From the Director

The University of Michigan Museum of Art is fortunate to boast such outstanding historic collections—a testament to the forward-looking University administrators, who as early as the mid-nineteenth century felt a responsibility to inject visual art into the curriculum and exhibit collected objects in a public museum space. Since then, the Museum’s collections have grown to encompass approximately 19,000 works of art from Asian, African, and Western traditions, from medieval times to the present era.

One of the key mechanisms, I believe, for engaging today’s visitors—of any age—is to present the Museum’s collections, exhibitions, and programs through a contemporary lens. For instance, UMMA is committed to acquiring and exhibiting contemporary art in the areas where we are fortunate to embody historic collections strengths. This season, we offer Life in Ceramics: Five Contemporary Korean Artists, a wonderful exhibition featuring the art and craft of some of the most original and important artists in the field. This exhibition beautifully dovetails with the superb Hasenkamp-Nam Collection of Korean Art, with its focus on traditional Korean ceramics, which is on view in the Woon-Hyung Lee and Korea Foundation Gallery of Korean Art.

Life in Ceramics is organized by the renowned Fowler Museum at UCLA, with whom we have worked before. Exposing our visitors to exceptional works of art and scholarship through choice loan exhibitions is another hallmark of UMMA’s excellence and leadership. I encourage you to attend the April 10th lecture by the curator of Life in Ceramics, Burglind Jungmann of UCLA, who will explore the themes of the exhibition and how Korea’s rich ceramics tradition inspired the artists represented.

Contemporary art weaves through our future exhibition schedule, with highlights including Photoformance: An Empathic Environment, a multidisciplinary installation developed with an impressive team of campus collaborators, which opens this month in the Museum’s most visible space—the Irving Stenn, Jr, Family Project Gallery; an exciting project by young Argentinian artist Amalia Pica; and a large-scale examination of contemporary Chinese woodblock prints since 2000, which will also be contextualized and extended by selections from UMMA’s significant Chinese collection on view in the Shirley Chang Gallery of Chinese Art.

Wishing you a wonderful spring!

Warmest regards,

Joseph Rosa
Director

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