spanish art because it tells different stories and has history and different meanings behind it. I have also learned that anything can be art and that art does not have to be pretty. It can also be ugly. Even though I just scan books it’s not boring at all to me; it’s actually amusing to me. Because the different books have different types of art that are just very eye-catching I forget that I am scanning and just go through the whole book looking at the different images. Even though I do not want a career in art, I have a different outlook on art than when I was placed at GMOA. The whole point of the internship is to see if you still want to major in this field when going to college or in the career field, so I am very glad that Young Dawgs put me here because every day I am learning different little things about art that I thought I wouldn’t be too fond of at first.

Summer Film Series, Part Three: Bergman

On Wednesday, GMOA’s summer film series presents the third in its series of Ingmar Bergman’s films. This week’s film, “The Silence,” completes what Bergman referred to as his “trilogy.” Luckily, if you missed either of the previous films, the films that make up Bergman’s “trilogy” are not a trilogy in the typical Hollywood sense. Rather, they are three films loosely related through their shared focus on spirituality and psychology.

Last Wednesday, Dr. Simon enticed the crowd to return again this week by informing us that “The Silence” was banned in many countries after its release in 1963. Considered too explicit at the time, “The Silence” has come to be regarded as one of Bergman’s masterpieces. The setting for this film is indefinite; it is in an unnamed, war-torn state. The film follows two sisters and a child as they travel across this strange and unknown country. Whereas the previous two films of the “trilogy” featured protagonists directly wrestling with questions of faith, the world of “The Silence” (initially entitled “God’s Silence”) seems utterly devoid of religious notions. As Dr. Simon noted in her introduction to “Winter Light,” Bergman’s “trilogy” charts the director’s movement away from religious themes and toward a more psychological focus.

So come out on Wednesday, July 8, at 7:00 p.m. to room 151 of Lamar Dodd for another of Bergman’s amazing pieces of cinematic art. Here’s the trailer for this week’s film:



As a side note, the Art Newspaper reports that a Swedish foundation representing the late director (Bergman died in July 2007) is looking for a sponsor to purchase the Bergman estate and to maintain it as a space open to the public. Rather than turning the estate, the shooting location for “Through a Glass Darkly,” into a traditional museum, the foundation wants to turn the space into a place for Bergman conferences and cinema workshops. For a look at the property, check the Christie’s Great Estates website.

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays, everyone. The staff of the Georgia Museum of Art will be out of the office for the Fourth of July holiday until Monday.

Image Rights and Digital Databases

Lynn Boland sent this along last week:

Just in case there were still any questions about the positive correlation between having more images of works of art from the collection on the website, and on-site museum attendance--not to mention the myriad of other benefits--this IMLS-funded study should put them to rest. From the press release: “The Internet is not replacing in-person visits to libraries and museums and may actually increase onsite use of libraries and museums. There is a positive relationship between Internet use and in-person visits to museums and public libraries.” The report is called Interconnections, IMLS National Study on the Use of Museums, Libraries and the Internet and you can reach it by clicking here (there's also a snazzy PowerPoint presentation you can download).

We've also been reading the April 2009 issue of MuseumVIEWS (an organization that focuses on small and mid-sized museums), which addresses the issue of image rights in its cover article (not yet posted online) by Christine Sundt, who writes:

In the longstanding and fruitful partnership between art museums and publishers, tighter controls and escalating costs during the last decade have brought about frustration, confusion, and headaches for both parties. The licensing of art images--and the attendant costs and restrictions--has become a burden, especially in today's economy, when both museums and publishers are facing severe financial constraints and shortfalls.

Sundt comes down strongly on the side of open access and Creative Commons licensing, as well as in favor of digitizing collections, which can promote the easy and inexpensive distribution of images. She points out:

. . . the effect of the scaled pricing has been to pressure publishers into reproducing works of art in small black-and-white format rather than in reasonably sized color prints, to print smaller editions (at higher retail prices), and to pare down the image programs of their art books. The result has been less attractive, more expensive art books and fewer of them--surely not the aim of the publisher, the author, or the museum.

Sometimes a museum's fee is inconsistent. When, for example, the institution generously waives or reduces fees for scholars or nonprofit presses, it encourages the publication of scholarly works for arts professionals. But, in maintaining regular fees for other non-scholarly projects, it discourages "gateway" books such as children's books, textbooks, and beautifully produced gift books, all of which are vital in bringing new audiences to art. . . . What could be the alternatives to the traditional criteria for scaling fees? To waive fees for all mission-driven uses (books, journal articles, and educational Web sites) while increasing fees for other uses (note cards, tote bags, coasters, aprons, advertising campaigns, and the like). Or, to consider other ways to generate revenue for the museum that do not place the burden on images and scholarship.

We're doing our best to move into the digital age, but the issues are complex, and there are always new wrinkles that occur.

Art Around Athens

Today (Thursday, July 2) is your last day to catch the exhibition of North Georgia Folk Festival posters drawn by Art Rosenbaum that's been on display at Ciné all too briefly. Installed as part of AthFest, the posters date from as far back as 1984 and depict musicians who have performed at the festival.



ATHICA also has a new exhibition up, Emerges III: Journeys, which consists of new work by three young local artists and one team of artists. Curators Mary C. Wilson and Erin McIntosh selected the artists from more than two dozen entries, and their work is more conceptual than in previous years. New this year is a satellite space in the Bottleworks complex at 337 Prince Avenue, where Robert August Peterson’s American Male, Age 32 (2009)--a multimedia installation using five video projectors and four speakers--can be experienced. ATHICA is open Thursdays from 6 to 9 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 6 p.m. and by appointment (although it's closed this Friday due to the July 4 holiday). Tonight at 7 at ATHICA and 8:30 at the Bottleworks is "Walk & Talk," in which you can meet the artists, the curators and Dr. Amy Ross, UGA Geography Professor, for a discussion of the ideas behind the exhibition.

Market Research

You may well have gotten this information in your inbox as well, if you subscribe to our GMOA listserv, in which case feel free to ignore it, but we know the blog doesn't overlap perfectly with those who want the emails.

As we work toward a bigger and better tomorrow for GMOA, we have been working on getting some feedback from our patrons on how best to reach you and what types of programs and exhibitions you would like to see from us in the future.

We have developed an online survey through Survey Monkey, which can be reached by clicking on this link. It is quick and very easy to take. Please take the time to fill it out, we would love your feedback.

At the end of the survey is a chance to win a free 1-year family membership to the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, the benefits of which can be seen here.

Call for Entries

Ron Cioffi, who used to teach our PR coordinator, Jenny Williams, sent along this call for entries for exhibition artists' section of Arts on the Creek, an arts festival held in Johns Creek, Ga., annually. Click on the image above to see it full size. Arts on the Creek also has an artists' market, but the exhibition stuff is juried, with a prize of $200 in each category. Jurors this year are Mark Karelson, director of Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, Ga.; Rob Matre, owner of Matre Gallery, Atlanta, Ga.; and Dr. Pam Sachant, coordinator of visual arts at North Georgia College and State University, Dahlonega, Ga. Arts on the Creek will take place September 5 and 6 (Labor Day weekend), with an opening reception the evening of September 4. If you want to submit your work, you have until August 17 at 5 p.m. For more information on submitting, click here.

Updates from Ronnie

We’re thrilled to start sharing with you “Updates from Ronnie” (Ronnie Green, Superintendent, Holder Construction). We are documenting GMOA’s expansion, and while it’s still early in the process, big changes are rapidly happening.

On our Flickr account you will find the collection "GMOA Expansion" with week-by-week folders for you to follow at your own leisure.

Yesterday, Ronnie briefly informed us about the progress of these first three weeks. If you look closely at Week 3’s pictures, you can see the stakes extending out from the building. These stakes outline where the new expansion, which will hold our permanent collection, will stand. You’ll be able to walk up the existing indoor stairs that will lead you into the beautiful, new expansion or the existing galleries, which will continue to show temporary exhibitions. Underneath the extension will be parking for docents and volunteers, as well as handicapped parking.

In Week 3’s pictures the bulldozer is scooping out what will be the sculpture garden. This area will serve as a serene spot to view sculpture from GMOA’s permanent collection, relax, eat lunch or just enjoy the museum’s presence.

Although we can dream of relaxing in our sculpture garden, for now it’s only bulldozers and hard hats – check back next week for more updates from Ronnie!

In the News

After a weekend full of fun, music and extreme heat, the Athens Banner-Herald has posted a gallery of AthFest Images. We came across one photo of GMOA’s table at KidsFest, and soon we’ll post our own slideshow of Family Day: Silly Sun Visors.

Not only were the visors fun to decorate, but they also kept the radiating sun out of the kids’ eyes -- keep checking back for the slideshow, and hopefully you can find someone you know modeling a custom-designed visor!

Summer Film Series, Part Two: Bergman

Tomorrow (Wednesday, July 1) we will show the second installment of our four-part summer film series, “Ingmar Bergman's Trilogy and The Seventh Seal: Questions of Faith and Spirituality in Film,” in room 151 (the large auditorium) of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at 7 p.m. "Winter Light" ("Nattvardsgästerna"), will be introduced by Dr. Janice Simon, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in Art.

In the second film in Bergman's trilogy, the minister of a small church is troubled in both faith and love, one problem perhaps exacerbated by the other. Tomas trusts neither the affections offered him by Marta, a local schoolteacher, nor the reliability of God. The winter landscape of the film reflects the frozen and bitter state of the protagonist's soul.

We had a great turnout at the last film with over 70 people in attendance. We hope you can make it out to this one as well. Check out the trailer here before tomorrow evening.

More from Alexis, GMOA's Young Dawg intern

I can’t believe that I only have 2 weeks and a day left here at the Georgia Museum of Art. Even though I don’t have long here, every day is still worth coming to my internship. The other day I helped out with the arts and crafts activity for the little kids for AthFest. It was very fun; I had to cut up different materials used to make silly sun visors. Then another intern and I made our own sun visors, which are going to be used as examples so the kids can get ideas how to make their own. Then yesterday my supervisors were gone for the rest of the day, and I was in the publications department by myself. It was so quiet, and I was just scanning books until 4:00pm. That was the first time that I was the only one here for 2 hours. It really made me feel like a real employee and more independent. Other than that today has been just like any other fun day here. I am very glad that I am doing my internship with the Georgia Museum of Art this summer; every day is worth getting out of bed to come here for four hours.

In the News

A particularly relevant question for GMOA: What role should the museum play in the rapidly changing world of arts journalism? At the Art Newspaper, an article by András Szántó on the current crisis in arts journalism explores how the field must reinvent itself during this period of upheaval in the newspaper business. For a long time, the task of informing the public about local art happenings has fallen to local papers. But with so many newspapers either folding or drastically reducing their coverage (one local example being the Atlanta Journal-Constitution), its becoming increasingly hard to find strong coverage of the arts. In his article, Szántó lays out three possible solutions to the problem: the job of reporting on the arts will either fall to individual bloggers, to non-profit news sources like NPR or to cultural institutions.

Luckily, Athens still has many traditional sources of arts coverage (the Banner-Herald, the Flagpole, Blur magazine, etc.). Even so, with our blog GMOA provides another source for the promotion of local arts, much in the way that Szántó envisions the role of cultural institutions. GMOA, like museums across the country, is taking “the lead in creating an alternative media infrastructure” with new media sources like our blog and our virtual museum in Second Life. While it may be a difficult time for arts journalism, the GMOA blog certainly is working to help the arts thrive in Athens and throughout the state with its coverage of events both local and global.

Digging Daura pt. 1

This is the first in an ongoing series of blog posts that I dreamt up yesterday afternoon as I was digging through the Pierre Daura archives once again in preparation for my visits to museums in Spain and France with significant collections of Daura’s art. I was thinking about all of the great finds I hope to make and share, and it occurred to me that I should be sharing some of the exciting things I come across in our archives.

My choice for this first post was easy, as this drawing has been omnipresent in my mind since before I even got this job: Daura’s preliminary designs for the Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square) logo, 1929, pen and ink on paper, approximately 28 x 21 cm (sorry for the poor image quality; for this to work, I'm having to lower my standards a bit, at least for now).

This is only half of the picture. Daura also created a second page of logo designs on which appears the version adopted by the group. The second page is currently lost, a fact that will vex me until it’s found—I won’t say “or until I die” because as naïve as it may be, I’m not going to give up on finding it. It may be bad form of me, as a museum professional, to “rat out” another institution, but I’m an historian first and foremost, so here’s the story:

In 1974, Daniel Robbins, then director of Harvard’s Fogg Museum, was writing a book on Joaquín Torres-García. Robbins wrote to Daura asking for information on the founding of the Cercle et Carré group in 1929/30, and Daura obligingly answered his questions and his request to see Daura’s drawing of the logo. Daura gave him the drawing, asking that Robbins send him a photograph of it. Unfortunately, both Robbins and Daura passed away shortly thereafter, and the photograph was never sent. Worse still, the drawing--and Daura’s answers to Robbin’s questions--have never been seen again.

The Fogg has been helpful in ascertaining that these items are not in their possession, but attempts in the 1990s to track down these documents elsewhere were unsuccessful. The hunt will continue. Possible moral of the story: Don’t take your work home with you if your work involves irreplaceable documents.

Letter from AAM

We got the following update from American Association of Museums (AAM) president Ford Bell late last week:

United We Serve

AAM is staunchly behind “United We Serve,” the White House initiative to be launched June 22 [future tense reflecting our lateness, not Bell's] and slated to run through September 11th, urging Americans to volunteer their time, energy and ingenuity to solve problems in their communities. Museums of all types and sizes and in every state are urged to upload their volunteer opportunities at www.serve.gov, the Web clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities across the nation.

Museums have long been beacons for Americans’ spirit of generosity and engagement. The latest Museum Financial Information survey (available from the AAM Bookstore in July), revealed the following startling nuggets:
--95% of responding museums said they rely on volunteers;
--The median number of volunteers at each museum is 65, or six for each full-time staffer;
--We estimate that volunteers contribute at least one million hours a week to U.S. museums.
--And we estimate that those one million hours a week are equivalent to $1 billion a year. Let’s marshal this spirit in support of the president’s “United We Serve” initiative.

The Essentials

We encourage your staff to sign up for our latest Webinar series, Museum Essentials, beginning July 1. Covering the basic tenets of museum operations, the series content was inspired by feedback we received from members. These Webinars are a productive staff activity - all for one $25 admission fee. Details are on the AAM site at www.aam-us.org.

Ford W. Bell
President, AAM

We certainly receive amazing amounts of time and input from our volunteers, from library volunteers to interns (both high school and college), docents, Friends and many, many more, and we know what they can do for us. We encourage you, even if you're not in the Athens area or interested in art (although we'd be sad about the latter) to check out www.serve.gov and either volunteer your time or provide an opportunity for someone else to.

The Webinar series from AAM is equally useful, a valuable resource for learning about collections care, making visitor experiences as good as possible, strategic planning and much more. Here's how AAM describes the current series:

Museum Essentials is based on the standards and practices of the Museum Assessment Program (MAP) which is designed to ensure the highest museum performance in governance, administration, responsibility and accountability to both museum collections and museum audiences. Administered by AAM in conjunction with the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), MAP has for 25 years empowered museums to excel in all aspects of operations, collections management, public programs and strategic planning. Participants in the Museum Essentials series will benefit from the experiences of MAP leaders and practitioners.

Summer Film Series: Bergman

Finally, the museum's four-part summer film series is beginning, with the first film, "Through a Glass Darkly" ("Såsom i en spegel"), being shown tomorrow (Wednesday, June 24) at 7 p.m. in room 151 (the large auditorium) of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The series is titled "Ingmar Bergman's Trilogy and The Seventh Seal: Questions of Faith and Spirituality in Film," and each film will be introduced by Janice Simon, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in Art, Lamar Dodd School of Art, who is teaching ARHI 6520: Spirituality in Modern Art this semester, a course that addresses many of the same issues as these films.

The title of "Through a Glass Darkly" derives from 1 Corinthians 13 and describes the limited capacity of the living to understand God ("For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known"). The film covers 24 hours in the life of a motherless family after their daughter, Karin, is released from a mental hospital. Are Karin's communications with God manifestations of her insanity? The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1962 and was highly acclaimed. Here's the trailer:



Bergman has become a shorthand for gloominess and incomprehensibility, but if you've never seen one of his films, you really should give him a shot. He's an especially appropriate director for an art museum to feature, considering the strongly composed images he uses, creating beautiful and complex scenes in black and white (and color, in his later work). Dr. Simon's introductory words, too, should help neophytes think about some themes as they watch. Finally, spending some time in a cool, dark auditorium, for free, should provide a nice contrast to the scorching, humid weather we've been having lately in Athens. We hope to see you tomorrow and at all our summer films over the next few weeks. The museum's visitor lot is now closed for construction, so park in E11 or anywhere else you can find a spot around the East Campus area, which is full of earth movers and bulldozers at the moment.

Young Dawgs: Alexis Richardson

Alexis enjoyed her first blog post, and her supervisor in the Young Dawgs program was impressed, so she decided she wanted to keep writing about what she's learning here. You can expect to hear from her more often. Here's what she wrote today:

For the past three and a half weeks at GMOA, my internship here has been better then I thought. At first I was very nervous on the first day that I would mess up on scanning books. But I shocked myself when my prints turned out to be good. In the Publications department I enjoy my supervisors and the other interns that I work with. I am learning a lot of work skills that will help me in the workforce; for instance in the Publications department what shocked me was that I wasn’t doing office work, like answering the phones or getting mail. I am really doing things that you don’t normally do in an office. That’s why I really enjoy coming to GMOA every day because there is never nothing for me to do. I am always busy till it’s time for me to go home. This experience has showed me to be more responsible and to be more accreted. Day after day I am learning more things to get me ready for the real world on my own as a young adult.

Guggenheim Forums Launch Today

Both Art Daily and The Moment (a New York Times blog we're very fond of) have articles about the Guggenheim Museum's launch of a series of online forums that will allow for live chats with experts and submission of visitor comments on a number of topics. The inaugural series, which begins today, focuses on the museum's celebration of Frank Lloyd Wright's work, Between the Over- and Underdesigned, on the 50th anniversary of its iconic building in New York. Curator Aric Chen is already asking some great questions:

Taking us into the present, when we in much of the world are coming down (or at least taking a pause) from one of the biggest design binges in memory—from our love affair with megaprojects, iconic architecture, and designer, well, everything—has there been a disconnect between intention and effect? Has design, which has been championed in a way perhaps not seen since Wright’s era as a vehicle for social and environmental good, a wellspring of innovation, a driver of economies, a mover of product, a shaper of cities and, yes, a means of expression, become so omnipresent as to verge on oppressive? Are we overdesigning our homes, our cities, ourselves? Or are we not designing them enough? Are we simply misguided in how we design—or are we doing a fine enough job as it is?

This kind of connectedness is, even more than searching for things, what the Internet is for.

In the News

Over the weekend, in the Athens across the Atlantic, a new museum opened at the foot of the Parthenon. The New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece was inaugurated Saturday. This new museum replaces an older, much smaller Acropolis museum with a huge and stunning structure designed by the New York architect Bernard Tschumi.


The museum intends to protect, preserve and display the great art of classical Greek civilization, and its completion comes at a pivotal time for many of these pieces of art. After enduring a century of political instability and urbanization (many of these sculptures suffered damage from acid rain and other pollutants), this art now will have a safe, permanent home within the walls of the museum. However, one piece that is missing from the museum is generating quite an international controversy, explored in a wonderful article by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair.


In the early 19th century, the British removed almost half of the frieze that decorates the Parthenon. Currently ensconced in the British Museum, this piece has long been a contentious issue between Britain and Greece. The Greeks claim that the work should be restored to its full form (at this time, there is a cast replica of the missing portion displayed in the New Acropolis Museum), to which the British counter that doing so would set a disastrous precedent in the art world, as museums the world over contain pieces obtained by not wholly legitimate means. The Greek government is hopeful that the opening of the museum will bring renewed interest to the controversy and place more pressure on the British government to allow the repatriation of the segments.

Art on Wheels: The Photos Keep Coming

Here's yet another set of photos from this event, including a lot more of the auction items.