A composer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, author, and visual artist, Mark Mothersbaugh is best known as co-founder, lead singer, and keyboardist of the popular band DEVO. He has also written musical scores for video games, television series (including Rugrats,Beakman's World, Santo Bugito, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and Regular Show), and films (including Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou).
Mothersbaugh's visual art practice preceded his musical career, and he continues to add to a prolific body of work that includes prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures, rugs, musical instruments, videos, and performances. From his popular music to his personal artwork, Mothersbaugh's unique artistic view constantly foregrounds the relationship between technology and individuality. His life and work are the subject of a major book and traveling museum retrospective, Myopia, tracing his path from his DEVO days to the present. Mothersbaugh will be in conversation with Adam Lerner, director and chief animator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, author of the book Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia and curator of the exhibition.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo spent nearly his entire career photographing his native Mexico. His style drew upon numerous international influences including, a.m.ong others, Modernism and Surrealism. Although not strictly Surrealist, many of Álvarez Bravo’s works manifest a similarly fantastical mood. One of the artist’s most arresting qualities is his ability to imbue scenes of everyday life with an otherworldly, metaphysical power. The photographs in the exhibition, from UMMA’s collections, show the artist using motifs drawn from Mexican religious and indigenous works as well as plant forms, in a Modernist approach to image making. UMMA docents will discuss these motifs and the artist’s use of light as a metaphor and revealer of life, animating even the emptiest and most silent of Álvarez Bravo’s scenes. 

Mark Kirschenmann’s Big Fun plays the electric music of Miles Davis, including material from In a Silent Way, Big Fun, On the Corner, Get Up With It, and Tutu.
This concert is a part of the Warming Up The Edge series leading up to Kerrytown Concert House's Edgefest festival of creative music in celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary.
For more information, please contact Kerrytown Concert House.

China Miéville lives and works in London. He is a three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award (Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, and The City & the City) and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice (Perdido Street Station and The Scar). The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published in 2009 to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell (The Times) and Phillip K. Dick (The Guardian). The City & The City recently won the British Science Fiction Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and tied with Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl for the 2010 Hugo Award. It was also shortlisted for the Nebula Award.
Reception at 5:30 p.m. Book signing to follow the reading.

China Miéville lives and works in London. He is a three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award (Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, and The City & the City) and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice (Perdido Street Station and The Scar). The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published in 2009 to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell (The Times) and Phillip K. Dick (The Guardian). The City & The City recently won the British Science Fiction Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and tied with Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl for the 2010 Hugo Award. It was also shortlisted for the Nebula Award.

In this interactive, 90-minute program, University of Michigan Museum of Art docents and staff will demonstrate their use of art, music, storytelling and touch to create successful and rewarding experiences for visitors with memory loss, their families, and care-partners. The evening will also include tips and ideas from UMMA and Silver Club for using these modes to connect with loved ones at home or anywhere.

The University of Michigan Museum of Art’s Meet Me Program has served people with memory loss and their families and care partners for the last six years in partnership with Silver Club.

This program is free and light refreshments will be served.

Silver Club will also provide a respite of alternative activities and refreshments for Silver Club members, or guests with memory loss during the program.

Registration
Please register by emailing umma-program-registration@umich.edu so that we can accommodate all of your party, including people with memory loss who will join the Silver Club activity session.

Location

The Silver Club, 2401 Plymouth Road, Suite C Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105

Questions?
For more information about this program, please call Mary LaVenture at 734-647-0522 or The Silver Club Programs at 734-998-9349.  

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Sam Jensen (Introduced by Yasin Abdul-Muqit) & A.S. Gorsuch (Introduced by Sierra Brown).
Samuel Jensen is a writer from Texas. His fiction has appeared in The Masters Review and has been honored in a handful of contests, including the Hopwood Awards.
A.S. Gorsuch was born in Akron, Ohio, grew up outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has attended both Michigan State University and University of Michigan. On all counts, she is undecided.

Children ages four to seven are invited to hear a story in the galleries. Stories will be followed by a short activity responding to the art on display. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

On Sunday, October 9, UMMA will open from 10 a.m.–12 p.m. exclusively for a FREE ASD friendly program allowing families to enjoy art in a fun and welcoming atmosphere. Families will have access to special hands-on activities in the galleries that will help encourage exploration and discovery. Sketching and or writing materials will be available for children who prefer to work independently. The Museum will also offer sunglasses, noise reducing earmuffs, and a quiet area with tactile toys for families who need to step away from the activities for a bit. This event is recommended for ages 5-18, however all are welcome to participate. Registration is required and opens one month before the event date. Visit myturn.eventbrite.com to register! For more information, please go to www.myturncommunity.org or call 734-647-0522.   "My Turn" programs are coordinated by the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum and take place on second Sundays throughout the year.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Join UMMA docents in an exploration of cutting edge concepts in architectural practice. Before joining the faculty of the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, Mira Henry spent several years as a project architect, immersed in everyday details of the industry. But as a progressive architectural thinker, her inspiration has been to “unsee” the very forms and representations that constitute an architect's basic language discovering, for example, in static architectural details an unsettling range of figurative expression. Detroit-based architect, Catie Newell’s work is focused on the tactile, sensory qualities of the materials we use to build things: their texture, density, or malleability. The most important element in her formal vocabulary is light, as a “material” and as a condition. Light constructs architecture as a situational experience rather than a fixed space. Through urban interventions, installations, and photographs, she investigates how light and its absence creates alternate environments. Mira Henry: The View Inside and Catie Newell: Overnight promise to challenge your thoughts about the built environment.  

C. Dale Young practices medicine full-time and teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. He is the author of The Day Underneath the Day (TriQuarterlyBooks, 2001), The Second Person (Four Way Books, 2007), Torn (Four Way Books, 2011) and The Halo (Four Way Books, 2016). He is a previous winner of the Grolier Prize, both the Stanley P. Young Fellowship, and Amanda Davis Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He lives in San Francisco with the biologist and composer, Jacob Bertrand, his spouse.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Meet Me at UMMA invites people with mild memory loss to enjoy a guided gallery experience along with family members or care partners. This program is designed for people who live at home and their companions.

If you or someone you care about is experiencing mild memory loss, research has shown that the visual and expressive arts can be good for your mind. In addition, great enjoyment is to be found in seeking out the sights, sounds, textures, and good feelings that come with looking at, learning, and sharing feelings about paintings, music, and other creative arts.

UMMA's trained docents will accompany small groups for a guided tour and provide the opportunity for everyone to experience different kinds of art and share their responses.

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences. While you're here, browse the UMMA Store for a wide variety of speciality items. Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free. On October 21 we welcome Lauren Friedman, illustrator, artist, and stylist. She is the author of "50 Ways to Wear a Scarf" and "50 Ways to Wear Denim". The Ann Arbor native will be giving a demonstration on the best ways to wear a scarf in the fall weather. UMMA Fridays After 5 are generously supported by Comerica Bank and the State Street District. The media sponsor for Fridays After 5 is Michigan Radio. Also, be sure to save the date for our upcoming Fridays After 5: November 11 December 9 February 17, 2017 April 7, 2017 May 12, 2017 June 9, 2017 July - TBD

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Clarisse Baleja Saïdi (Introduced by Kristen Roupenian) & Courtney Faye Taylor (Introduced by Young Eun Yook)
Clarisse Baleja Saïdi is from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire and writes of home(s) and faithfulness, of the personal and the political.
Courtney Faye Taylor was a finalist in the 2015 Agnes Scott College Writers’ Festival Contest and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work appears in Witness. She lives in North Carolina.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo spent nearly his entire career photographing his native Mexico. His style drew upon numerous international influences including, a.m.ong others, Modernism and Surrealism. Although not strictly Surrealist, many of Álvarez Bravo’s works manifest a similarly fantastical mood. One of the artist’s most arresting qualities is his ability to imbue scenes of everyday life with an otherworldly, metaphysical power. The photographs in the exhibition, from UMMA’s collections, show the artist using motifs drawn from Mexican religious and indigenous works as well as plant forms, in a Modernist approach to image making. UMMA docents will discuss these motifs and the artist’s use of light as a metaphor and revealer of life, animating even the emptiest and most silent of Álvarez Bravo’s scenes. 

Detroit-based architect and artist, Catie Newell, and newly arrived UMMA Assistant Curator of Photography, Jennifer Friess, will discuss the themes of the exhibition, including Newell’s impulse to create new architectural space out of the unseen and her interest in the sensory qualities (light, darkness, texture, density, malleability) of our built environments.
 
Catie Newell, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, is a recent recipient of the Rome Prize in architecture. Her Overnight exhibition will run at UMMA in the Irving Stenn, Jr., Family Gallery from June 11 to November 6.
 
Jennifer Friess is UMMA’s Assistant Curator of Photography. She is a PhD candidate in History of Art at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. She has broad knowledge of the history of photography and art-making practices. She previously worked at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland and most recently at the Spencer Museum at the University of Kansas. 

In conjunction with UMMA's exhibition Catie Newell: Overnight​, Professor Jerry Blackstone and the U-M Chamber Choir return to UMMA to present music of and inspired by night, including excerpts from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s stunning All-Night Vigil. The exhibition will be open for browsing during the intermission.  

Never a Bystander tells the story of Holocaust survivor Irene Butter’s extraordinary work with school children. Ms. Butter has spent nearly 30 years inspiring countless children to find the courage to take compassionate action and transcend obstacles. The film depicts Ms. Butter’s poignant connection to Anne Frank, her own childhood experiences in two concentration camps, and her choice to adopt an empowered view of her history, leading to a life of openheartedness, joy, and activism.
The screening will be followed by a talk back with film director, Evelyn Neuhaus, and Irene Butter.
Irene Butter was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up Jewish in Nazi-occupied Europe. A survivor of two concentration camps, she came to the U.S. in 1945. After graduating from Queens College in New York, she earned a PhD in economics from Duke University and taught at the University of Michigan for over 35 years. Since 1987, she has been visiting schools to teach students about the Holocaust and the lessons she learned during those traumatic years. She co-founded the Wallenberg lecture series honoring global change-makers and the Arab-Jewish women’s dialog group, Zeitouna. Butter resides with her husband in Ann Arbor.
Evelyn Neuhaus is a first-time filmmaker. She knew Irene Butter, the subject of Never a Bystander, for decades before learning that Butter was a Holocaust survivor and hearing her story. In 2007, Neuhaus was an assistant producer for Refusing to Be Enemies: The Zeitouna Story, about an Arab-Jewish women’s dialogue group Butter co-founded. She holds an MPH and an MBA from the University of Michigan and resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is currently exploring topics for her next film.
For more information about Never a Bystander and this extraordinary story of compassion, forgiveness, and empowered action, visit www.neverabystander.com

Create your own art project inspired by the nighttime photographs in Catie Newell: Overnight. UMMA docents will lead families on an exploration of the exhibition followed by a hands-on workshop led by local artist Adrian Deva. Designed for families with children ages six and up to experience art together. Parents must accompany children.

Create your own art project inspired by the nighttime photographs in Catie Newell: Overnight. UMMA docents will lead families on an exploration of the exhibition followed by a hands-on workshop led by local artist Adrian Deva. Designed for families with children ages six and up to experience art together. Parents must accompany children.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

 Exhibition co-curators Natsu Oyobe and Mariko Okada will lead an in-depth exploration of Kabuki prints in conjunction with the UMMA exhibition Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. This workshop is designed for a general audience. Participants will become familiar with Kabuki prints and theater, as well as the popular culture and society of the late Edo period.  
Kabuki prints are filled with information on the popular culture and human experience of the late Edo Period. Kabuki attracted enormous attention and developed a huge following in the late Edo Period—a phenomenon comparable to contemporary movie and television stars. The prints’ enormous popularity contributed to advances in print technology, facilitating an unprecedented speed of production and a sophisticated system of distribution and circulation. 
 
This workshop is for generalists. Another workshop requiring a reading fluency of Japanese and a basic knowledge of Kabuki theater will be offered on Friday, November 4, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Registration is required for both workshops. Email umma-program-registration@umich.edu to secure your spot.
  

The exhibition Traces focuses on one artwork from UMMA’s African holdings: a Chokwe mask that was collected in 1905 near the Angolan city of Dundo by the German explorer Leo Frobenius. Its presence at UMMA today—almost 7,500 miles away from the context in which it was originally created, used, and valued—is the result of a long and tumultuous journey, spanning a hundred years, three continents, and numerous people whose lives are forever connected to the artifact that passed through their hands. Drawing on the Museum’s African collection and national loans, Traces tells the stories of some of these individuals as it reconstructs the “biography” of the mask. Explore some of the historical complexity of this mask with UMMA docents. 

Donovan Hohn is the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, A National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and a Knight-Wallace Fellowship. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Outside, among other publications. His book, Moby-Duck, was a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Prize for Excellence in Journalism, and runner-up for both the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. A former features editor of GQ and contributing editor of Harper’s, Hohn now teaches creative writing at Wayne State University and lives with his family in Ann Arbor, where he is working on his second book.
 
Rachel Richardson is the author of two books of poetry, Copperhead (2011) and Hundred-Year Wave (2016), both selections in the Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, New England Review, Kenyon Review Online, the Poetry Foundation website, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Richardson is a contributing editor at Memorious and directs poetry programming for the Bay Area Book Festival. She lives with the writer David Roderick and their two children in Berkeley, California.

The Florence Flood happened 50 years ago on November 3 and 4, 1966. Although communication to the outside world was limited, Florentine film director Franco Zeffirelli, who was editing his Taming of the Shrew in Rome, heard about it and rushed to his beloved city to film the days immediately after the flood. His documentary is titled Per Firenze (For Florence), and the English version is Florence: Days of Destruction; both are narrated by Richard Burton. The English version will be shown at this event. A year after the flood, Roger Hill, instructor of film-making at the Royal College of Art, London, documented the conservation and restoration efforts at the National Library, Florence, where over a million books were damaged during the flood. Shown in this film are scenes of the conservation of mud-covered, battered books as well as demonstrations of a limp-vellum and a full-leather binding, the techniques and materials used to recover thousands of books missing their bindings. Hill's film is titled: The Restoration of Books, Florence, 1968. 

Exhibition co-curators Natsu Oyobe and Mariko Okada will lead an in-depth exploration of Kabuki prints in conjunction with the UMMA exhibition Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. This workshop is designed for a general audience. Participants will become familiar with Kabuki prints and theater, as well as the popular culture and society of the late Edo period.  
Kabuki prints are filled with information on the popular culture and human experience of the late Edo Period. Kabuki attracted enormous attention and developed a huge following in the late Edo Period—a phenomenon comparable to contemporary movie and television stars. The prints’ enormous popularity contributed to advances in print technology, facilitating an unprecedented speed of production and a sophisticated system of distribution and circulation. 
 
This workshop requires a reading fluency of Japanese and a basic knowledge of Kabuki theater and the cultural history of the late Edo period.
  

Comparable to the celebrity culture surrounding movie and television stars today, Kabuki attracted enormous attention in nineteenth century Japan. Exhibition co-curators Natsu Oyobe and Mariko Okada will explore the methods used by print artists to create these spectacular and much-loved Kabuki actor prints, as well as the cultural context of their production. 

Mariko Okada is Associate Professor at Faculty of Humanities, J. F. Oberlin University, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Okada received her Ph.D. from Waseda University in Tokyo in 2011. Her book The Birth of Kyōmai: Inoue-ryu Dance in Nineteenth-Century Kyoto, Japan was released in 2013 and received several awards. Her current research interest is fan culture of Kabuki and diversities of Kabuki culture. Dr. Okada is the co-curator for Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Natsu Oyobe is UMMA's Curator for Asian Art and co-curator for Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Kabuki actors were superstars in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan. They were admired by passionate fans with an insatiable appetite for images of them, fed by a publishing industry that mass-produced colorful woodblock prints of actors on stage which could act as substitutes for a theater experience. Join a tour with UMMA docents of Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art and discover these dramatic prints by major artists that include off- or backstage portrayals, fantasy scenes of actors in unlikely groupings, and even death portraits of especially famous actors. 

During World War II, just before the events of August 23, 1944, a German soldier is found murdered in a Romanian village. The dead soldier's superior threatens the villagers to hand over the perpetrator by morning or face reprisals.
 
This film screening is part of the American Romanian Festival. Additional film screenings and programs at UMMA include:
 The Miracle of Tekir (Miracolul din Tekir, 2015, Ruxandra Zenide, Drama, English Subtitles, 90 min) on November 6 at 5:30 p.m.
Film Screening and Talk Back with Director Tudor Giurgiu on November 13 at 3:30 p.m.
 Why me? (De ce eu?, 2015; Tudor Giurgiu, Drama, English Subtitles, 125 min) on November 13 at 5:30 p.m.
  
The Festival will also present concerts and educational activities with composer Cornel Ţăranu. For more information about The American Romanian Festival and these events, please visit americanromanianfestival.org.

The film tells, like a fable, the struggle of a young woman to protect her unborn child which she  believes is an immaculate conception. View trailer here.
This film screening is part of the American Romanian Festival. Additional film screenings and programs at UMMA include:
Then I Sentenced Them All to Death (Moartea lui Ipu, 1972; Sergiu Nicolaescu, Drama, English Subtitles, 96 min) on November 6 at 3:30 p.m.
Film Screening and Talk Back with Director Tudor Giurgiu on November 13 at 3:30 p.m.
Why me? (De ce eu?, 2015; Tudor Giurgiu, Drama, English Subtitles, 125 min) on November 13 at 5:30 p.m.
The Festival will also present concerts and educational activities with composer Cornel Ţăranu. For more information about The American Romanian Festival and these events, please visit americanromanianfestival.org.

Celeste Ng is the author of the novel Everything I Never Told You, which was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Everything I Never Told You was also the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the ALA’s Alex Award, and the Medici Book Club Prize. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize. 

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences. While you're here, browse the UMMA Store for a wide variety of specialty items. Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
From 6-7:30 p.m. artist Khaled al-Saa'i will lead a hands-on demonstration that introduces traditional and modern Arabic calligraphy and discuss the ways in which he uses calligraphic forms in his own work. Works in UMMA’s collection by Mr. al-Saa’i will be on view on the Lower Level. Registration is required - please email: umma-program-registration@umich.edu
UMMA Fridays After 5 are generously supported by Comerica Bank and the State Street District. The media sponsor for Fridays After 5 is Michigan Radio.
Also, be sure to save the date for our upcoming Fridays After 5:

December 9

February 17, 2017

April 7, 2017

May 12, 2017

June 9, 2017

July - TBD

Artist Khaled al-Saa'i will make a special appearance at UMMA's November Fridays After 5 event. The Syrian born artist will discuss the ways in which he uses calligraphic forms is his own work and lead a hands-on demonstration that introduces traditional and modern day Arabic calligraphy.
 
Mr. al-Saa'i will introduce variations of traditional Arabic calligraphic scripts, the function and quality of each one, and the traditional tools used to create them. He will also introduce Sunbuli script, the late Ottoman cursive known for its compact combinations, by demonstrating individual letters and words. Audience members will have the chance to try their hand at creating this unique style of script.
 
Mr. al-Saa'i will also explore the expressive possibilities of calligraphic lettering, moving beyond the rules of writing and language, and highlighting his own historic and recent work. 
Work in UMMA’s collection by Mr. al-Saa’i will be on view on the Lower Level for browsing before and after the program until 8:00 p.m. 

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Ashley Whitaker (Introduced by Austin Blaze) & Molly Dickinson (Introduced by Marlin Jenkins)
Critically acclaimed novelist (and one of Salon.com's sexiest men alive) Justin Torres called Ashley Whitaker a "Real Texan Charmer." The editors of Glimmer Train typed her name on their website one time. She lives alone with her cat, Catwoman.
Molly Dickinson is a poet hailing from the West Coast. Her work can be found in Jerk Poet, on Tin House’s The Open Bar, and on The Nervous Breakdown. Molly graduated from Lewis & Clark College in 2012, where she was the recipient of the American Academy of Poets Prize.

At this year's biennial U-M History of Art Graduate Student Symposium, eight graduate students in Art History and related fields from the University of Michigan and other institutions will present papers that examine the visual implications of magnificence and display from a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches. These graduate student presentations vary widely in geographic location and historical time period. Dr. Sally Cornelison, Professor of Italian Renaissance art at Syracuse University, will deliver the keynote talk.
For more information, please contact the History of Art Department.

Create your own project inspired by the ceramics in UMMA's collection. UMMA docents will lead a tour of the galleries to look at different examples of the possibilities for making objects out of clay followed by a hands-on workshop led by local artist Nora Venturelli. Designed for families with children ages six and up to experience art together. Parents must accompany children.

Children ages four to seven are invited to hear a story in the galleries. Stories will be followed by a short activity responding to the art on display. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. The story on November 12 will focus on ceramics in UMMA’s collection. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.
 

Create your own project inspired by the ceramics in UMMA's collection. UMMA docents will lead a tour of the galleries to look at different examples of the possibilities for making objects out of clay followed by a hands-on workshop led by local artist Nora Venturelli. Designed for families with children ages six and up to experience art together. Parents must accompany children.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Pictorialism was the first truly international photography movement, and its practitioners, among them Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Gertrude Käsebier, sought to position photography as a legitimate aesthetic art form. They favored soft-focus images that drew upon the conventions of important artists and movements of the previous century. Their poetic compositions drawn from contemporary life, combined with the use of expensive and labor-intensive printing materials established these photographs as complex and nuanced works of high artistic quality. Join a tour with an UMMA docent and explore this rich moment in the history of photography.  

Spanning the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran collection of forty-seven works on paper speaks to a tumultuous period in European history, which saw the outbreak of the two World Wars and increased industrialization.  On paper, these prints, watercolors, and drawings by artists such as Piranesi, Kirchner, Grosz, Schiele, and Klimt depict the continent’s people and places with a focus on the physical and psychological human imprint.  However, these works also encourage a deeper viewing experience that engages with the expressive capacities of line and its ability to articulate the seen, as well as the unseen, such as larger socio-political and artistic contexts.  This talk with exhibition curator Lehti Keelman, UMMA’s Assistant Curator of Western Art, will explore this fascinating and wide-ranging collection, introducing the thematic strands of the exhibition and the range of artistic interpretation.

Why me? (De ce eu?, 2015; Tudor Giurgiu, Drama, English Subtitles, 125 min) is a film about Cristian, a young idealistic prosecutor whose career is on the rise, who tries to crack a case against a senior colleague accused of corruption. The dilemma of choosing between his career and the truth weighs heavily on his shoulders. Looking further to solve the case, he enters a danger zone paved with unexpected and painful revelations.  View trailer here.
The screening will be followed by a talk back with the film's director Tudor Giurgiu. 
Born in 1972 in Romania, Tudor Giurgiu has worked in cinema for over 20 years as a producer, director, and writer, and has over 50 credits, including documentaries, shorts, music videos, and feature films, to his name. He is the owner of Librafilm, an independent production company, as well as the founder and festival director of Romania’s most prestigious film festival, the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF).
 
This program is part of the American Romanian Festival. Additional film screenings at UMMA include:
 Then I Sentenced Them All to Death (Moartea lui Ipu, 1972; Sergiu Nicolaescu, Drama, English Subtitles, 96 min) on November 6 at 3:30 p.m.
 The Miracle of Tekir (Miracolul din Tekir, 2015, Ruxandra Zenide, Drama, English Subtitles, 90 min) on November 6 at 5:30 p.m.
 
The Festival will also present concerts and educational activities with composer Cornel Ţăranu. For more information about The American Romanian Festival and these events, please visit americanromanianfestival.org.

Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. His seventh novel, Brooklyn, was recently adapted into a major motion picture, and his most recent novel, Nora Webster, received the Hawthornden Prize in 2015. Tóibín has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize on three different occasions, and been awarded the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year, the Lamda Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and the Irish PEN Award, among many others. A celebrated essayist as well, Tóibín’s latest nonfiction book, On Elizabeth Bishop, offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of the American poet, who was one of his most important literary influences.

Students from the Department of Dance, under the mentorship of Dance faculty members Sandra Torijano and Peter Sparling, will present dances in response to the works of The Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection. Europe on Paper, featuring drawings, paintings and watercolors of Austrian and German expressionist artists, will inspire performances by U-M Dance students that interpret the emotion, line and color of works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Ernst Kirchner and Oskar Kokoschka.

In this talk, Professor of Architecture Fernando Lara, University of Texas-Austin, will explore the similarities, influences, and cultural context of modern architecture in Latin America. Joined by Assistant Professor Ana Maria Leon, U-M History of Art, Professor Lara will discuss the importance of Latin American architecture and the interesting hybridization with European traditions in contemporary practice. In the second half of the 20th century, modern architectures in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil have been extremely influential throughout the world, yet the Eurocentric history of modern architecture in the Americas has not fully explored those influences, often relegating them to a secondary status. 
 

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

The works in Europe on Paper: The Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection capture artistic compulsions and creative responses to the physical and spiritual world, from tangled, emotionally embroiled nudes to meticulous landscapes and architectural vistas. This exemplary gift from late U-M professor emeritus Ernst Pulgram and his wife, associate professor emerita and chief editor of the Middle English Compendium, Frances McSparran, offers a glimpse into the visually stunning and thought-provoking history of European graphic art. Join UMMA docents as they discuss the myriad artists in this exhibition including Austrian and German expressionists as well as the inventive Italian Giovanni Battista Piranesi. 

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

The exhibition Traces focuses on one artwork from UMMA’s African holdings: a Chokwe mask that was collected in 1905 near the Angolan city of Dundo by the German explorer Leo Frobenius. Its presence at UMMA today—almost 7,500 miles away from the context in which it was originally created, used, and valued—is the result of a long and tumultuous journey, spanning a hundred years, three continents, and numerous people whose lives are forever connected to the artifact that passed through their hands. UMMA docents will elaborate on some of the stories of these individuals and, with pieces from the UMMA collection and national loans, reconstruct the “biography” of the mask. 

Eileen Myles is an award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has described Myles as “one of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature.” In 2012, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Afterglow (a memoir), which gives both a real and fantastic account of a dog’s life.
 
Lisa Kron is an actress and playwright, best known for writing the lyrics and book to the musical Fun Home, for which she won both the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Born in Ann Arbor, Kron teaches playwriting part-time at Yale University and New York University. 

Children ages four to seven are invited to hear a story in the galleries. Stories will be followed by a short activity responding to the art on display. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. The story on December 3rd will focus on Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Kabuki actors were superstars in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan. They were admired by passionate fans with an insatiable appetite for images of them, fed by a publishing industry that mass-produced colorful woodblock prints of actors on stage which could act as substitutes for a theater experience. Join a tour with UMMA docents of Japanese Prints of Kabuki Theater from the Collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art and discover these dramatic prints by major artists that include off- or backstage portrayals, fantasy scenes of actors in unlikely groupings, and even death portraits of especially famous actors. 

Laura De Becker, the Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African Art, will bring to life the biography of a Chokwe mask and trace its journey from its point of origin in northern Angola, to the art markets of Germany and Belgium, and to its current home in Ann Arbor.

Laura Kasischke is the Allan Seager Collegiate Professor of English Language and Literature and a member of the Helen Zell Writers’s Program MFA faculty at the University of Michigan. She has published eight collections of poetry and eight novels. Her novels include Suspicious River (1996), White Bird in a Blizzard (1999), and The Life Before Her Eyes (2002). They have been translated widely, and adapted for film. Kasischke has been the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, among many other honors. In this conversation, moderated by fellow HZWP faculty member Douglas Trevor, she will be discussing aspects of process and craft.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Bryce Hayes Pope (Introduced by Sam Jensen) & Sierra Brown (Introduced by Robert Heald).
Bryce Hayes Pope is a writer from New York. This past summer, she was a Donor Relations intern at PEN America and a volunteer at MoMA. She once showed Donna Tartt where the bathroom was. She enjoys reading (duh), yoga, Seinfeld, and not cooking.
Sierra Brown is a person hailing from Florida who walks quickly and drinks too much coffee. When not writing poetry, Sierra plays with Madam the cat and hopes for a world without capitalism. You will find Sierra's poems in Blue Mesa Review and Salamander.

UMMA docents will guide visitors through the galleries on tours as diverse as their interests and areas of expertise. Each docent plans a theme and includes a variety of styles and media to illuminate his or her ideas. Themes may be repeated but each docent's approach and choice of objects is unique.

Pictorialism was the first truly international photography movement, and its practitioners, among them Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Gertrude Käsebier, sought to position photography as a legitimate aesthetic art form. They favored soft-focus images that drew upon the conventions of important artists and movements of the previous century. Their poetic compositions drawn from contemporary life, combined with the use of expensive and labor-intensive printing materials established these photographs as complex and nuanced works of high artistic quality. Join a tour with an UMMA docent and explore this rich moment in the history of photography.  

The works in Europe on Paper: The Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection capture artistic compulsions and creative responses to the physical and spiritual world, from tangled, emotionally embroiled nudes to meticulous landscapes and architectural vistas. This exemplary gift from late U-M professor emeritus Ernst Pulgram and his wife, associate professor emerita and chief editor of the Middle English Compendium, Frances McSparran, offers a glimpse into the visually stunning and thought-provoking history of European graphic art. Join UMMA docents as they discuss the myriad artists in this exhibition including Austrian and German expressionists as well as the inventive Italian Giovanni Battista Piranesi. 

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Yasin Abdul-Muqit (Introduced by Rebecca Marie Fortes) & Ambalila Hemsell (Introduced by A.S.  Gorsuch).
Yasin is a Michigan native. He's lived here all of his life. He's unsure whether that's a problem or not.
Ambalila Hemsell is a writer, teacher, and musician from Colorado. 

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Tara E. Jay (Introduced by Molly Dickinson) & Danez Smith (Introduced by Courtney Faye Taylor).
Tara E. Jay is a poet from Indiana. She grew up in trailer parks, on food stamps and gas station take-out. She lives alone with a rescued miniature Schnauzer named Phoebe.
Danez Smith is the author of [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award, and Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017).

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Kristen Roupenian (Introduced by Ashley Whitaker) & Robert Heald (Introduced by Ambalila Hemsell).
Kristen Roupenian was the 2015 Grand Prize winner of the Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards.  She is currently at work on a novel.
Robert Heald is a poet from Atlanta, Georgia.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
This week's reading features Rebecca Marie Fortes (Introduced by Clarisse Baleja Saïdi) & Young Eun Yook (Introduced by Tara Jay).
Rebecca Marie Fortes calls Orlando, Florida, home. She is currently at work on a novel.
Young Eun Yook is a singer/writer born in Korea and Jersey. She is the recipient of scholarships from Squaw Valley Community of Writers and The Glen Workshop.