This event will be live streamed on the Facebook page of the Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning: https://www.facebook.com/taubmancollege.

 
Today, we live inside the digital. Increasingly, our public and private lives are conducted online and in digital space where our relationships are forged, nurtured, or deleted, where our bills are paid and finances tracked, and where our ideologies are fed and our politics balkanized by our respective media bubbles. And while the digital now constitutes more and more of our daily routines, it can also offer a distorting abstraction of “external life.” Swiping left is easier than breaking up, and even the most civil among us can become an entitled consumer on Yelp. At once, our digital environments offer new grounds for engagement and interaction, and immersive venues for escape from the exigencies of the outside world. This session will discuss this dialectic.
 
Panelists will include Aubrey Anable (Carleton University), Amy Kulper (Rhode Island School of Design), and Jose Sanchez (University of Southern California). Join us for presentations and a discussion about the digital as both a totalizing environment unto itself – a bubble apart from the external lifeworld – and a new venue for social organization and engagement.

2:00-2:15 Introduction
2:15-3:30 Presentations by panelists
3:30-4:10 Discussion
4:15-4:30 Intermission
4:30-5:15 Guided tour of Art In the Age of the Internet, 1990 to Today
5:15-6:00 Discussion & Closing
 
Aubrey Anable

Aubrey Anable is an Assistant Professor in the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University in Ottawa. Aubrey’s research examines digital aesthetics, video games, and virtual reality in conversation with feminist and queer theory. Her book Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) provides an account of how video games compel us to play and why they constitute a contemporary structure of feeling emerging alongside the last sixty years of computerized living. She’s an advisory editor for the journal Camera Obscura and is currently co-editing The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Visual Culture.

Jose Sanchez

Jose Sanchez is an Architect / Programmer / Game Designer based in Los Angeles, California. He is the director of the Plethora Project, a research and learning project investing in the future of on-line open-source knowledge. He is also the creator of Block’hood, an award-winning city building video game exploring notions of crowdsourced urbanism.
He has taught and guest lectured in several renowned institutions across the world, including the Architectural Association in London, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Today, he is an Assistant Professor at USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles. His research ‘Gamescapes’, explores generative interfaces in the form of video games, speculating in modes of intelligence augmentation, combinatorics and open systems as a design medium.

Amy Kulper

Amy Catania Kulper is an architectural educator whose teaching and research focus on the intersections of history, theory, and criticism with design. Throughout her career, Kulper has taught at Cambridge University, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, SCI_Arc, the University of Michigan, and RISD where she is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture. In her time in Ann Arbor, she was a four-time recipient of the Donna M. Salzer Award for teaching excellence.

Kulper’s writings are published in Log, The Journal of Architecture, arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, Candide, The Journal of Architectural Education, and numerous edited volumes. Kulper has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education where she has acted as the Design Editor for six years. In March of 2017 she received the Distinguished Service Award from the ACSA for her work on the journal. Kulper holds master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Architecture from Cambridge University.

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 Katarina Bishop and Thea Chacamaty. 

Katarina Bishop is a writer from Alabama. Her favorite things about the South are buttermilk biscuits and chocolate gravy. 

Thea Chacamaty is a writer from California. Her writing is devoted to the coast, the desert, San Francisco, and rock & roll. 

Relax and think about art by drawing in the galleries. Taking the time to look carefully and record what you see in a drawing enhances your enjoyment and understanding of art in the museum. Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet by the Museum Store. 

Emma Lee Aboukasm is an award-winning, Detroit-based recording artist, vocalist, pianist, and composer. Educated in classical and jazz music at the University of Michigan, she is now performing in a variety of venues, ranging from intimate venues like the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe to the Detroit Jazz Festival. Emma Lee is on the vanguard of contemporary music in the heart of metro-Detroit. 

Aboukasm won the Youth Vocal Jazz Competition in Detroit in 2014. In 2015, she made the top five finalists out of 2,000 applications worldwide in the International Sarah Vaughan Vocal Jazz Competition. There, she performed for a panel of judges including Christian McBride and Cyrille Aimée and played tracks from her CD on WBGO radio in Newark, NJ. 

Currently, Emma Lee Aboukasm resides in Southeast Michigan as she completes her bachelor degrees in Jazz Studies and Science in Information Analysis at the University of Michigan. She continues to write and arrange music for a new project to be announced soon. 

Alex Anest has been teaching, performing, and recording music professionally in the Southeast Michigan area since 1996. He founded and leads the Ann Arbor Guitar Trio and is also currently playing with the Alex Anest Trio, the Bluewater Kings, Kat Steih, and Klezmephonic. Alex studied guitar with Miles Okazaki and Chris Buzzelli. He holds a Masters of Music in Improvisation from University of Michigan, where he studied with Benny Green, Mark Kirschenmann, and Ellen Rowe. Alex was a founding member of the electric jazz group Giraffe, the Jericho Guitar Trio, Never Nebula, Secret 7, and Delta 88. He has toured Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy with songwriter Kevin Meisel and has played on stages throughout the Midwest and New England. Alex has also appeared on over 30 albums, mostly recorded in Michigan.

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

In celebration of the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial in 2017, artist and distinguished Stamps School of Art and Design professor Jim Cogswell has been invited to create a series of public window installations at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. For this visionary project, the artist will adhere a procession of vivid images to the glass walls of the museums in a rhythmically evocative narrative of reassembled fragments from a diverse range of artworks in both museums’ permanent collections. By leveraging the buildings’ unique architecture, the artist expands our understanding of a museum as a cultural repository and highlights the significant role of these institutions in the life of the campus community. UMMA docents will introduce the juxtaposed images and help connect the viewer to the origins and meaning of objects and their power to shape knowledge, memory, and identity.

The works in the UMMA exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explore intersections of social justice, race and gender through the large scale, abstract works of the artists. Join Larry M. Gant, Professor of Social Work and Professor, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design for his take on the large-scale abstract works of Al Loving and Sam Gilliam. Gant explores the challenges and controversies experienced by the artists, suggesting  ways that their approaches have and continue to generate, in the words of James Baldwin, “the evidence of things unseen."

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

On the occasion of the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor have partnered up to form the UMMA Book Club: The Age of the Internet in Comic Books. Join David Choberka, Andrew W. Mellon Manager of Academic Outreach & Teaching, for a discussion in the gallery that connects the art on view to  themes in the selected comics. Open to anyone, regardless of participation in the book club.

​Gould and Rush have been performing for about two decades with musicians, physicists, film-makers, and dancers—all over the world, including Japan and Sweden.  They are both improvisers and composers and enjoy responding spontaneously to visual stimuli, in this case the current exhibits at UMMA.  They are both Jazz musicians as well as trained classical musicians, and they harness those influences and energies into a vital, audience-relatable performance. 

Art museums generally give primacy to the sense of sight. Religious and ritual objects, on the other hand, stimulate an array of multisensory experiences. Focusing on works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism, we engage all of the six senses in this exhibition. These six are integral to Buddhist devotion: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind (or the activity of thinking, including what is perceived via the other senses). The “Six Senses” gallery experience extends beyond vision to include: the sound of chanting and ritual implements; the fragrance of incense; the feel of bronze, ceramic, and silk; and the creation of mental images. Gain a deeper understanding of the nature and histories of objects used in Buddhist practice with a docent tour of this fascinating exhibition.

Gallery talks, live music with Cousin Mouth & Friends, free food, and more! After Hours will also celebrate the opening of Collection Ensemble, the first major reinstallation of UMMA's iconic entry space in over a decade.

Collection Ensemble: forty-one artists, forty-one works of art, including Charles Alston, Khaled al Saa'i, Norio Azuma, Christo, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Dinh Q Lê, Kara Walker, and others, put in dialog for you to discover.

The experimental R&B duo Cousin Mouth, named one of Detroit's 2019 bands to watch by MetroTimes, will be joined by vocalist Kesswa and jazz keyboardist Ian Fink for an evening of neo-soul/experimental elctronica/ambient/R&B music that comes from the soul.

UMMA After Hours is a free event, all welcome.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

UM Chamber Choir 
Eugene Rogers, conductor
with Imani Winds

SMTD@UMMA welcomes UM Chamber Choir’s new director Eugene Rogers for an evening of new and favorite works celebrating discovery and freedom, including the premiere of Jocelyn Hagen’s multi-movement The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci for chorus, chamber orchestra, and projected visuals. Grammy-nominated quintet Imani Winds joins the flagship SMTD choral ensemble on this and an arrangement of American Spirituals by Imani Winds member Jeff Scott. Also featured are Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo and his Flying Machine and Lee Hoiby’s Last Letter Home.

Join the U-M History of Art department as they honor longtime faculty members Alexander Potts and Susan Siegfried during this symposium on the social history of art featuring renowned art historians Thomas Crow (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU) and Darcy Grigsby (UC Berkeley).

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

Fang Zhang, Hughes Fellow at the U-M Liberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies and wife of the artist Wang Qingsong, will lead a public tour of Wang Qingsong/Detroit/Beijing to kick off the symposium Chinese Contemporary Art: Exhibition, Collection, and Criticism. 

The symposium will take place at UMMA on Saturday, April 6, beginning at 9 a.m., and focus on the contributions of museums, exhibitions, collections and criticism to expand our understanding contemporary Chinese art practice.

Presented during the UMMA exhibition Wang Qingsong/Detroit/Beijing (February 2 - May 26, 2019), this symposium celebrates three decades of active engagement between American and Chinese artists, museum directors, curators, collectors, and scholars. The program includes two panels and two roundtable discussions that will focus on the contributions of museums, exhibitions, collections and criticism to expand our understanding contemporary Chinese art practice.

The program includes two panels and two roundtable discussions that will focus on the contributions of museums, exhibitions, collections and criticism to expand our understanding contemporary Chinese art practice.
Panelists include noted leaders such as Melissa Chiu (Hirschhorn Museum), Daisy Wang (Peabody Essex Museum), Vivian Li (Worcester Art Museum), Christopher Phillips (curator and critic), Richard Vine (managing editor of Art-in-America), Anthony Japour (collector and filmmaker), and Charles Jin (collector of 20th-century photography), as well as students, faculty, and scholars from U-M and beyond.

A public tour of Wang Qingsong/Detroit/Beijing will kick off the symposium on Friday, April 5, at 4 p.m. 
 

Consider art from a new and irreverent angle. Join representatives of UM student improv groups as they approach the lesser known un-highlights of the collection, uncover the shady ladies and gents within the frames, and make unexpected connections between various art works on the walls. With humor, contemporary pop culture references, and possibly games, these tours will be lively and entertaining, not necessarily enlightening. Join the fun and add your voice to these diverting episodes in the galleries. Meet at the UMMA Store.

The internet has changed every aspect of contemporary life—from how we interact with each other to how we work and play. Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. Join UMMA docents as they explore the more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects—in this exciting exhibition.

This program explores belief during times of crisis within a newly conceived narrative. Runyonland Productions rethinks Adam Guettel’s song cycle Myths & Hymns with a fresh cast of characters. Students in SMTD’s celebrated Musical Theater program, guided by Broadway director Geoff Packard with Broadway music director Jason DeBord leading an expanded instrumental arrangement, join art historians and leaders from three world religions to draw out a 21st-century moral of understanding and acceptance.

This program explores belief during times of crisis within a newly conceived narrative. Runyonland Productions rethinks Adam Guettel’s song cycle Myths & Hymns with a fresh cast of characters. Students in SMTD’s celebrated Musical Theater program, guided by Broadway director Geoff Packard with Broadway music director Jason DeBord leading an expanded instrumental arrangement, join art historians and leaders from three world religions to draw out a 21st-century moral of understanding and acceptance.

A 2009 MacArthur fellow, Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, and Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, and has written six books for children and young adults, including Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, and Eight Days. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, published in 2017, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

A 2009 MacArthur fellow, Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, and Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, and has written six books for children and young adults, including Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, and Eight Days. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, published in 2017, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

​Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related it. Children ages three to six are invited to join us as we celebrate The Six Senses of Buddhism by meeting a giant panda named Stillwater in the book Zen Shorts. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

Relax and think about art by drawing in the galleries. Taking the time to look carefully and record what you see in a drawing enhances your enjoyment and understanding of art in the museum. Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet by the Museum Store. 

Student Docents will enliven your afternoon and kick off the weekend with a brisk but intense encounter with a few key pieces of art and an engaging theme connecting their selections. Love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, or other entry points will draw you in for a sweet peek at the UMMA collection. Each tour will last 10-15 minutes. Meet at the UMMA Store. 

Step into a night of fashion and performance celebrating Collection Ensemble, a new feel to welcome you in UMMA’s historic entry.

CALL FOR PERFORMERS

Performers are invited to create new work or share existing work that responds to the ideas and ethos of the transformation of UMMA’s historic Apse. Themes to consider include: ideas of home, community, how our environment (physical, social, moral/religious) shapes us, and how we care for one another, hold each other up, and welcome each other in to our spaces.

On April 2, 2019 UMMA will debut a new installation in our historic entry, Alumni Memorial Hall. Called Collection Ensemble, the new display is dramatically different than what preceded it. New arrangements, adjacencies, and juxtapositions of artworks, time periods, artists, and ideas in Collection Ensemble allow for many different stories at once, creating a welcoming space alive with new conversations and relationships. The exhibition consists of forty-one works, many of them artists of color and women, including Charles Alston, Khaled al-Saa’i, Norio Azuma, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, and others. The artworks are gathered into eclectic groupings that respond to the concepts and ideas that resonate from Candida Höfer’s photograph of an extraordinary vacant cathedral, Basílica do Palácio Nacional de Mafra (2006), and act as a kind of visual “call-and-response” among ideas, artists, and you. Near our main doors, cozy up on the couches in our new living room spaces designed to offer a homelike environment, complete with amazing works of art.

Performances will be interspersed with scenes from the SpringFest 2019 Fashion Show, which also responds to the themes and ideas of the new installation. We invite spoken word, music, dance, and video work. Performances should not exceed 8 minutes; video should not exceed 10 minutes. Questions and submissions to Briannon Cierpilowski, briannon@umich.edu. Deadline: March 25.

In celebration of UMMA’s new Power Family Program for Inuit Art, the Museum presents a special exhibition of two incredible, intertwining stories. One traces the development of contemporary Inuit art in the Canadian Arctic from the 1950s to the present. The other relates the fascinating story of the Power family’s important role in supporting and promoting Inuit art from the outset, bringing public attention to its artistic strength and cultural importance. The Power family’s collection is unusual in its strong representation of early contemporary carvings, incised drawings on ivory and antler, soapstone sculptures, and prints that evolved as Inuit artists developed their own artistic voices and responded creatively to their changing world. 

Daring Dances Student Fellows present global dance exploration of social issues in this  evening performance. The Daring Dances project, led by U-M dance professor Clare Croft, embraces how dance invites us into difficult conversations. This project  includes a Student Fellowship program to support U-M students with interests in dance and social justice.

Featuring work by:

• Amala Dancers, a U of M student organization, who create a collective dance space for all students of African descent. This group engages in a cultural sharing between the African Diaspora and the African Continent, connecting those who were removed from their ancestral movement lineage to its longstanding history.
• South Asian Awareness Network, a U of M student organization, who will share excerpts of their new work, Bloom, which uses bharatnatyam, spoken word, and music to create an interdisciplinary performance on sexual assault awareness and self-empowerment of survivors in the South Asian community. (Adjacent space available for self-care for survivors during the performance.)
• “Regained,” a performance exploring dance as a form of healing, by U-M Dance majors Shannon Nulf and Victoria Briones.

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. This exhibition explores the gendered and racialized terms upon which great art was defined and assessed, and the strategy of artists to question the identity and aesthetics of the artist making the art. UMMA docents will help visitors look through the lens of the four artists’ works to explore the aesthetic choices inherent in abstraction as well as the acts of staining, pouring, draping, —or even taking apart the wall itself—within this charged political context.

Join us for a close up look at the collage art of contemporary artist, Mark Bradford. Using paper, interesting materials, and surprising techniques we will create abstract landscapes or cityscapes. The workshop begins with a tour of UMMA's gallery of Modern and Contemporary art, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artist, and UMMA community Docent, Susan Clinthorne. Designed for families with children of ages six and above. Parents must be present during the workshop.

Join us for a close up look at the collage art of contemporary artist, Mark Bradford. Using paper, interesting materials, and surprising techniques we will create abstract landscapes or cityscapes. The workshop begins with a tour of UMMA's gallery of Modern and Contemporary art, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artist, and UMMA community Docent, Susan Clinthorne. Designed for families with children of ages six and above. Parents must be present during the workshop.

​Participate in the ancient practice of yoga in the beautiful surroundings of the Museum of Art. This will be gentle yoga, especially appropriate for students in the throes of exams, led by a U-M RecSports teacher. All levels and community members welcome. This event is free but registration is required. Registration will open in March. Please bring your own yoga mat.

Art museums generally give primacy to the sense of sight. Religious and ritual objects, on the other hand, stimulate an array of multisensory experiences. Focusing on works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism, we engage all of the six senses in this exhibition. These six are integral to Buddhist devotion: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind (or the activity of thinking, including what is perceived via the other senses). The “Six Senses” gallery experience extends beyond vision to include: the sound of chanting and ritual implements; the fragrance of incense; the feel of bronze, ceramic, and silk; and the creation of mental images. Gain a deeper understanding of the nature and histories of objects used in Buddhist practice with a docent tour of this fascinating exhibition.

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.

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. This exhibition explores the gendered and racialized terms upon which great art was defined and assessed, and the strategy of artists to question the identity and aesthetics of the artist making the art. UMMA docents will help visitors look through the lens of the four artists’ works to explore the aesthetic choices inherent in abstraction as well as the acts of staining, pouring, draping, —or even taking apart the wall itself—within this charged political context.

What role do artists play in visualizing the Anthropocene, our current epoch of rapid and often-destructive ecological change? Using photography, video, drawing, and sculpture, the forty-five international artists in The World to Come respond to the impact of climate change around the globe. Join UMMA Assistant Curator of Photography Jennifer Friess for a discussion about how the artists on view reimagine humanity’s relationships with each other and the environment in the world today and to come.
 

Author Mary Gabriel's recent book Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art is set amid one of the most turbulent social and political period of modern times and tells the story of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting. Gabriel will give a reading on the occasion of UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. She will be joined by exhibition curator and UMMA director Christina Olsen for a conversation about abstract art, the time, and the lasting impact of these artists.

Mary Gabriel is the author of Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as of Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored, and The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone. She worked in Washington and London as a Reuters editor for nearly two decades and lives in Ireland.

The UMMA Book Club: Art, Politics, & Ideas, a partnership with Literati Bookstore, will read Ninth Street Women for the Thursday, May 9 discussion at 12 p.m. Click here for more information.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.

On the occasion of the UMMA exhibition The Six Sense of Buddhism, please join us for a Japanese tea ceremony at UMMA. Tea was valued for its medicinal and stimulating qualities, and was used daily by Buddhist monks to aid in a lifestyle that combined physical activity, intellectual expansion, and contemplation. In 16th-century Japan, the use of tea was cultivated into a refined and spiritual practice in its own right. Chanoyu, or commonly known as the Japanese tea ceremony, requires paying meticulous attention to all aspects of a carefully orchestrated environment: the sight of flower arrangements and calligraphy; the sound of water boiling; the warmth of the tea bowl; the smell and taste of the tea. Join the sensual afternoon of Chanoyu demonstrated by local practitioners of the Urasenke Konnichian, one of the three main tea schools in the lineage of the famous master Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591).

Buddhist practices engage the senses. Incense wafts through the air: smell. Sculptures and paintings dazzle your eyes: sight. The ringing of a bell calls to you: sound. The stimulating flavor of tea passes over your tongue: taste. Silk brocade slides against your skin: touch. And all of this is brought together in your mind: thought—the essential sixth sense in Buddhism. Join Susan Dine, 2017-18 Mellon Curatorial Fellow and curator of the exhibition The Six Senses of Buddhism for a  conversation about the complex roles of the senses in the Buddhist journey towards enlightenment through objects on display.
 
 

Celebrate Mother’s Day with a short, docent introduction to an exceptional hand-dyed and hand-woven kimono. Fashioned in the Amami islands of Japan, Oshima Tsumugi silk has long been admired for its understated beauty, incredible softness, and comfortable year-round lightness. From pattern design and cotton-thread binding, to over 100 rounds of plant and mud dyeing and weaving, it may take up to one year to complete a roll (bolt) of cloth. This special installation introduces UMMA audiences to one of the ten exceptional Oshima Tsumugi kimono recently donated to the Museum by Kazuko Miyake.

In celebration of UMMA’s new Power Family Program for Inuit Art, the Museum presents a special exhibition of two incredible, intertwining stories. One traces the development of contemporary Inuit art in the Canadian Arctic from the 1950s to the present. The other relates the fascinating story of the Power family’s important role in supporting and promoting Inuit art from the outset, bringing public attention to its artistic strength and cultural importance. The Power family’s collection is unusual in its strong representation of early contemporary carvings, incised drawings on ivory and antler, soapstone sculptures, and prints that evolved as Inuit artists developed their own artistic voices and responded creatively to their changing world. 

Art museums generally give primacy to the sense of sight. Religious and ritual objects, on the other hand, stimulate an array of multisensory experiences. Focusing on works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism, we engage all of the six senses in this exhibition. These six are integral to Buddhist devotion: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind (or the activity of thinking, including what is perceived via the other senses). The “Six Senses” gallery experience extends beyond vision to include: the sound of chanting and ritual implements; the fragrance of incense; the feel of bronze, ceramic, and silk; and the creation of mental images. Gain a deeper understanding of the nature and histories of objects used in Buddhist practice with a docent tour of this fascinating exhibition.

The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene awakens us to the physical and social effects of the Anthropocene, a much-debated term used to define a new geological epoch shaped by human activity. Structured around ecological issues, the exhibition presents photography, video, and sculpture that address subjects and themes related to raw materials, disasters, consumption, loss, and justice. Join an UMMA docent tour to explore how the international artists in this exhibition respond to dire global and local circumstances with resistance and imagination—sustaining an openness, wonder, and curiosity about the world to come.

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. This exhibition explores the gendered and racialized terms upon which great art was defined and assessed, and the strategy of artists to question the identity and aesthetics of the artist making the art. UMMA docents will help visitors look through the lens of the four artists’ works to explore the aesthetic choices inherent in abstraction as well as the acts of staining, pouring, draping, —or even taking apart the wall itself—within this charged political context.

The exhibition Jason DeMarte: Garden of Artificial Delights  invites viewers to journey into a visually stunning, though deeply unsettling, world in which flowers, birds, and insects are doused in glossy cake icing while candy rains down from ominous skies. In this immersive installation of photographs and wallpaper, Michigan-based photographer Jason DeMarte assembles hyperreal images of local wildlife and plantlife deluged by sugary foodstuffs. Join the artist and UMMA Assistant Curator of Photography Jennifer Friess for a conversation about the layers of meaning in these enticing yet enigmatic works.
 

In celebration of UMMA’s new Power Family Program for Inuit Art, the Museum presents a special exhibition of two incredible, intertwining stories. One traces the development of contemporary Inuit art in the Canadian Arctic from the 1950s to the present. The other relates the fascinating story of the Power family’s important role in supporting and promoting Inuit art from the outset, bringing public attention to its artistic strength and cultural importance. The Power family’s collection is unusual in its strong representation of early contemporary carvings, incised drawings on ivory and antler, soapstone sculptures, and prints that evolved as Inuit artists developed their own artistic voices and responded creatively to their changing world. 

The Six Senses of Buddhism is an exhibition of works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism. Local artist and long-time UMMA docent Susan Clinthorne will lead families on an exploration of the exhibition followed by a hands-on workshop. Designed for families with children ages 6 and up to experience art together. 

The Six Senses of Buddhism is an exhibition of works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism. Local artist and long-time UMMA docent Susan Clinthorne will lead families on an exploration of the exhibition followed by a hands-on workshop. Designed for families with children ages 6 and up to experience art together. 
 

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. This month, children ages three to six are invited to join us as we celebrate Japan Week reading One Leaf Rides the Wind, Counting in a Japanese Garden. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene awakens us to the physical and social effects of the Anthropocene, a much-debated term used to define a new geological epoch shaped by human activity. Structured around ecological issues, the exhibition presents photography, video, and sculpture that address subjects and themes related to raw materials, disasters, consumption, loss, and justice. Join an UMMA docent tour to explore how the international artists in this exhibition respond to dire global and local circumstances with resistance and imagination—sustaining an openness, wonder, and curiosity about the world to come.

UMMA and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival welcome artist Mary Mattingly to Ann Arbor for a 3-day residency, June 27 - June 30. Mattingly, whose photograph, Life of Objects, is featured in UMMA’s exhibition The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, and is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment.
 
To kick off her residency, Mattingly will be joined by thought leaders from the U-M and beyond for a discussion about the possibilities and challenges for artists and arts organizations creating and presenting artwork that explores sustainability and the environment. The Long Table format was born from the director and scholar Lois Weaver’s exercise around participation and public engagement. The aim is to foster civic-minded discussions about ideas and questions surrounding the city's creative culture. It’s a dinner table atmosphere encouraging participants to ask questions, make statements, leave comments, or openly sit, listen, and watch.

This program is part of a 3-day, June 27–30, residency with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and UMMA during which Mattingly will lead a large-scale public art project, titled Objects in the Round, in the Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall. Come build a miniature landscape with Mattingly and other festival goers and explore your own relationship to objects, built landscapes, and habits of consumption.

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Sunday, June 30, 3-4:30 p.m. In Conversation: Life and Afterlife of Objects with Mary Mattingly and curators Jennifer M. Friess and Amanda Krugliak
University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street, Ann Arbor
Please register to attend.

UMMA and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival welcome artist Mary Mattingly to Ann Arbor for a 3-day residency, June 27 - June 30. Mattingly, whose photograph Life of Objects is featured in UMMA’s exhibition The World to Come, is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment.​

Mattingly will lead a large-scale collaborative public art project over three evenings. Come build a miniature landscape with Mattingly and other festival goers and explore your own relationship to objects, built landscapes, and habits of consumption. Bring a household item or object you are willing to part with to contribute to the project. Objects in the Round is an exclusive opportunity for every generation to engage with arts and ecology.

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m. Long Table Discussion: Art / Environment / Sustainability
Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall at 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Sunday, June 30, 3-4:30 p.m. In Conversation: Life and Afterlife of Objects with Mary Mattingly and curators Jennifer M. Friess and Amanda Krugliak
University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street, Ann Arbor
Please register to attend.
 

UMMA and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival welcome artist Mary Mattingly to Ann Arbor for a 3-day residency, June 27 - June 30. Mattingly, whose photograph Life of Objects is featured in UMMA’s exhibition The World to Come, is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment.​

Mattingly will lead a large-scale collaborative public art project over three evenings. Come build a miniature landscape with Mattingly and other festival goers and explore your own relationship to objects, built landscapes, and habits of consumption. Bring a household item or object you are willing to part with to contribute to the project. Objects in the Round is an exclusive opportunity for every generation to engage with arts and ecology.

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m. Long Table Discussion: Art / Environment / Sustainability
Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall at 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Sunday, June 30, 3-4:30 p.m. In Conversation: Life and Afterlife of Objects with Mary Mattingly and curators Jennifer M. Friess and Amanda Krugliak
University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street, Ann Arbor
Please register to attend.

UMMA and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival welcome artist Mary Mattingly to Ann Arbor for a 3-day residency, June 27 - June 30. Mattingly, whose photograph Life of Objects is featured in UMMA’s exhibition The World to Come, is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment.​

Mattingly will lead a large-scale collaborative public art project over three evenings. Come build a miniature landscape with Mattingly and other festival goers and explore your own relationship to objects, built landscapes, and habits of consumption. Bring a household item or object you are willing to part with to contribute to the project. Objects in the Round is an exclusive opportunity for every generation to engage with arts and ecology.

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m. Long Table Discussion: Art / Environment / Sustainability
Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall at 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Sunday, June 30, 3-4:30 p.m. In Conversation: Life and Afterlife of Objects with Mary Mattingly and curators Jennifer M. Friess and Amanda Krugliak
University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street, Ann Arbor
Please register to attend.

Art museums generally give primacy to the sense of sight. Religious and ritual objects, on the other hand, stimulate an array of multisensory experiences. Focusing on works from UMMA’s collection associated with different types of Japanese Buddhism, we engage all of the six senses in this exhibition. These six are integral to Buddhist devotion: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind (or the activity of thinking, including what is perceived via the other senses). The “Six Senses” gallery experience extends beyond vision to include: the sound of chanting and ritual implements; the fragrance of incense; the feel of bronze, ceramic, and silk; and the creation of mental images. Gain a deeper understanding of the nature and histories of objects used in Buddhist practice with a docent tour of this fascinating exhibition.

Artist Mary Mattingly is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment. Mattingly asks us to consider how consumerist societies enact histories of exploitation in the creation of objects by mapping complex supply chains from mineral mines to store shelves.

Returning to Michigan after a 2016 residency and exhibition at the U-M Institute for Humanities, during which she travelled to the Upper Peninsula’s cobalt mines, engaged U-M students (including UMMA’s Student Engagement Council) in tracing source materials, and surfaced stories to create a time capsule, Mattingly will share how Michigan continues to inform her work. Mattingly’s photograph, Life of Objects, is on view in UMMA’s presentation of the exhibition The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene (April 27–July 28, 2019), which explores the impact of human activity on our planet through art. Join Mattingly, along with Jennifer M. Friess, UMMA Assistant Curator of Photography, and Amanda Krugliak, Arts Curator at the U-M Institute for the Humanities for a look in the gallery, followed by a discussion of the complex terrain Mattingly’s artistic practice explores.

Immediately following this UMMA program, Mattingly and the public will disassemble the project from 5–8 p.m. Stop by the Institute for the Humanities, 202 S. Thayer, to see the time capsule from Mattingly’s 2016 residency on your way to Top of the Park.

This program is part of a 3-day, June 27–30, residency with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and UMMA during which Mattingly will lead a large-scale public art project, titled Objects in the Round, in the Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall. Come build a miniature landscape with Mattingly and other festival goers and explore your own relationship to objects, built landscapes, and habits of consumption.

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m. Long Table Discussion: Art / Environment / Sustainability
Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall at 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor

UMMA and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival welcome artist Mary Mattingly to Ann Arbor for a 3-day residency, June 27 - June 30. Mattingly, whose photograph Life of Objects is featured in UMMA’s exhibition The World to Come, is deeply concerned with our relationships to objects—where they come from, where they go, their implications for humans, and their impact on the environment.​

Mattingly will lead Objects in the Round, a large-scale collaborative public art project over three evenings in which Mattingly and other festival goers and build and explore together. On Sunday, June 30, participants are invited to deconstruct the installation. Following the deconstruction, join the artist in the Grove for a gathering. 

Objects in the Round schedule
Thursday, June 27 - Opening 7-10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, June 28 & 29 - Workshops and Construction 5-10 p.m.
Sunday, June 30 - Deconstruction/Gathering 5-8 p.m.

Additional programs:
Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m. Long Table Discussion: Art / Environment / Sustainability
Annex tent at Top of the Park on Ingalls Mall at 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Sunday, June 30, 3-4:30 p.m. In Conversation: Life and Afterlife of Objects with Mary Mattingly and curators Jennifer M. Friess and Amanda Krugliak
University of Michigan Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street, Ann Arbor
Please register to attend.
 

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.