U-M Department of Dance students explore ideas of material, place, and seeing in this open practice of Professor Amy Chavasse’s Performance Improvisation class. This informal showing of dance and music improvisation will be accompanied by by Detroit based artist/musician, Cy Tulip.  Join us in the courtyard by the State Street entrance to the Frankel Family Wing. In case of bad weather, we'll move indoors.

Join the Ginsberg Center in the UMMA Forum for voter registration every Tuesday until October 9 as part of UMMA's VOTE! 2018 initiative.

For more information about your options to register to vote, visit the Ginsberg Center's website.

To register to vote from home, visit TurboVote, which is a quick, customizable registration tool. 

Use TurboVote to:

• Start the registration process in any of the 50 states
• Update existing voter registration
• Request an absentee ballot
• Receive election day reminders

Join UMMA and the U-M Ginsberg Center in the UMMA Forum for Bagels and Ballots on September 27th. This opportunity to register to vote is part of UMMA's VOTE! 2018 initiative in partnership with the Big Ten Voting Challenge's Voter Registration Week!  Students can register to vote, prepare to vote absentee, and sign up for election day reminders.  The Challenge is a nonpartisan initiative, and we look forward to welcoming all students in preparation for the November 6th Midterm Election. 

Barry's bagels will be provided. Students trained in the ins and outs of voter registration will be on hand to help, using TurboVote, a digital tool that takes less than two minutes to use. 

Aracelis Girmay was born and raised in Santa Ana, California. She received a BA from Connecticut College in 1999 and went on to earn an MFA in poetry from New York University. She is the author of The Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016), Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), and Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007), and winner of the Isabella Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award. In a statement for the New American Poets series, she says of her work, “I hope the poems are songs sometimes. I want the poems to ask questions. To engage other people. To promote compassion.” Girmay is also the author of a collage-based picture book, changing, changing (George Braziller, 2005). She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Civitella Ranieri, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches and lives in New York City.

Sigrid Nunez has published seven novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, and, most recently, The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.

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 Gerardo Sámano and Elinam Agbo.

Gerardo Sámano is a writer from Mexico City.

Elinam Agbo was born in Ghana and moved to the United States when she was ten. She is a recipient of the 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2017 Les River Fellowship for Young Novelists. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Review.

This fall’s biennial U-M History of Art Graduate Student Symposium aims to foster discussions of the theoretical, social, and cultural nature of the “Virtual” in Art, Architecture, and Visual Culture. The virtual, often linked to the digital age, implies imagined, border-less spaces with no material form. Ten graduate students in art history and related fields from the University of Michigan and other institutions will present papers that collectively address the impact of the virtual on the mind, body, and the construction or cementation of boundaries.
 

Kristina Kleutghen, David. W. Mesker Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Chinese Art and Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis will be the keynote for this event.

This program is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.

For more information, please contact the History of Art Department.

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. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

Jacob Warren is a multi-style bassist originally from Ann Arbor, MI. Jacob's background and interests include a wide  variety of acoustic styles, such as classical, traditional, and contemporary folk, jazz, bluegrass, newgrass, Cajun, gypsy jazz, and many others. He obtained his bachelor's degree in music performance at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in 2017 with the school's Earl V. Moore Award in Music. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Improvisation from the University of Michigan. This program will feature an eclectic mix of solo arrangements from many different genres. 

Find Jacob on Facebook @jacobvwarrenbass and Instagram @jvwarren109

On the occasion of the UMMA exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa, UMMA presents Tunde Olaniran in concert. Olaniran’s music and performance embodies what it means to be beyond borders, blending dance, electro, hip-hop, and rock.  His debut album, Transgressor (2015), “feel[s] like it was recorded by a dissonant, flourishing collective, rather than a man from Flint [...] whose only vocal training is choir practice to boot” (Pitchfork). He was named NPR's Top Artist to Watch at SXSW 2017 and has been praised by The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Noisey, Afropunk, and countless others. 

The exhibition will be open after the performance.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.

Through labels, museums identify, classify, and make sense of artworks on display. Yet such information is rarely uncomplicated: many of the ways we classify the historical arts of Africa are in fact remnants of colonization, when European powers carved up the continent into sharply divided groups and nations, failing to recognize moments of interaction, encounter, and exchange. The exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa brings together artworks that challenge such borders, ranging from historical objects from UMMA's collection, to contemporary artworks by Omar Victor Diop, Nandipha Mntambo and Kudzanai Chiurai. Join Laura De Becker, exhibition curator and UMMA's Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African Art, in a conversation exploring how conceptual and geographic borders continue to inform - and limit - the way we collect, research, and display the arts of Africa.

Join the Ginsberg Center in the UMMA Forum for voter registration every Tuesday until October 9 as part of UMMA's VOTE! 2018 initiative.

For more information about your options to register to vote, visit the Ginsberg Center's website.

To register to vote from home, visit TurboVote, which is a quick, customizable registration tool. 

Use TurboVote to:

• Start the registration process in any of the 50 states
• Update existing voter registration
• Request an absentee ballot
• Receive election day reminders

Catherine Opie is an American fine arts photographer whose work explores the relationship between mainstream and marginalized societies with an emphasis on sexual identity and how individuals inhabit their environments. Her portraiture, studio, and landscape photography has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including a mid-career survey at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2008. In 2017, a large survey of Opie’s work opened at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway. Recently, Opie debuted her first film, The Modernist, at Regen Projects in Los Angeles; it will be shown at Lehmann Maupin in New York in November 2018.

A recipient of The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Medal in 2016, the Julius Shulman Excellence in Photography Award in 2013, and a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006, Opie was born in Sandusky, Ohio, and holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She lives and works in Los Angeles and is a professor of photography at UCLA.

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 Samantha Bares and Daniel Neff.

Samantha Bares is a fiction MFA candidate at the Helen Zell Writers' Program and a reader for Michigan Quarterly Review. Her work has appeared or will appear in Cricket Online Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and NightBlock. She has been awarded the Frederick Busch Prize in Fiction, the John Ed Bradley Award for Fiction, and the Dara Weir Award for Poetry. Her novel-in-progress is a contemporary retelling of Longfellow's "Evangeline," set in her native Cajun country.

Daniel Neff is from a small town in Indiana, then Missouri, and then Michigan, and then still Michigan. Daniel's poetry is published in places such as Zyzzyva, Interrupture, Ninth Letter, Whiskey Island, and Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Daniel's fiction once got an encouraging rejection. Daniel will read your tarot for seven dollars. 

Join alumni, friends, and family at UMMA to celebrate Homecoming Weekend 2018! 

At this event, team up with Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab Team for a chance to try your hand at being a printer. Add some maize and blue! Stop by the coloring station or create your own button to show your school spirit.

Drop in for additional events: check out what Homecoming looked like 71 years ago in New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs; participate in art activities, scavenger hunts, guided tours, live music, and more. 

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, October 6:
11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Art Making Activity Tables: Join Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab Team for a chance to try your hand at being a printer. Add some maize and blue! Stop by the coloring station or create your own button to show your school spirit.

2 - 3 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

Sunday, October 7:
1 - 2 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

2 - 3 p.m. Public Tour: Abstraction and Politics in the Early 1970s. This exhibition explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. Learn more >>

3 - 4 p.m. Gallery program: In Conversation: New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs with exhibition curator Jennifer Friess.

4 - 5:15 p.m. Artist Talk: Xu Bing and the Origins of Creativity. Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017). Learn more >>

Ongoing both days:

Scavenger Hunt: Pickup a scavenger hunt activity map at the Homecoming Welcome Table.

New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs. In October 1947, just two years after the end of World War II, the popular weekly news magazine LIFE sent staff photographers Lisa Larsen and Ralph Morse to cover homecoming weekend at the University of Michigan. This installation provides a unique opportunity to view twenty-one images of that weekend, recently donated to UMMA by John and Susan Edwards Harvith. Learn more >>

Kate Hinote is a singer-songwriter performing original material she has co-written for her various projects, including The Blueflowers, a band she been fronting for 10 years. Hinote has a voice that's both cinematic and operatic, a mood-setting, mellifluous intonation that fits inside candle-lit lounges, late summer night feverdreams, or as a torch song from a surreal soundtrack. Find Kate on Facebook @katehinotemusic

This weekend's UMMA Pop Up is part of our Homecoming 2018 celebration. Drop in for additional events: check out what Homecoming looked like 71 years ago in New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs; participate in art activities, scavenger hunts, guided tours, live music, and more. 

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, October 6:

11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Art Making Activity Tables: Join Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab Team for a chance to try your hand at being a printer. Add some maize and blue! Stop by the coloring station or create your own button to show your school spirit.

2 - 3 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

Sunday, October 7:

1 - 2 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

2 - 3 p.m. Public Tour: Abstraction and Politics in the Early 1970s. This exhibition explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. Learn more >>

3 - 4 p.m. Gallery program: In Conversation: New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs with exhibition curator Jennifer Friess.

4 - 5:15 p.m. Artist Talk: Xu Bing and the Origins of Creativity. Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017). Learn more >>

Ongoing both days:

Scavenger Hunt: Pickup a scavenger hunt activity map at the Homecoming Welcome Table.

New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs.In October 1947, just two years after the end of World War II, the popular weekly news magazine LIFE sent staff photographers Lisa Larsen and Ralph Morse to cover homecoming weekend at the University of Michigan. This installation provides a unique opportunity to view twenty-one images of that weekend, recently donated to UMMA by John and Susan Edwards Harvith. Learn more >>
 

Adam Kahana and Kenji Lee are both students at the University of Michigan pursuing degrees in Jazz Studies. They strive to develop their own sound in music and discover new sonic possibilities. The instrumentation is uncommon for a duo - Adam studies guitar and Kenji studies tenor saxophone - which allows for new and often unexpected adventures.  

This weekend's UMMA Pop Up is part of our Homecoming 2018 celebration. Drop in for additional events: check out what Homecoming looked like 71 years ago in New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs and participate in art activities, scavenger hunts, guided tours, live music, and more. 

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, October 6:

11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Art Making Activity Tables: Join Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab Team for a chance to try your hand at being a printer. Add some maize and blue! Stop by the coloring station or create your own button to show your school spirit.

2 - 3 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

Sunday, October 7:

1 - 2 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

2 - 3 p.m. Public Tour: Abstraction and Politics in the Early 1970s. This exhibition explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. Learn more >>

3 - 4 p.m. Gallery program: In Conversation: New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs with exhibition curator Jennifer Friess.

4 - 5:15 p.m. Artist Talk: Xu Bing and the Origins of Creativity. Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017). Learn more >>

Ongoing both days:

Scavenger Hunt: Pickup a scavenger hunt activity map at the Homecoming Welcome Table.

New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs​​: In October 1947, just two years after the end of World War II, the popular weekly news magazine LIFE sent staff photographers Lisa Larsen and Ralph Morse to cover Homecoming Weekend at the University of Michigan. This installation provides a unique opportunity to view twenty-one images of that weekend, recently donated to UMMA by John and Susan Edwards Harvith. Learn more >>
 

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 Assistant Curator of Photography Jennifer Friess for a drop-in In Conversation about UMMA's recent acquisition of twenty photographs by LIFE magazine photographers Lisa Larsen and Ralph Morse that depict fervent fans, strolling couples, and alumni making their annual pilgrimage for U-M’s 1947 Homecoming Weekend.
 
Part of UMMA's celebration of Homecoming 2018.  Additional events include:

Saturday, October 6:
11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Art Making Activity Tables: Join Ann Arbor District Library’s Secret Lab Team for a chance to try your hand at being a printer. Add some maize and blue! Stop by the coloring station or create your own button to show your school spirit.
2 - 3 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.

Sunday, October 7:
1 - 2 p.m. UMMA Pop Up: Musicians from around town and around campus will treat you to a tuneful hour of fun and relaxation.
2 - 3 p.m. Public Tour: Abstraction and Politics in the Early 1970s. This exhibition explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. Learn more >>
3 - 4 p.m. Gallery program: In Conversation: New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs with exhibition curator Jennifer Friess.
4 - 5:15 p.m. Artist Talk: Xu Bing and the Origins of Creativity. Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017). Learn more >>

Ongoing both days:
Scavenger Hunt: Pickup a scavenger hunt activity map at the Homecoming Welcome Table.

New at UMMA: LIFE Magazine 1947 Homecoming Photographs.In October 1947, just two years after the end of World War II, the popular weekly news magazine LIFE sent staff photographers Lisa Larsen and Ralph Morse to cover homecoming weekend at the University of Michigan. This installation provides a unique opportunity to view twenty-one images of that weekend, recently donated to UMMA by John and Susan Edwards Harvith. Learn more >>

Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and the many media he works in. Xu will focus on how he draws inspirations from society and his environment. Although his projects may seem radically different from each other, there are underlying principles that he applies to all of his creations. Xu will talk about his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017), which will have its Michigan premiere at the Michigan Theater with Xu Bing present for a reception and Q & A. 

Born in Chongqing, China, Xu Bing is one of the most renowned contemporary artists in China, well known for his representations of artistic sophistication, political conscience, and far-reaching imagination. His art works have been exhibited at many prestigious venues including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan. He is a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing where he has also taught and served in academic leadership. He has been included in the Venice Biennale three times and honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Graphics Council, the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, the Wales International Visual Art Prize, and a US Department of State Medal of Arts.

Following Xu Bing's talk at UMMA, please head to over the Michigan Theater at 603 E. Liberty for a screening of Dragonfly Eyes.
 
5:30 p.m.: Pre-screening reception at the Michigan Theater Main Lobby 
6:15 p.m.: Screening of Dragonfly Eyes (2017)  
7:45 p.m.: Post Screening Q&A with Xu Bing 

All events are free and open to the public.  

Join the Ginsberg Center in the UMMA Forum for voter registration every Tuesday until October 9 as part of UMMA's VOTE! 2018 initiative.

For more information about your options to register to vote, visit the Ginsberg Center's website.

To register to vote from home, visit TurboVote, which is a quick, customizable registration tool. 

Use TurboVote to:

• Start the registration process in any of the 50 states
• Update existing voter registration
• Request an absentee ballot
• Receive election day reminders

Floyd Norman was the first African-American animator at Disney, hired first to work on the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty. Over the span of his sixty-year career, Norman had a hand in blockbuster titles such as The Jungle Book, Monsters Inc, and Mulan. At 80 years old, Norman continues to animate, working as a storyboard artist on Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken. Norman is the 2002 recipient of a Winsor McCay Award for “recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation” and was named a Disney Legend in 2007.

4:30 pm: Screening of Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (Documentary, 94 min.)
6:00 pm: Q&A with Floyd Norman
 

Detroit-based Americana/Folk duo consisting of singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Emily Burns and Aaron Markovitz. Masterful blending and blurring of Folk, Bluegrass, Country, and Rock fueled by fierce mandolin licks and soaring harmonies. Have you Escaped the Pavement lately?

More than ever in the era of globalization, ideas traverse geographic, generational, and cultural boundaries, even as national borders seem to be closing. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the center of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries. Bringing together a dazzling array of works made in Africa, Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and the African diaspora. Join UMMA docents as they explore the significant themes of our times including slavery, colonization, migration, racism and identity.

Born in central Connecticut, Gabrielle Calvocoressi grew up in a family that owned movie theaters in several small towns across the state. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and earned her MFA from Columbia University. Calvocoressi’s first book, The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart (Persea Books, 2005), was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award and won the 2006 Connecticut Book Award in Poetry. Her second collection, Apocalyptic Swing (Persea Books, 2009), was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is also the author of Rocket Fantastic (Persea Books, 2017). Calvocoressi has been praised for “moving beyond the popular poetry of ‘self’ in an effort to understand other perspectives.” Her awards and honors include a Stegner Fellowship, a Jones Lectureship at Stanford University, and a Rona Jaffe Women Writers’ Award. Her poem “Circus Fire, 1944” received The Paris Review‘s Bernard F. Connors Prize. She teaches at the MFA programs at California College of Arts in San Francisco and at Warren Wilson College. She also runs the sports desk for the Best American Poetry Blog.

Karan Mahajan grew up in New Delhi, India and moved to the US for college. Since then, he has lived in San Francisco, New Delhi, New York, Bangalore, and Austin. His first novel, Family Planning (2008), was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. It was published in nine countries. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs (2016), was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Awards and was named one of the "10 Best Books of 2016" by The New York Times. Mahajan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker Online, The New Republic, and other venues.

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 Coleen Herbert and Daniellla Toosie-Watson.

Coleen Herbert is a writer from Virginia.

Daniella Toosie-Watson is a proud Puerto Rican/Iranian/Russian poet, visual artist and educator from New York. She is a Civitas Fellow through the InsideOut Detroit Literary Arts Project as well as a Callaloo fellow. She holds a BA in English from the College of Saint Rose and is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program. She shamelessly invites you to follow her on Instagram: @toositajoon 

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

What started as a friendship bonding over the music of Belgium-born guitarist Django Reinhardt has become a full-forced, power-house guitar duo. Comprised of guitarists Andrew Brown (Appleseed Collective) and Michael Harrington (freelance guitarist from Ann Arbor), the two join together to recreate the fast and energetic swing, reminiscent of the Hot Club of France. Harrington-Brown plays in both concert and background settings. 

Find them on Facebook @harringtonbrownmusic.

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

The story of Japanese archaeologist Ryoichi and evidence of his worldwide excavations are
explored by Patrick Nagatani in this series of photographs. Nagatani presents a narrative of
Ryoichi’s archeological work, supported by images of excavation sites, unearthed artifacts, and
Ryoichi’s own journal pages. According to the photographs, Ryoichi discovered evidence of an
automobile culture buried at sites across several continents: Stonehenge, the Grand Canyon,
and a necropolis in China. Docents will introduce this provocative and playful series that compels viewers to reflect on how photographs and institutions, such as museums, shape our
knowledge of the past and present.

"Where do you think your ancestors got these?" asks Eric Killmonger in the recent Black Panther film. Join us for a discussion facilitated by African Art Historian Ray Silverman with curators, activists and scholars Nii Quarcoopome (Detroit Institute of Arts), Sylvester Ogbechie (UC Santa Barbara), and Monica Udvardy (University of Kentucky) about what we can learn from the display of African art objects in Western art museums, diving deep into fraught questions of collecting, display, and repatriation.

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. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jay Fry is a guitar-wielding songwriter and vocalist. Covering and writing songs in a wide variety of genres, there is something for everyone to like in his sound. Though he does a good deal of genre-hopping, his home base is a unique combination of progressive rock, funk, and fusion. Performing solo and with his band, Chirp, he has gigged all over the Midwest. He has released music as a solo artist and with Chirp and will continue to do so; stay tuned!

Find Jay on Facebook @jayfrymusic and Instagram @jayfrymusic.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.

What is the value of exploring connections between past and present cultures? What technologies and evidence do we use to construct these narratives? What role do institutions, such as museums, play in shaping these histories? We will explore these questions and more in a conversation co-hosted by Curator and U-M Professor of Classical Archaeology, Christopher Ratté, and UMMA Assistant Curator, Jennifer Friess. Join Christopher and Jennifer, for a conversation beginning in the exhibition Urban Biographies, Ancient and Modern at the Kelsey. Our tour will continue across the street in the UMMA exhibition Proof: The Ryoichi Excavations. Taken together, these two exhibitions uncover layers of fact and fiction that shape our understanding of history and our present.

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.

We're All Victors! Join us to celebrate YOU—our community, members, and donors as we honor your support of UMMA and the University of Michigan. Enjoy live music, curator chats, and great food and drink! All are welcome—the Museum is always free.

RSVP and share on Facebook.
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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 is African art? What makes art 'African'? Peoples, cultures and nations have always exchanged goods, ideas and artworks: 15th century West African artworks clearly show motifs introduced by Portuguese explorers, while modern artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse found inspiration in African art. Especially now, in our current age of globalization, which has allowed the sharing of information to take place at an unprecedented speed and scale, cross-cultural exchange is the rule, rather than the exception. This raises the question: does it still make sense to classify works by geography? Did it ever?  Laura De Becker, UMMA's Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African art, will speak to these themes while focusing in detail on some of the works in Beyond Borders: Global Africa. 

Martin J. Powers, Sally Michelson Davidson Professor of Chinese Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan has been a towering beacon in the field, trailblazing fresh methodologies and breaking down academic stereotypes on Chinese culture. This scholarly gathering will reflect upon ways the field of sinology has changed over the course of Professor Powers' long academic career, and the new directions it is developing, or should develop, in the years ahead. 

Panel themes include Art, Trade, and Early Modern Cultural Contact; Fakery, Fiction, and History; Of and By Women; Painting as Political Maneuvering; China Studies Beyond Borders; Connective and Comparative Histories

Martin J. Powers, Sally Michelson Davidson Professor of Chinese Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan has been a towering beacon in the field, trailblazing fresh methodologies and breaking down academic stereotypes on Chinese culture. This scholarly gathering will reflect upon ways the field of sinology has changed over the course of Professor Powers' long academic career, and the new directions it is developing, or should develop, in the years ahead. 

Panel themes include Art, Trade, and Early Modern Cultural Contact; Fakery, Fiction, and History; Of and By Women; Painting as Political Maneuvering; China Studies Beyond Borders; Connective and Comparative Histories

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

The story of Japanese archaeologist Ryoichi and evidence of his worldwide excavations are
explored by Patrick Nagatani in this series of photographs. Nagatani presents a narrative of
Ryoichi’s archeological work, supported by images of excavation sites, unearthed artifacts, and
Ryoichi’s own journal pages. According to the photographs, Ryoichi discovered evidence of an
automobile culture buried at sites across several continents: Stonehenge, the Grand Canyon,
and a necropolis in China. Docents will introduce this provocative and playful series that compels viewers to reflect on how photographs and institutions, such as museums, shape our
knowledge of the past and present.

Paul Rand, twentieth-century pioneer in the field of design, was best-known for crafting corporate designs for media and technology powerhouses such as IBM, Westinghouse, NeXT Computer, and Cummins. Through his now-iconic designs and writings, Rand articulated a philosophy for a new generation of designers: all forms of visual communication should seek to meld the utilitarian and the beautiful. Join Jennifer Friess, UMMA Assistant Curator, and Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo, U-M Professor of Art & Design and designer, in the gallery as they explore Rand’s prolific career through posters, book covers, packaging designs, and other ephemera recently donated to UMMA.

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of educational entertainment known to mankind. From the West African tradition of the Griot to modern day Moth events, storytelling environments have served as a means to pass along history, shape culture, share helpful lessons, and establish a sense of belonging and community.

The U-M Comprehensive Studies Program and Department of Afroamerican and African Studies invite you to explore themes related to campus life, coming of age, and learning and growing, at this series of Moth-Style Storyteller Lounge events.  The theme for the November event will take its inspiration from UMMA's exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa and include notions of border and boundary crossing as the jumping off point to share personal experiences. Storytellers include students, faculty and staff, and Voices of Wisdom (alums or community members).

Light food and refreshments will be served in the Commons at 6:30 prior to the start of the program.

Value the Voice will take place on Tuesdays, September 18, November 13, January 22, and March 19 at 7 p.m. in the UMMA Auditorium.

For more information, please contact Keith Jason at mrjason@umich.edu or 734-764-9128

Philip Metres’s writing has appeared widely, including in Best American Poetry, and has garnered two NEA fellowships, two Arab American Book Awards, and the Lannon Literary Fellowship, among others. His work has been called “beautiful, powerful, magnetically original” (Cleveland Arts Prize citation). Lawrence Joseph has written that “Philip Metres’s poetry speaks to us all, in ways critical, vital, profound, and brilliant.” His poems have been translated into Arabic, Polish, Russian, and Tamil. He is a professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland, where he teaches literature and creative writing, and lives with his wife Amy and their two daughters. Were it not for the Ellis Island effect, his last name would be Abourjaili.

Aimee Bender is the author of five books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998) which was a NY Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000) which was an L.A. Times pick of the year, Willful Creatures (2005) which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010) which won the SCIBA award for best fiction and an Alex Award, and The Color Master, a NY Times Notable Book for 2013. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and more, as well as heard on PRI’s “This American Life” and “Selected Shorts." She lives in Los Angeles with her family, and teaches creative writing at USC.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.

The exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s presents large-scale works by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s. To many at the time, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art represented a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Join UMMA Director and exhibition curator, Christina Olsen, in the gallery to explore these works of art and the questions they pose.

U-M students Lenae Jefferson and Qwantayvious Stiggers will engage visitors in a conversation about art, identity, borders, and other matters on the closing day of the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Ms. Jefferson was the 2018 UMMA Bennett Summer Intern as well as a Program Intern at the Motown Museum. She has been involved in the Vice President for Student Life’s Student Advisory Board and the Prison Creative Arts Project. Mr. Stiggers has served on the executive board of Habitat for Humanity, as a member of the Black Student Union, and as a leader in Bridge Scholars PLUS. Join these accomplished and dedicated students in a meaningful discussion in this exciting exhibition before it closes.

More than ever in the era of globalization, ideas traverse geographic, generational, and cultural boundaries, even as national borders seem to be closing. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the center of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries. Bringing together a dazzling array of works made in Africa, Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and the African diaspora. Join UMMA docents as they explore the significant themes of our times including slavery, colonization, migration, racism and identity.

Lina Iris Viktor is a British-Liberian conceptual artist whose work centers around the age-old practice of gilding with 24-karat gold to call into question the nature of time and being. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, Viktor weaves together many disparate materials, uniting contemporary and ancient modes of making including photography, performance, installation, and abstract painting. In recent years she has focused on creating increasingly dark canvases embedded with “layers of light” in the form of symbols and intricate patterns that Viktor calls “light-works.” According to the artist: "My personal mandate has always been to reveal that which is hidden. To reflect upon diverse histories — many of which have been grossly misrepresented or erased — and bring them to light. I want to offer a hopeful projection of a future I would like to see." Viktor has exhibited extensively in the United States and internationally, including at the Harvard Art Museums, the Cooper Gallery at Harvard University, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, and has a solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art (opening in October 2018). Additionally, Viktor has engaged in critical talks and panels at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., New York University, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and King’s College in London.

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 Will Brewbaker, David Wade, and Talin Tahajian.

Will Brewbaker was born and raised in Alabama, which is a small state in the southeastern corner of the USA. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, where he encountered his very first iambic foot. 

David Wade is a fiction writer from Washington, PA interested in rustbelt literature, hip hop, and speculative fiction. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan and can (sometimes) be found online @davidwadetv.

Talin Tahajian grew up near Boston. She did her undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge (UK), where she studied English literature. She edits poetry for Big Lucks and the Adroit Journal. 

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. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

As the holidays ramp up and expectations go into high gear, slow down and enjoy a leisurely experience with magnificent art by Helen Frankenthaler,  Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson in the exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Give yourself the gift of time for quiet, immersive attention to beautiful and intriguing paintings using strategies found in “Slow Looking” by Sheri Tishman, Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, a research and development center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. UMMA’s Curator for Teaching and Learning, Pam Reister, will introduce visitors to Tishman's strategies of thoughtful attention to the things around us. Observe carefully, reflect thoughtfully, think cooperatively with other visitors, and enjoy the break.

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.

Professor Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. In 2009, she composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She has published six books of poems, two collections of essays, and a play. Her book of poems, American Sublime (2005), was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Associations “Notable Books of the Year.” She has been recently appointed President of the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation, the nation's biggest funder in the arts and humanities. She previously served as the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University, where she taught for 15 years and chaired the African American Studies Department. She previously taught at Smith College, where she directed The Poetry Center, and at the University of Chicago, where she was awarded the Quantrell Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Her memoir, The Light of the World, was released to widespread acclaim in April 2015.

Professor Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. In 2009, she composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She has published six books of poems, two collections of essays, and a play. Her book of poems, American Sublime (2005), was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Associations “Notable Books of the Year.” She has been recently appointed President of the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation, the nation's biggest funder in the arts and humanities. She previously served as the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University, where she taught for 15 years and chaired the African American Studies Department. She previously taught at Smith College, where she directed The Poetry Center, and at the University of Chicago, where she was awarded the Quantrell Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.   Her memoir, The Light of the World, was released to widespread acclaim in April 2015.

University and community poets will meet in the serene and surreal constellation that is Tristin Lowe: Under the Influence and read a selection of poems. The installation, which includes a twelve-and-half-foot-diameter felt facsimile of the moon, creates a feeling of time having stopped, a sensation that is both captivating and strange. Poets will read work that address that feeling and other themes in their work. Talin Tahajian, U-M MFA student and Hopwood Graduate Poetry winner, will curate this event, inviting fellow students and local poets to share their work. Join us for this encounter with unexpected visual and literary art.

The story of Japanese archaeologist Ryoichi and evidence of his worldwide excavations are
explored by Patrick Nagatani in this series of photographs. Nagatani presents a narrative of
Ryoichi’s archeological work, supported by images of excavation sites, unearthed artifacts, and
Ryoichi’s own journal pages. According to the photographs, Ryoichi discovered evidence of an
automobile culture buried at sites across several continents: Stonehenge, the Grand Canyon,
and a necropolis in China. Docents will introduce this provocative and playful series that compels viewers to reflect on how photographs and institutions, such as museums, shape our
knowledge of the past and present.

Electronic Chamber Music students, led by SMTD professor Michael Gurevich, respond to the speculative truth of the exhibition Proof: The Ryoichi Excavations by creating and performing works which use technology to subvert or transform reality.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.