JSMA Summer/Fall 2023

JORDAN SCHNITZER MUSEUM OF ART SUMMER/FALL 2023

You’re Invited

Friday, September 22, 2023, 6 p.m.

Join us to celebrate the museum’s 90th anniversary, build support for JSMA’s educational impact in our community, and celebrate the artistry and creativity of our region’s cuisine and libations.

Featuring local chefs’ inventive creations, and drinks by local vintners, brewers, and distillers, Art of the Harvest will also include live music, an experience-packed silent auction, prizes, and a brief program featuring physicians and med students, patients, and others who have participated in the museum’s Art Heals programs.

Individual tickets, hosted tables, and chef sponsorships are still available. Go to jsma.uoregon.edu/gala to learn more.

Strange Weather

From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Patron Circle Reception

October 20, 2023 6 – 8:30 p.m.

Member Reception

October 22, 2023

Public tour from 2 – 3 p.m.

Member Reception 3 – 4:30 p.m.

There’s a lot to tell you about in this report! We have an incredible line-up of shows coming this summer and fall. A big party planned to celebrate the museum’s 90 th anniversary. A beautiful new catalogue featuring Arts and Crafts copper and the show we opened in May. And great news from our Art Heals program. We’ve also just finished a banner year for JSMA Academic Programs, with student and class visit numbers on par with our pre-pandemic highs.

On September 22 we will gather throughout the museum and then in the Barker Gallery to celebrate 90 years of museum work at the University of Oregon. The museum opened in 1933 as the University of Oregon Museum of Art, and then reopened in 2005 after a successful capital campaign and a naming donation by Jordan Schnitzer as the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. In September we will look back and forward in Art of the Harvest: JSMA at 90. We’re calling it a celebration, not a “gala,” but a bit of fancy dressing will be welcome. The event is planned as a special fundraiser for our education programs, particularly our innovative Art Heals activities. We’ll roam the museum’s first floor to sample delectable

dishes by a select group of Eugene’s finest chefs, sip local libations, and peruse silent auction items. With live music (don’t worry, not too loud!), and a crisp program presented during dessert in the Barker Gallery at the close of the evening, Art of the Harvest promises to be a thoroughly enjoyable way to salute the JSMA’s first 90 years. Stay tuned for more information as the summer progresses, and please plan to be there!

On the exhibition front, in late August we will open Lessons of the Hour, a stunning 10-screen video installation about Frederick Douglass, the great 19 th -century Black abolitionist and orator.

Created by the British video installation artist and filmmaker, Sir Isaac Julien, Lessons brings Douglass to life in a montage of reenacted scenes and documentary imagery. The emotional climax of the piece is Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What, to the American Slave, is the 4th of July,” a searing indictment of American chattel slavery and the racism underlying it. Douglass’s words resonate to this day, and bringing Lessons of the Hour here has been one of my personal goals since arriving at the University of Oregon.

Isaac is a valued colleague from my time at UC Santa Cruz, where we presented a festival of his film work in 2017, and where he has been a distinguished professor of the arts since 2019. I had admired his multi-screen video installations long before I knew him personally. So it is a genuine pleasure and a privilege to present Lessons of the Hour at the JSMA—all the more so in the immediate wake of his huge, 40-year retrospective at the Tate Britain in London.

Installation view, Lessons of the Hour–Frederick Douglass , Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 2019. Photo: Andy Olenick/Fotowerks Ltd. © Isaac Julien. Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro

This fall in the Barker Gallery, we are thrilled to present Strange Weather : From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, an exhibition including prints, painting, sculpture, and a massive wall installation by the Brooklyn-based artist, Leonardo Drew. In another connection to UC Santa Cruz, Strange Weather is curated by Rachel Nelson, Director of the UC Santa Cruz Institute of the Arts and Sciences, and her colleague Jennifer González, UCSC Visual Studies professor. Strange Weather brings together a superb selection of work by a stellar and highly diverse group of artists. Drew’s installation is a tour-de-force, and the show has a wide range of work, moods, and imagery. Together it’s a testimony to the unsettling nature of the world and the way we live now, and artists’ voices speaking about it.

At the same time, we will also show a group of works on paper by New Yorker Glenn Ligon in the APS Gallery, also from Jordan’s collection, and also curated by Nelson and González. Ligon is another long-time favorite of mine, and the selection of pieces in this show displays his range, ironic bite, and the distinct conceptual/political flavor of his work. Even in smaller-scale pieces such as those on view in this show, his work hits home.

Elsewhere in this issue of the magazine, you’ll find my wide-ranging interview with Jordan himself. He talks at length about how he began collecting prints, his art heroes, and how he approaches the work of creating a “teaching collection” aimed at projects exactly like Strange Weather. He also tells the story of how he came to add immense installation pieces like the Leonardo Drew to his collection. As you’ll see this fall, Drew’s Number 215b (he numbers his pieces rather than using narrative titles) is about as far from a framed print as you can get!

Also on the exhibition front, in An Unfinished Journey: Embodying the Feminist City, curated by Adriana Miramontes Olivas, our Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American and Caribbean Art, we are pleased to present a powerful video installation in the APS Gallery by Mexican artist Tania Candiani, along with works by Sandra C. Fernández and Lilliam Nieves. Framing the Revolution, our first show from the Wadsworth Collection of Contemporary Chinese Photography, curated by Chief Curator Anne Rose Kitagawa,

Jordan Schnitzer at closing reception for JSMA PSU Black Lives Matter Artist Grant winners with Baba Wagué Diakité. Left is J’reyesha Brannon and then (in mask) Amirah Chatman, fellow winners. April 27, 2022. Photo by Dal Perry, JSFF

Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Grow'd (detail), 2019, cast bronze. 78 1/2 x 39 x 44 inches. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Image: Aaron Wessling Photography

Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960). Untitled (2000-2099), edition PP 3/5, 2011, inkjet print 30 x 22 in. Collection of Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation

continues through August 27. At a moment that continues to see a rise in tensions between the U.S. and China, we feel it is more important than ever to show these images and encourage our visitors to learn more about the histories they represent. I also want to put in a plug for James Turrell’s CAPE HOPE , on view through next spring in our Focus West Gallery. Words cannot explain the impact of his mesmerizing, everchanging light installation, you just have to experience it. Please do!

If you haven’t seen it yet, please check out our beautiful catalogue for The First Metal: Arts and Crafts Copper. The show went on view in early May in the MacKinnon Gallery. It features work in our own Margo Grant Walsh Collection of 20 th Century Metalwork, along with a select number of private and museum loans. The catalogue has been in the JSMA Store since then and can be ordered online as well. This is the first publication devoted exclusively to the emergence of copper metalworking in the late 19 th and early 20 th century Arts and Crafts movement. Printed in Italy, it’s a gorgeous publication. I thank Margo for making it possible, and Marilyn Archer for her work as co-editor.

time keeping up with requests for art viewing sessions there. All of our curators and our academic and collections staff have contributed to the ongoing success of our work in support of the UO academic program, and I thank them for the fantastic year we just completed. I also thank the faculty who brought their students to the museum, and our Faculty Engagement Working Group for helping to keep us in touch with teaching and research at the university.

Please be sure to read the article on our Art Heals programs in this issue. It outlines the amazing work and research project the JSMA has been conducting with the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland and their head of narrative medicine, Dr. Elizabeth Lahti. Conceived and brilliantly executed by Lisa Abia-Smith, our Director of Education/Outreach, this partnership is truly breaking new ground in the application of art and art activities to the science of wellbeing, caregiving, and physician training and resilience practices. Our thanks to Dr. Lahti, and to Stephanie Hagerty and our other Art Heals partners at Good Samaritan Hospital in Benton County for working together in this rapidly developing and important field. Thanks also to the Coeta and Donald Barker Foundation and the Tykeson Family Foundation for supporting our Art Heals work.

Great news: Faculty and student academic use of the JSMA is back to its pre-pandemic highs! By the end of April we had over 10,100 students from 368 classes using the collection and our exhibitions for their classes. Our new Collections Lab has been a hit, and we’ve had a hard

As we launch into the coming academic year, I thank our Leadership Council (LC) and its President, Patti Barkin, and Vice President, Sarah Finlay, for their work last year on our behalf, along with our committee chairs Ina Asim (Collections), Doug Blandy (Education), Doug Park (Development), and Sarah (Communications and Engagement), and all of the LC members. In the past year, the LC worked with us on Long Range Strategic Planning, gearing up for Art of the Harvest: JSMA at 90, advised on collection matters, community engagement and communications, and JSMA education programming. Our meetings were substantive and meaty, and we had great participation as well from non-LC community members. I look forward to another good year of collaboration.

See you at the museum, John Weber

Tania Candiani (b. 1974, Mexico City). Pulse (Pulso), 2016, 3 channel video, 11 min 41 sec. On loan from Tania Candiani

East Asian Languages and Literatures Professor Glynne Walley leads a discussion about Japanese woodblock prints with students from his JPN 410/510 Culture of Play in Early Modern Japan class on June 8, 2023.

Isaac Julien, Lessons of the Hour

This fall in the Schnitzer Gallery the JSMA presents Sir Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass, a breathtaking meditation on the great 19 th -century abolitionist. Julien’s immersive 10-screen film installation collapses time and space, alternating between contemplative, poetic sequences reflecting Douglass’s long life and travels, and moments of passionate political oratory. In Lessons, Julien has created a profoundly powerful, resonating art experience that brings Douglass thrillingly to life, making clear the importance of his legacy and the continuing relevance of his political voice and moral vision.

Born in 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery and went on to become a masterful writer and orator. He was one of history’s greatest activists for freedom and equality, and an early advocate for women’s suffrage. The author of three important autobiographies written to advocate for abolition, Douglass used his incredible life story, eloquence, and the power of his image to combat the dehumanizing depictions of Black Americans used to justify slavery. In doing so, he became the most photographed American of the 19 th century.

Julien’s video narrative is informed by Douglass’s powerful speeches. It includes excerpts from “Lessons of the Hour,” “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?,” and the prescient “Lecture on Pictures,” which examines the emergence of photography and its potential to influence human relations. Ray Fearon, a British Shakespearean actor, portrays Douglass within the film, delivering Douglass’s words with a nuanced precision and passionate fire that bring the great historical figure rivetingly to life. Around Fearon/Douglass’s magisterial

Schnitzer Gallery | August 9 – December 10, 2023

Portrait of Isaac Julien. Photo © Theirry Bal

—Frederick Douglass

visage, Julien weaves passages of Douglass’s writings with filmed reenactments of the abolitionist’s travels in the United States, Scotland, and Ireland. These are interspersed with contemporary protest footage that makes Douglass’s modern-day relevance and resonance both palpable and undeniable.

Lessons of the Hour is presented across 10 video screens of varying sizes, creating a 29-minute, mesmerizingly lush, ever-changing montage of image and sound. It includes sequences shot in Washington, D.C., at The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, where Douglass lived late in life, and where his house in Cedar Hill has been kept conserved as it was during the abolitionist’s time. Other sequences were filmed in Scotland, where Douglass was an active member of the “Send Back the Money” movement and delivered anti-slavery speeches, and in London’s Royal Academy of Arts, to an audience which includes both 19 th century characters, and contemporary, real-life scholars and Royal Academicians. The installation is accompanied by a significant catalogue available in the JSMA store, including scholarly essays by Henry Louis Gates, Deborah Willis, and others.

Born in London’s East End to parents who migrated from the Caribbean Island of Saint Lucia, Isaac Julien is an internationally renowned filmmaker and artist whose work has been shown in major exhibitions and film festivals since the 1990s and collected by museums worldwide. Before focusing on video installations such as Lessons of the Hour, he became known for early films such as Looking for Langston (1989), about the Harlem Renaissance figure Langston Hughes, and Young Soul Rebels (1991), which won the Semaine de la Critique prize for best film at the Cannes Film Festival. His films, photography, single-channel and multi-screen video installations are featured in Isaac Julien, What Freedom Means to Me, a retrospective exhibition from April 23 to August 20, 2023 at the Tate Britain in London, surveying his work across four decades. In 2022 Queen Elizabeth knighted Julien “for services to diversity and inclusion in art.” He divides his time between his London studio and the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is a distinguished professor of the arts.

Installation view, Lessons of the Hour–Frederick Douglass , Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 2019.

Photo: Andy Olenick/Fotowerks Ltd. © Isaac Julien.

Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro

Strange Weather: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Barker Gallery

October 21, 2023 - April 7, 2024

Leonardo Drew (American, b. 1961), Number 215b, 2020, wood, paint and sand. Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Image: Aaron Wessling Photography

The JSMA is pleased to present Strange Weather : From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, an exhibition featuring contemporary artworks which explore the relationships and boundaries between bodies and the environment. Co-organized by Dr. Rachel Nelson, Director of the UC Santa Cruz Institute of the Arts and Sciences, and her colleague, Professor Jennifer González, UCSC Visual Studies, Strange Weather will be on view in the Barker Gallery from October 21, 2023 until April 7, 2024.

The artworks in Strange Weather span five decades, from 1970 to 2020, and include work by some of the most influential artists in the United States today, including Leonardo Drew, Kehinde Wiley, Lorna Simpson, Julie Mehretu, Terry Winters, Nicola Lopez, Edgar Heap of Birds, Carlos Amorales, James Lavadour, Kiki Smith, Hung Liu, Joe Feddersen, Wendy Red Star, Alison Saar, and more.

The exhibition features Drew’s immense installation, Number 215b, a floor-to-ceiling assemblage of found materials that evokes a chaotic storm exploding off the gallery walls. Moody and darkly threatening,

it strikes the dominant note in an exhibition with a remarkably wide and nuanced range of artistic methods and attitudes.

“For Strange Weather, we selected artworks from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation with climate change weighing heavily on our minds,” Dr. Nelson explains. “While this is certainly not a didactic exhibition, living through wildfires and drought motivated us to explore the impressive collections of over 16,000 objects for the different aesthetic approaches artists use to illuminate the histories, experiences, and socio-political contexts that led to this moment.”

“It has been such a pleasure to work with my colleague Rachel Nelson in selecting works by some extraordinary contemporary artists,” Prof. González adds. “The exhibition provides a glimpse of the richness of contemporary art, and its capacity to enliven both our understanding of human history and the critical questions facing us today.”

All works in this exhibition are from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

Clockwise: Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977). The World Stage: Brazil: Marechal Floriano Peixoto II , 2012, oil on canvas. 107 x 83 inches. Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Image: Aaron Wessling Photography Carlos Amorales (Mexican, b. 1970). Useless Wonder Map #1, edition 4/7, 2010, relief. 39 1/2 x 52 1/2 inches. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Image: Strode Photographic Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Grow'd , 2019, cast bronze. 78 1/2 x 39 x 44 inches. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Image: Aaron Wessling Photography

Glenn Ligon: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

APS Gallery | October 21, 2023 – April 7, 2024

This exhibition in the Artists Project Space brings together works on paper by Glenn Ligon that explore how constructions of blackness in the United States infuse popular culture, literature, and history. The artworks engage entangled histories of race, literature, and culture, with a broad range of references from slave narratives to children’s coloring books. Together, they poignantly articulate the role of language and popular culture in the structuring of the self—and society—in both the past and present.

Since the early 1990s, Glenn Ligon’s work has engaged questions of race, American history, identity and queer sexuality, and related topics. One of the most prominent artists of his generation, Ligon has shown in major international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale, and is part of museum collections across the United States. In 2011 the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a mid-career retrospective of his work, Glenn Ligon: AMERICA.

All works in this exhibition are editions from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

Top: Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960). Self Portrait at Eleven Years Old , edition 7/20, 2004, Stenciled linen pulp on cotton-based sheet. 36 x 30 inches. Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Image: Strode Photographic

Bottom: Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960). Narratives , edition PPI, 1993, Photogravure with chine collé. 28 x 21 3/8 inches. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer. Image: Strode Photographic

Interview with Jordan D. Schnitzer

As we prepare to open Strange Weather: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, JSMA executive director John Weber spent some time learning about the history and motivation behind Jordan Schnitzer’s collecting.

John Weber: Who were your first art heroes? I know the first work of art you bought was by Louis Bunce. What about him and other artists you encountered when you were first starting out?

Jordan D. Schnitzer: In my opinion, in Portland, Oregon, the most important artists of 1950 to 2000 were Louis Bunce and Mike (Michele) Russo. Like artists in most communities, they taught to make a living and they were the two teachers at the Portland Art

Museum Art School (now called the Pacific Northwest College of Art), and they had a huge influence on my late mother, Arlene Schnitzer. They were also the first two bigger than life artists that I met as a young boy. Louis Bunce had spent time in Paris with Picasso, he had a savoir faire the way he dressed in a sport coat and scarves and always a cigarette flopping in his mouth as was customary for the time. He had a husky voice, a smile and twinkly eye—all the students loved taking classes and socializing with him. Mike Russo was introverted but a wonderful teacher. The Italian heritage was never far away from his voice and thoughts. His wife, Sally Haley, was an amazing portrait artist and did works of fruit, nuts, and chairs. These three artists were at the top of the heap in Portland during my formative art learning years!

These three, along with another artist named Carl Morris, convinced my mother to open a gallery. At the time, the Portland Art Museum had a rental sales gallery but in the early 1960s in Portland, Oregon, there were not any contemporary galleries. So, my mother Arlene, along with her mother, Helen Director, opened the Fountain Gallery of Art, so named because the cheapest space in town was in one of the oldest buildings left in Portland, the 1889 New Market Theatre building—the rent was $50 a month and it was kitty corner from the Skidmore Fountain which played a part in early Portland’s history and resulted in my mother choosing the name The Fountain Gallery of Art!

I also remember going over to Mike Russo’s house to play with his son and being so impressed with how their house was so different than mine. It was full of skulls and bowls and all sorts of materials that Mike Russo and Sally Haley often used in their art. Overall it was a very nourishing time for me and helped form my perspective, ideas, and love for contemporary art!

JW: How about today? Do you have any art heroes now? Whose shows are you most interested in seeing? Who takes your breath away?

JDS: I have so many art heroes, it is hard to pick just a few. My art heroes reflect the nature and shape of our collection which looks like a dumbbell (I hope that does not reflect upon me as the curator, but there may be those who say I am not as smart as I hope to be!)

This dumbbell is weighted at both ends. On the first end lies the greats of the post-World War II American era. Our collection is filled with Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, and so many more. They were all masters at chronicling the post-World War II time in America. To pick a favorite I think is like asking who your favorite child is, and the answer is, it depends upon the day! Each time I look at work by any of those artists and others of that time, it takes my breath away. Like the greatest artists of other centuries, these artists were as good as it gets!

I look at Frank Stella’s work for instance and I stand there thinking “Wow!” This creative genius that puts all these shapes, forms, and colors together in this amazing way that somehow all comes together in images that defy time and space. Ellsworth Kelly—there is not anything he did that I do not love. The way he eliminates all distraction with his abstract shapes or forms reminds me of praying in a place of worship. I am not sure there has ever been anyone as good a colorist as he was. Robert Rauschenberg, probably the most intellectual of all those post-World War II artists. Jasper Johns, the most erudite, and mystical. You look at his work and try to understand the parts and pieces of what he is creating on canvas and prints, and it’s like being a detective. It is so much fun!

And then, of course, Andy Warhol. As many times as I have had exhibitions and seen his work in my collection and in other museums, it is always as fresh to me as it was the first time I saw his art! We are lucky to have over 1,400 Warhol works in the collection.

We have virtually all of the series of Marilyn (Marilyn Monroe), Mao (Mao Zedong), Endangered Species and on and on. We have had Warhol works in over 50 museums in the 35 years we have been sponsoring exhibitions from our collection.

Like Ellsworth Kelly, Warhol was a master colorist, but no other artist of the post-World War II period has done as good of a job at forcing us to deal with themes that were not only challenging at the time but are just as relevant today.

I think it is interesting if we look back through the history of art, culture, dance, and music—there are times that individuals have come along who rise up above others and whose work is time immemorial. I do not know if it was the post-World War II era in America—whether it was something in the water or a cosmic confluence of a genetic predisposition to art—it was undoubtedly a time where there were amazing artists working in America who produced art that will stand the test of time.

Now the other end of the dumbbell lies the current artists, such as Hank Willis Thomas, Alison Saar, Leonardo Drew, Enrique Chagoya, locally— Lucinda Parker, Sherrie Wolf, to name a few. These artists both locally and nationally are doing incredible work. Their work has the same effect on me as the post-World War II older American artists. Their work is again chronicling issues of our time and forcing me and everyone else to deal with our society today and the challenges we face. Last year, I was talking to Michael Govan, the director at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art known as LACMA. He authored his thesis on prints, so of course he is a hero to me! I asked him about how Frank Stella will be thought of in twenty-five years. Michael said, “He’ll be a historical artist.” That made me think because Michael said that every year out of the thousands of artists that we see at the art fairs or at galleries and museums, there are maybe two that break out every year and become important artists of that year. He then said, every century there are probably two artists that rise above all the others. In my opinion, if we look back at the twentieth century, the most important artist of the first half would be Picasso and for the second half, Warhol. That does not mean that Mondrian, De Kooning and dozens of others are not extremely important and brilliant artists who I think will stand the test of time. It is just that if we prioritize who magically rises above others, it is the two that I have suggested.

JW: I totally agree. So that is the twentieth century. How about now?

JDS: Right now, my art heroes are Judy Chicago and mostly artists of color doing spectacular work including Hank Willis Thomas, Leonardo Drew, Kara Walker, Alison Saar, Mickalene Thomas, Dinh Q. Le, and Hung Liu (who recently passed). I am so proud to say that as far as I know, our exhibition program has had more exhibitions of artists of color than any other institution. Also, we have had many shows of women artists and currently have an exhibition of Asian artists travelling to five museums across the country. It is not only staggering but depressing to me to look back through history and find that women artists and artists of color were treated not only as second-class citizens, but as secondclass artists. What is so wonderful about this day and age is that the

pendulum is finally swinging in a new direction. It is clear that so much of the best work being done today is by artists of color and women. It is their time to shine.

I have close relationships with some of these artists. Hank Willis Thomas is brilliant—I am amazed by his intellectual depth, creativity, and powerful messages. He is doing amazing work that receives a lot of criticism, which I do not think is a bad thing. That means his work is shaking people up. Like his monumental sculpture, The Embrace, commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Boston—it is an extraordinary piece! I have a big collection of his work and keep buying more. Then there is the ingenious Leonardo Drew based in Brooklyn and a close friend I have gotten to know over the last five years. I love all of his work. For me, the magic of his work lies in the shapes, forms, and materials he uses. His process is incredible. I could go on and on about my favorite artists, but lastly, I will mention the innovative and inspiring Alison Saar. We published a book on the large collection we have of her work to accompany the traveling exhibition. Alison is a pioneer, unapologetically tackling identity politics and historic and present-day issues. Her ability to navigate between print and sculpture is so unique.

JW: Changing gears just a bit, how do you decide what to add to the collection? Given all you see, however many shows a year. What influences you?

JDS: First of all, I don’t have a curator that tells me, “Jordan you should buy this.” Whether it’s a $5 item at a Saturday market, or an expensive piece from a gallery, my philosophy is as long as you buy what you like, then you will always feel good about it! There is no shortage of things I respond to, but I buy art either for the Foundation or for me personally. When I buy art for the Foundation, I am thinking about how the work fits within a teaching collection and how it will serve museum directors

and curators like yourself. What response might this piece evoke? If I buy art that no museum wants to borrow, then it just sits in the warehouse and defeats its purpose for the Foundation.

Now, on the personal side I buy things that I want to live with. I do not tend to rotate pieces I have up because I get so attached to them. Unless a museum wants to borrow it for a show, I do not want to see it go away.

In essence, I buy what I like. I buy from galleries, all the major auction houses and print publishing houses. I have great relationships at so many of these wonderful entities.

JW: Do you talk to artists about other artists? Do artists ever say to you, “Hey, you should look at so and so’s work”?

JDS: A little bit. For instance, Hank Willis Thomas is close to the artist Christopher Myers, and I bought some of his work at Art Basel in Miami this year. I bought this incredible piece that creates a whole environment titled, Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me. You should show it. It is a 30-foot room with all this fabric on the outside and 6 backlit stained-glass pieces, light boxes showing historical figures, black water goddesses, deities, and over 100 candles all around. It is a very powerful piece and is now in a couple of museum shows.

JW: You are the biggest print collector in the country, and maybe ten years ago or so, people tended to think about you as a print collector, primarily. But I want to talk about the rest of the story. Were you always buying paintings and drawings, and sculpture as well? Or did you at some point make a purposeful shift, because something like the swimming pool piece or the central piece in Strange Weather by Leonardo Drew— those are as far away from prints on paper as one could get. And the commitment it took from you to get the Leonardo Drew piece is immense. So, can you tell us about that?

Jordan Schnitzer and Hank Willis Thomas during the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation Lecture Series at the 2022 IFPDA. October 28, 2022. Photo by Dal Perry, JSFF

JDS: Looking back, when my mother was getting ready to open the Fountain Gallery of Art, I visited the space a week before it opened. The artists were there. They were sheet rocking some walls, painting and getting the floor all ready. There was a piece of furniture over on the side with all these little drawers. I was seven years old, and I remember going over to it and thinking, “This is odd. Those little drawers are not big enough for sweaters or socks. I wonder what it is?” And I opened it. Turns out it was a print drawer. I was looking down at this beautiful fuchsia work, and my mother came over and said, “You like that?” I responded, “Yes,” and she said, “Well, you can have it.” It was by Stanley Hayter, and it dawned on me years later that the first thing I actually ever got was a print!

Growing up, I loved paintings, sculpture, and all mediums, including prints. Since I had known her since I was young, I went to a local artist and professor at University of Oregon, Laverne Krause, and she did a tribute print, which I then sold for $500 apiece to raise money for a LaVerne Krause fund for the museum. I organized a number of tribute dinners to help raise money for the University of Oregon Art Museum, which as you know, was named for me 15 years ago.

After my mother closed the gallery and turned it over to the late Laura Russo, I came up from a board meeting at the Portland Art Museum. There was an exhibition of prints and multiples that was arranged by the late Gordon Gilkey; he was Dean of the Art Department at Oregon State (during World War II he was one of those “monuments men”) and I thought to myself, while I want to continue buying paintings and sculpture of Pacific Northwest artists, it might be fun to buy a few prints. I went down to the Augen Gallery owned by Bob Kochs and bought a small Frank Stella, small Hockney, and the small Jim Dine called Garrity Necklace, A Heart, a Skull, and Cross. As I was leaving, I saw a Frankenthaler and an Ellsworth Kelly and came back next week for those. So, after about seven to eight years of buying these prints, one of your predecessors, David Robertson—years ago the director at the University of Oregon Museum—asked if we could do an exhibition of prints, and I said, “Sure.” He came up and went through my binder that had 300 prints in it, and he picked 56 for an exhibition in 1995. I came down to the building a few months later and was impressed by the way the curator Larry Fong had arranged the 56 works. I thought, this is like walking into a room with friends, yet I have never met any of those artists. Then it got even better. When I saw some adults with their kids, and they were looking at various works, I got so excited by sharing the art. I thought, as much passion as I have for the art, it is even exceeded by sharing it. I realized, as I thought often before, that I was lucky that my mother, Arlene Schnitzer, opened the art door for me!

But for many people on that University of Oregon campus, they still felt that building over there was for some elitist few, for somebody else, and that mirrors society. While we all look at going to museums as a treasured event, most people are pretty intimidated.

I thought, what if I could develop a significant private collection of art and make it available for free to loan to university and regional

museums? The reason I picked prints and multiples was because, not having an art history degree myself, I Iearn the most from retrospectives and thematic shows of artists. The second part of the equation was the ability to acquire a lot of work by an artist—it is much more affordable to do it through prints and multiples than through other mediums.

I never could have afforded, even when I started (when prices were far lower), buying 20 or 30 or 40 Lichtenstein paintings. In 1998 when I started the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, I could have probably bought a Warhol painting for $500,000, a Frank Stella painting for $250,000, or a Lichtenstein. Let’s say, we started off with $16 million to spend on art in 1998. Let’s say I bought sixteen one-million-dollar paintings. Well, that collection would probably be worth a billion dollars today. In which case I would be sitting here saying look at me, I’ve got sixteen pieces by Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, or Warhol, or whatever. Whereas what I have now is sheer joy from sharing the collection I have!

It brings me immense joy knowing that we have had 180 exhibitions at 120 museums, that we have work by some of the most important artists of our time and that we share it by serving communities across the country. The sense of stewardship and personal legacy of giving back and trying to make a difference in my own way—it is a difficult feeling to describe!

JW: That makes perfect sense. And that also answers the question of why you collect in such depth—because it has such teaching value. Holding multiple works by the artists you collect helps you contextualize and helps you understand what the artist is doing. Whereas one or two pieces never does--it just does not get you there.

JDS: Our collection allows you and other museum directors and curators to produce any theme you can think of: East Coast/West Coast; male/ female; Latino or Hispanic art of the last 30 years; artists of color, the way our population is increasing and so on.

I remember Margaret Mondavi (who helped found Mondavi Winery with her husband Robert) called up and wanted to do an exhibition from

Jordan Schnitzer at Tandem Press in Madison, Wisconsin, looking on as Paula Panczenko shows a work by Alison Saar. June 23, 2021. Photo by Dal Perry, JSFF

our collection of artists who taught at UC Davis. Well, I had thought a lot before about those artists individually, and how they all were at UC Davis, but I never thought about them all collectively. We have William Wiley, John Buck, Bruce Nauman, Roy De Forest, Robert Arneson, Squeak Carnwath, and Wayne Thiebaud. There were a dozen major artists who all taught or attended art school there. When we had that show, I saw things that you might have thought about, but I never had. What dawned on me then, is the power of the collection that has still not been utilized nearly as much as it should be, to create these thematic shows. There is so much yet to be exhibited with themes yet to be discovered, that we certainly have the capability of doing.

For me, my exhibition program is all about the art and the audience. I have no sense of ownership of the 21,000 pieces we have in the collection. I do not know where I would go internally to have a sense of ownership—things do not register for me that way. The only objects I feel different about materially are the ring my mother got me when I was 13 that I have worn ever since, and the Breitling watch I got when I was 40 from my father! Whether it is the buildings we own in the company, or the art we own, I see myself more as a steward.

world, called me up 15 years ago and said, “Jordan, we’d like to have a lecture series for the print art fair, would you fund it?” I said, “Absolutely.” There were talks by Kiki Smith, Mel Bochner, and many others. Then about seven or eight years ago, Dick called up again and said, “You ever heard of this artist named Leonardo Drew?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “Jordan, you will love his work.” They had published some of his work, and they sent it to me, and I loved it. So, I show up a few months later in New York, and Leonardo Drew was there, and I meet him, and he gives his talk, and I was transfixed by his personality, sense of humor, his smile, and I loved his work.

The next thing I know, he said, “Come on over to the studio in Brooklyn.” I went over, loved it, and then the next year I came out with my two young sons. He grabs my little boys and puts them on the floor. There was wood and stuff all over the place. He gives them hammers, and they start banging away on stuff and having fun, and then he has a little lift in his studio, and they go up and down on the lift—it was a magical experience.

On one of those visits about three years ago, I see this fabulous big piece on the wall (Number 215b, the centerpiece of Strange Weather), with all sorts of pieces all over the place, and I said, “I want it!” Okay, now, little did I know it would take maybe 40 crates and an entire truck to move it, and that Catherine Malone, my collection manager who has been with me 26 years, would give me a schoolmarm scolding: “Jordan, do you see how much space this piece takes to store?” Not to mention the cost of shipping, my gosh! So yes, I have learned a bit in my enthusiasm to also think about the storage.

The first time I actually saw it was in the exhibition at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Strange Weather. I remember I got there a few hours early for the opening. I went in, and I looked at it, and Leonardo was there too. On the side of it were a couple hundred more little pieces, and on the floor were about 400 or 500 more pieces. And I said, “Oh, my god! I got all that other stuff for free!” Because when I saw this work on the wall, it did not have all those other little pieces! He laughed.

JW: Let's talk about the Leonardo Drew piece that you decided to steward. In terms of scale, it was a big jump up, even from those giant prints that you have, like the Mel Bochner works. Those are huge prints, but the Leonardo Drew is literally a whole truckload of art! Did it just knock you out so much you said, “I have to have this”? You cannot put it up in your house, it’s too big! So, what happened?

JDS: First the history with Leonardo Drew. The International Fine Print Dealers Association Exhibition in New York is the main art show I go to. Dick Solomon from Pace Prints, who is a legend in the New York

It is an absolute tour-de-force. Due to its size and because of its wonderful complexity, the randomness, and the planned part. I think everyone who looks at it will be as taken with it as I was the first time I saw it in his studio.

JW: We are going to put it in a section of the gallery all by itself, and we’re going to have it on three walls. You are going to be essentially inside it and it’s going to be fabulous.

JDS: A number of the major artists I am collecting now are very strong, thematic artists of color. Leonardo happens to be an artist of color, but I do not see his work in the same thematic way—it does not present topically.

Jordan Schnitzer with Leonardo Drew in front of Drew's Number 228 at a reception for the artist for the opening of Leonardo Drew: Cycles, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation at the University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMass Amherst. September 19, 2019. Photo by John Solem, University Photographer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

JW: It presents abstractly. But there may be topical things going on in it that he is thinking about. In my experience, a lot of abstract artists might be thinking about something that’s not explicitly named in the work, sometimes it’s psychological, sometimes it’s family, and it could be political as well, but it’s not readily visible in the work. It’s there for them, but it’s not there for us.

JDS: Right, and that is how I see his work—creative genius, that interaction between the organic and inorganic, that tension between those two. It is a wonderful counterpoint to the power of Alison Saar’s work, like the piece in Strange Weather entitled Grow’d, 2019, that is an amazing sculpture.

JW: Do you have something that you would see as a kind of philosophy of collecting?

JDS: When I give these art talks, I always say to the audience something like, “You are all artists, aren’t you? You took art in grade school or high school. I know that most of you, when you’re in a restaurant where there’s paper and crayons on the table, you’re all playing with it. But to be in University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, something has to happen. First, you’ve got to be someone that has a genetic predisposition to an aesthetic. Then secondly, you have to be possessed with the desire to rip open your guts and have some message you want to visually portray. You have to get that out to the world and be ready to take criticism. Third, you have to do it in a different way.”

So, in terms of the artists in my collection, they are all people that met those tests. Leonardo Drew, Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Marie Watt, Dihn Q. Le, Roger Shimomura, Lichtenstein, Nevelson, or Louise Bourgeois—you look at any of these artists work and you will know who created it because their brand is so uniquely their own.

JW: Knowing yourself as you do, is there a question that you would want to ask yourself that nobody else would think to ask you?

JDS: I am fascinated about how we as human beings experience art. I have been a student of art museums since I was young. I remember going to the Louisiana Museum outside Copenhagen when I was thirteen and being struck by the way they used windows, light, and grass. It was situated in harmony with the nature around it. I have always hoped to explore—probably in the museum that we actually operate ourselves someday—the issue of how to optimize the viewer’s experience with art.

It’s like when you go to Europe or something, and you want to see everything because there’s so much to see, and by the early afternoon jet lag hits you, fatigue, and you are just worn out.

I wonder if seeing a whole lot of art in a building is really the right way to experience that art? I do not have the answers, and I am not saying it isn’t. I love our exhibitions. I love the exhibitions you have done. But in terms of asking a question—and not that there is only one answer— but what is the best way for any of us to experience art?

Eventually (hopefully soon), I will have my own exhibition space, and I can try some different things. For instance, I have always wondered if you had a big room, like your space upstairs, and we put up two Ellsworth Kelly works, one on each end, and nothing else, would that be better than putting up 60 or 80 more Ellsworth Kelly pieces on the walls in between and on some portable walls? I do not know, but I find the question to be deliciously challenging!

JW: That is truly fascinating, and I look forward to seeing you make it happen. Is there an upcoming exhibition you are really excited about?

JDS: Yes. We are lending 70 Warhols to the Hugh Lane Art Gallery in Dublin, Ireland. I have never been there, and I am excited to go.

Next, one of the most important exhibitions I have ever loaned art to will be the Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum in New York that opens this Fall.

I think there is no female artist over the last 50 years that is as important as Judy Chicago! She has not just pushed the glass ceiling for women artists but blown it open! Her six decades of tackling social justice issues is unparalleled. She embodies everything I expect an artist to do— challenge us, frustrate us, bring us joy, and most importantly, forever change us!

JW: Thank you, Jordan, for everything you do for art, for the JSMA, and for the University of Oregon.

Jordan Schnitzer at the Palm Springs Art Museum during a VIP exhibition preview and reception for the Andy Warhol: Prints From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation exhibition. March 2, 2018. Photo by Dal Perry, JSFF

New Collections Lab Transforms JSMA’s Teaching Experience

As a teaching and learning museum, the JSMA upholds its belief that knowledge of art enriches people’s lives by engaging faculty and students with the museum’s permanent collection, loans, and exhibitions.

Prompted by our ever-growing teaching mission and collection, the JSMA undertook the creation of a new object-based teaching space for students to interact with art: The Collections Lab. By transforming this 1,700 square foot room to better meet our institutional goals, the JSMA has created a space to meet the needs of our organizational mission.

This renovation offers significant improvements in our ability to host academic visits, as it allows for both the accommodation of larger classes and safe storage for our large scale, contemporary Chinese photography and other important works. The improved facilities include over 5,500 square feet of rolling art racks to visibly store our largest photographs and framed art. The art racks allow us to share large pieces without time-consuming retrieval and unpacking. Moreover, the addition of 30 flat file drawers provides a dedicated space for unframed works, while a purpose-built display wall enables the presentation of items during class periods. A large display monitor

and space to accommodate up to 40 students allow us to host more classes with greater efficiency. The JSMA extends its heartfelt gratitude to Jack and Susy Wadsworth and their W.L.S. Spencer Foundation for the gift of art and supporting funds which made this transformative project possible.

As expected, we are already seeing an increase in object-based teaching by faculty, prompted by the availability of these improved facilities. Since its opening in February 2023, the Collections Lab has hosted over 40 class visits and shared more than 600 artworks, a notable increase over past years, and evidence that this space has increased our institutional capacity to support our collections and the teaching mission of the University. We look forward to the continued evolution of this space as a catalyst for transformative education in the years to come.

The Collections Lab was made possible with generous support from the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation. Additional support from the Japan Foundation provided funds for additional flat file storage for works on paper frequently used by UO Faculty.

McCosh Curator Danielle Knapp highlights works from the JSMA collection for Miko Aono’s ARTR 347 Intaglio Printmaking. Since opening in February 2023, the Collections Lab has been used as a learning space for 44 classes.

Shared Visions | Christina Quarles

On view July 5 – October 8, 2023

Christina Quarles started drawing classes as a twelve-year-old in Chicago, when she first became interested in depicting how identity manifests in the body. Now based in Los Angeles, Quarles draws on her own experience as a biracial, queer woman to deconstruct labels that define and categorize people. With contorted figures and multiple perspective techniques, the painter blurs assumed binaries of male/female, black/white, abstract/representational, and public/ private. Her colorful, multi-textured canvases are produced with a combination of paint and digital stencils and titled for phrases she overhears in public. Try n’ Pull tha Rains in on Me was completed during a 2022 residency at Hauser & Wirth Somerset in anticipation of the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. The figures twist and pose confidently with a rainbow plane, an important symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Quarles recognizes the complexity of both breaking down and uplifting markers of identity in her work. As the artist once said: “The contradiction of my Black ancestry coupled with my fair skin results in my place always being my displace. Throughout my paintings, there are perspectival planes that both situate and fragment the bodies they bisect—location becomes dislocation. Fixed categories of identity can be used to marginalize but, paradoxically, can be used by the marginalized to gain visibility and political power. This paradox is the central focus of my practice.”

“You can be more complicated and contradictory when you’re not trying to get people to understand the shorthand version of you. You can just be in your body.”

Christina Quarles (American, b. 1985). Try n’ Pull tha Rains in on Me , 2022. Acrylic on canvas. 182.9 x 213.4 x 5.1 cm / 72 x 84 x 2 inches. Private Collection, Los Angeles. © Christina Quarles. Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Pilar Corrias, London.

Photo: Thomas Barratt

Capital and Countryside in Korea

Wan Koo and Young Ja Huh Wing & Jin Joo Gallery

On view through May 19, 2024

On view in the Jin Joo Gallery of the Wan Koo and Young Ja Huh Korean Art Wing, Capital and Countryside in Korea investigates the representation of urban and rural spaces in Korean art. Touching upon themes of memory and nostalgia, cultural heritage, written language, production and industry, and the significance of specific locales, this exhibition examines how these spaces have impacted the histories, cultures, and identities of people throughout the Korean Peninsula. A variety of works spanning the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE-668 CE) through the present are featured, including a Joseon-period (1392-1897) manuscript book of maps, a four-part print portfolio by the groundbreaking video artist PAIK Nam June (1932-2006), a monumental North Korean landscape painting by SEONU Yeong (1946-2009), and on display for the first time at the JSMA, an eight-panel folding screen showcasing important views of Jeju Island.

In conversation with the objects on view in Capital and Countryside in Korea, the Huh Wing Gallery will feature a selection of works by modern and contemporary women artists in celebration of the 50 th anniversary of the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS). These works recall the painting traditions of the yangban —the male Neo-Confucian scholar-officials who governed during the Joseon period. Joseon Korea was one of the most gendered societies of its time. Politics, scholarship, and the arts were all dominated by men, and women of the yangban class were almost exclusively confined to the domestic sphere, their contributions often overlooked and obscured. By evoking yangban artistic traditions like literati landscape paintings, Ten Symbols of Longevity pictures (sipjangsaeng-do), ancestor portraits, and scholarly-accoutrement images (chaekgeori-do), these 20 th -21st century women artists claim these cultural traditions as their own and highlight the important contributions made by Korean women.

Both installations are curated by MacKenzie Coyle, PostGraduate Curatorial Fellow in Asian Art, and will be on view through May 2024.

Elizabeth Keith (Scottish, 1887-1956). Riverside, Pyeng Yang [Pyongyang] , Korea, circa 1925-36. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 16 1/8 x 11 1/8 inches. Murray Warner Collection. MWB51:K44

“Woman was the Sun” | Art of Japanese Women

Fay Boyer Preble and Virginia Cooke Murphy Galleries Opens November 11, 2023

Pioneering feminist Hiratsuka Raichō (1886-1971) began the 1911 issue of Japan’s first all-women literary journal Seitō (Bluestocking) with the words “In the beginning, woman was the sun,” a reference to the legend that the Japanese imperial family descended from the Shintō Sun Goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami.* Despite these illustrious origins, the status of women declined over the last 2,000 years of Japanese history to the extent that they came to be viewed primarily as subservient accessories to men—“good wives and wise mothers” (ryōsai kenbo) or political pawns—rather than for their individual merit, intelligence, or creativity.

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society, the exhibition “Woman was the Sun” celebrates Japanese women through paintings, calligraphy, prints, sculpture, and decorative art from the permanent collection. The artists represented range from 19 th -century Buddhist poet, calligrapher, and ceramicist Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) through cutting-edge

contemporary artists Kusama Yayoi (born 1929) and Aoshima Chiho (born 1974), and include calligrapher Shinoda Tōkō (1913-2021), printmakers Minami Keiko (1911-2004), Iwami Reika (1927-2020), Oda Mayumi (born 1941), Betty Nobue Kano (born 1944), and Ozeki Ritsuko (born 1971), and prints by three generations of Yoshida artists: grandmother Yoshida Fujio (1887-1987), mother Yoshida Chizuko (19242017), and daughter Yoshida Ayomi (born 1958). The installation also features female subjects such as religious and literary figures, warriors, heroines, villains, and demons, along with a selection of Japanese artworks intended for curricular use.

“Woman was the Sun” was organized by chief curator Anne Rose Kitagawa and will incorporate additional art by Japanese women over the course of the exhibition.

*“In the beginning, woman was the sun, an authentic person. Now she is the moon, a wan and sickly moon, dependent on another, reflecting another’s brilliance.” – HIRATSUKA Raichō in Seitō (Bluestocking), 1911. Translated by Teruko Craig.

ODA Mayumi 小田檀 (Japanese-born American, b. 1941). Garden in Rain , 1981. Sōsaku hanga woodblock print; ink and color on paper, edition AP, 24 x 35 5/8 inches. Gift from the Asian Art Collection of Alice and Jack Hardesty

Half the Sky: Women in Chinese Art

Betty and John Soreng Gallery | August 2023 - July 2024

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS), the museum has organized a special exhibition entitled Half the Sky: Women in Chinese Art, referencing by Chairman Mao Zedong’s 1968 quotation “Women hold up half the sky,” meaning that they are the equal of men. The varied works on display attest to the remarkable resilience and creativity of women despite their relatively low status in traditional Chinese society due to Confucian and Buddhist value systems that deemed them to be inferior.

This installation draws primarily from the museum’s permanent collection and features Chinese paintings, calligraphy, prints, posters, photographs, and mixed-media works by and/or about women. Subjects include religious figures such as the Queen Mother of the

West and the Dragon King’s Daughter; dutiful female paragons of filial piety and women fulfilling gendered roles in silk production; historical figures and heroines of popular novels; anonymous beauties; modern role models disseminated through Communist propaganda; humanistic portrayals of anonymous photographic subjects, and futuristic visions. The artists represented include famed literati painter/calligrapher Guan Daosheng (12621319), modern ink painter Fang Zhaoling (1914-2006), political propaganda artists Li Fenglan (born 1933) and Zhou Sicong (19391996), inspirational Chinese-born American artist Hung Liu (19482021), avant-garde artist Xiao Lu (born 1962), and contemporary photographers Lin Tianmiao (born 1961) and Yu Hang (born 1981).

Half the Sky was organized by chief curator Anne Rose Kitagawa and will incorporate additional Chinese works over the course of the 2023-2024 academic year.

LIN Tianmiao 林天苗 (Chinese, b. 1961) and WANG Gongxin 王功新 (Chinese, b. 1960). Here or There? No. 14, 2002. 14th from an album of 15 photographs, edition 38/50, 14 ⁷ ₁₆ x 17 ⁵ ₁₆ inches.

Gift of the Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection of Contemporary Chinese Photographs

An Unfinished Journey: Embodying the Feminist City

APS Gallery | On view through August 27, 2023

An Unfinished Journey: Embodying the Feminist City speaks of an enduring endeavor to attain and maintain women’s rights. Through mixed media artworks by Sandra C. Fernández (b. 1964, New York), Tania Candiani (b. 1974, Mexico City), and Lilliam Nieves (b. 1975, Puerto Rico) the exhibition asks how bodies can claim a sense of belonging and agency, how they can act against systems of oppression that devalue humans and different forms of seeing and being in our communities. How does urban design—architecture, zoning laws, and infrastructure—sustain or dismantle hegemonic power structures? And how can the city, as a space of relationality, and its inhabitants, exhort and advance social justice, as individuals continue to strive for their rights?

The “feminist city” imagines sites where bodies are respected and freed from violence. It recognizes that cities and bodies, much like the category of women and feminism, are contested terms and loci that continue to be redefined and reconceptualized. As feminist geographer Leslie Kern mentions, the feminist city is “an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly.” The feminist city adopts an intersectional approach to acknowledge and address both private and public acts of violence against the body. The feminist city brings awareness of different forms of exclusion, devaluation, and misogyny. It also invites us to demand women’s rights and to seek the empowerment of the individual and collective female body. The artists in this exhibition adopt video, painting, sewing, and printing techniques, to reclaim space, their bodies, and their rights in an unfinished journey to embody the feminist city. An Unfinished Journey is curated by Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD.

Lilliam Nieves, Beauty Queen IV, 2019. Red oak panel, surface inked with black ink, 96 x 48 x ¾ inches. Museum purchase with funds from the Ballinger Endowment Fund

Windows to the Ainu World Digital exhibition

The Ainu are an indigenous community from the islands of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Archipelago. Known for conducting trade throughout the Sea of Okhotsk region, in the nineteenth century Ainu lands were partitioned by colonial powers, and the Ainu were forcibly assimilated into Japanese and Russian society. While the colonial policies of the latenineteenth and early-twentieth centuries impacted many cultural practices, in recent decades activists have worked to revitalize these traditions, pushing for greater recognition from the Japanese government, and in 2019 the government of Japan officially recognized the Ainu as a distinct indigenous community.

Created by MacKenzie Coyle, Post-Graduate Curatorial Fellow in Asian Art, Windows to the Ainu World highlights the Ainu-related collections at the University of Oregon. Drawing from the collections of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, and the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives, this digital exhibition surveys and documents the numerous Ainu-related materials at the University of Oregon. While comprised largely of paintings, prints, sketches, and glass lantern slides—objects typically created by and for secondhand observers—these works offer a unique look at how the Hokkaido Ainu and their culture have been understood and represented by others throughout the centuries, opening important conversations about history, indigenous rights and agency, and colonialism as it relates to the Ainu community.

Learn more: bit.ly/46tGZMK

Chikarkarpe Robe, Japanese; Ainu, Meiji period (1868-1912). Cotton with appliqu é and embroidery, 50 1/2 x 48 inches width between sleeve ends, Museum Purchase, Director’s Fund SEKINO Jun'ichirō 関野準一郎 (Japanese, 1914-1988). Ainu Pattern ( Ainu moyō), 1982. Sōsaku hanga woodblock print; ink and color on paper, edition 52/128 27 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches. Museum Purchase made possible with funds donated in memory of Yoko McClain by Sylvia Giustina, the Sekino Family, Hue-Ping Lin and Dick Easley, Robert and Yukiko Innes, Hope Pressman, Sally and Ev Smith, Charles and Yvonne Stephens, and Thomas Roehl

With Open Eyes

Selected works by: Debbie Fleming Caffery

Ingeborg Gerdes

Dorothea Lange

Hung Liu

Anne Noggle

Gerda Peterich

Cecilia Vasquez Salinas

Carrie Mae Weems

Graves Gallery | On view through December 17, 2023

Academic Year 2023-24 marks the 50 th anniversary of the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) at the University of Oregon. JSMA joins our colleagues in the campus-wide celebration of CSWS’s history of intersectional feminist research, including considerations of gender, race, class, ability, and sexual orientation, and a commitment to social justice and gender equality.

Many of the works in With Open Eyes reflect aspects of the core themes of research the CSWS has been pursuing, and all exhibit an individuality of vision that is singular and distinct. As we continue to expand the permanent collection in both breadth and depth, exceptional photographs by established and lesser-known artists have recently been added.

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953), In the Halls of Justice, from the series Dreaming in Cuba , 2002, Inkjet print, Gift of the PhotoAlliance Board of Directors in honor of the artist

Curatorial responsibilities were shared between Thom Sempere, JSMA Associate Curator of Photography and Brit Micho, UO MA, Art History, Class 2023.

Continuing Exhibitions

Framing the Revolution: Contemporary Chinese Photographs from the Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection

Last day on view is August 27, 2023

Presented in the Barker Gallery, Framing the Revolution is the first major exhibition of the Wadsworths’ Chinese Collection. It features more than 50 politically-charged works by seven artists, ranging in date from 1958 to 2006. Together, they reflect upon modern Chinese history, examining events such as the Long March, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, and moments of tremendous social upheaval and change. Artists included are Wang Shilong, Liu Heung Shing, Xiao Lu, Sheng Qi, Shao Yinong & Muchen, and Qin Ga.

Take a virtual tour: bit.ly/3P5M1sI

WANG Shilong 王世龙 , (Chinese, 1930-2013), Blocking the Hidden Stream, Huixian County, 1974. Black-and-white photograph, 14 x 20 inches. Gift of the Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection of Contemporary Chinese Photographs

Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community

Last day on view is October 22, 2023

In Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community, we present the work of six artists to consider our own understandings of community, generosity, responsibility to the more-than-human world, and creativity in all its forms. Their prints, paintings, sculptures, and videos speak to individual and communal relationships with the land, water, and fellow living beings (human and non-human), and invite reflection on themes of reciprocity, storytelling, record-keeping, and lived experiences. Danielle Knapp, McCosh Curator, and Zoey Kambour, Post Graduate Curatorial Fellow in European & American Art, curated this selection of works. Support for Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community was provided by the Art Dealers Association of America Foundation.

Take a virtual tour: bit.ly/46460y4

The First Metal: Arts & Crafts Copper

On view through November 3, 2024

Drawing on the JSMA’s Margo Grant Walsh Twentieth Century Silver and Metalwork Collection and a select number of private and museum loans, the exhibition presents a range of hand-wrought copper works by many of the premier metalsmiths working in late 19 th and early 20 th century Britain, the United States, and beyond.

Read more: https://jsma.uoregon.edu/The-First-Metal

New Icon Additions to After Life: The Saints of Russian and Greek Orthodoxy

On view through 2023

Watch Now!

UO Today, the Oregon Humanities Center’s half-hour television interview program, recently interviewed three JSMA staff members: Lisa Abia-Smith shares the breadth of the JSMA’s education programs, Anne Rose Kitagawa dives deeper into Framing the Revolution: Contemporary Chinese Photography from the Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection, and Adriana Miramontes Olivas shares details about her first JSMA exhibitions. Hosted by Paul Peppis, director of the Oregon Humanities Center, UO Today provides a glimpse into the people and research that make the University of Oregon such a special place to learn.

Adriana Miramontes Olivas

Watch now: https://bit.ly/3qx5doT

Anne Rose Kitagawa

Watch now: bit.ly/43BxWYh

Lisa Abia-Smith

On display in the MacKenzie Gallery are four new icons, adding to the pre-existing show, After Life. Two of the icons are selected and curated by JSMA curatorial intern, Grigorii Malakhov (Theater Arts, ’24), supervised by 20212023 Post Graduate Fellow in European & American Art, Zoey Kambour. Grigorii selected the icons inspired by his own experiences in Russian Christian Orthodoxy, and specifically with the Bogomater icons.

Watch now: bit.ly/3NqkzEO

Clara Barck Welles lands at the San Francisco International Airport

On your next trip through San Francisco, stroll through the JSMA’s traveling exhibition, A New Woman: Clara Barck Welles, Inspiration & Influence in Arts & Crafts Silver. The exhibition is located pre-security in the Mayor Edwin M. Lee International Departures Hall at the San Francisco International airport. On view from June 10, 2023 to February 4, 2024, A New Woman is free to view for all Airport visitors.

A New Woman: Clara Barck Welles, Inspiration & Influence in Arts & Crafts Silver was organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in 2021 with support from Margo Grant Walsh. The original exhibition was planned in collaboration with Marilyn Archer, Curatorial and Design Consultant, and Margo Grant Walsh, Consultant.

Weaving Sovereignty:

The Art of Ceremony in Indigenous Oregon

Professor

On May 21, Dr. Rebecca Dobkins presented her talk Weaving Sovereignty: The Art of Ceremony in Indigenous Oregon, sharing from her recently published book The Art of Ceremony: Voices of Renewal from Indigenous Oregon (University of Washington Press). In her research, she explored how Indigenous customary practices of plant tending, harvesting, and weaving can contribute to broader conversations about art-making and tribal sovereignty in the Northwest.

The David and Anne McCosh Memorial Visiting Lecturer Series on Northwest Art is an annual program focused on topics related to Pacific Northwest art history and contemporary connections. This program is generously funded by the David John and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment Fund.

Dr. Dobkins’s lecture also supported the UO’s Common Reading of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer and the JSMA’s Common Seeing exhibition Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community.

David and Anne McCosh Memorial Visiting Lecturer Series on Northwest Ar t

Watch a playlist of past McCosh Memorial Visiting Lecturers bit.ly/McCoshLecture

Images: Frank Miller

Image: Jon Ivy (Coquille Tribe)

image courtesy of SFO Museum.

Rebecca Dobkins, PhD,

of Anthropology and Curator of Native American Art, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University

42nd Annual Day of the Dead

“Desde el alma para nuestras Almas”

“From the Heart to Our Souls”

¡Reserva la fecha!

Celebra el día de los muertos en el JSMA y disfruta de una noche de baile y música con presentaciones de Cindy Gutierrez y Paax K’aay Cuarteto de Cuerdas este noviembre 1 y 2 del 2023

Save the Date!

Celebrate the Day of the Dead at the JSMA and enjoy an evening of dance and music with performances by Cindy Gutierrez y Paax K’aay Cuarteto de Cuerdas this  November 1 and 2, 2023

From left to right: Performers include Daniel Tafoya, Marco Antonio Pruneda, Sindy Gutiérrez, Adriana Lorena Melgar, and Armando Delgado.

The Art of Being Well: Highlights of the Museum’s Programs for Wellbeing

Education Corridor Galleries | June 24, 2023 - January 28, 2024

Each year, the JSMA’s Art Heals program serves diverse audiences both locally on campus and throughout Oregon. The current exhibition on view in the Education Corridor Galleries includes a sample of over 30 works of art created both in-person and remotely during Art Heals sessions over the 2022-23 academic year.

Participants engaged in art expression workshops centering around themes of positionality through self-portraits and self-portraits as a tree.  Some of the artists used for inspiration were Kehinde Wiley, Joan Mitchell, Charles Burchfield, Rick Bartow, and Hung Liu.  The 90-minute Art Heals workshops were led by Lisa Abia-Smith, Dr. Elizabeth Lahti, and Karla Chambers, and offered participants dedicated time to experiment with materials and find avenues for self-expression and decompression.

Some of the self-portraits were created by medical professionals who participated in a 3-week Narrative Medicine Facilitator training in October and November 2022.  For the third year in a row, Lisa AbiaSmith and Dr. Grace Haynes were asked to serve as facilitators and guide participants through body-mapping exercises and prompts focusing on the obstacles they face as medical care providers and their own self-care. The self-portraits on display were created by physicians as they processed their own identities and positions as both healers and sometimes patients.

The other self-portraits in the exhibition were created in Art Heals workshops designed for hospice volunteers from Samaritan Evergreen Hospice in Corvallis and adults living with cancer participating in the Transformation Cancer Support Group at Samaritan Pastega Cancer Resource Center.  The final group represented are UO students and student-athletes, many of whom were incoming freshmen at the time, navigating the responsibilities of being a college student and the pressure of being an NCAA Division I student athlete.

Although these groups represent different ages and stages of life, the common thread that connects all of them is visible in this exhibition. It is the value that the arts can provide when navigating illness, anxiety, and stress, by providing a respite. Art Heals works across the State of Oregon and locally to provide a facilitated space for self-care and letting go.

Zachary G. Jacobs, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine Division of Hospital Medicine Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Coat of Arms Graphic Design. "First published in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. www.theintima.org

Ashton Cozart, University of Oregon Student-Athlete, Football. Untitled . Acrylics on Paper

Art Teaches features the JSMA’s Ten Symbols of Longevity screen

The JSMA’s Education Department is finalizing the creation of their next Art Teaches video focused on one of our most beloved pieces of Korean art, the Ten Symbols of Longevity screen. Minchae Cho, Korean Foundation

Global Intern for 2022-23, worked with Sherri Jones, Assistant Administrator of Education, to create this new lesson. It will feature the same curriculum planning as the first successful Art Teaches lessons, each featuring art from the exhibition Myriad Treasures: Celebrating the Reinstallation of Soreng Gallery of Chinese Art. The primary audience is students in grades 4-8, but it will have additional materials to inform older students and adult viewers as well.

Minchae Cho was awarded this prestigious competitive award from The Korea Foundation (KF) and arrived in Eugene in October of 2022. Minchae lives in Gyeonggi-do, near Korea’s capital of Seoul, and is working with JSMA Education for this academic year. She majored in Marketing at Hongik University in Korea and studied Culture, Policy and Management at City University in London, UK, where she was awarded her master’s degree. Minchae has shared that it is through her studies and work experience as a museum educator and curatorial assistant in Korea and the UK that her interest and passion for arts and humanity was developed. Through her academic and work experience and the great experience of meeting and working with new and diverse people at JSMA, she would like to develop and operate various creative programs and events for a wider range of audiences with what she has learned at the JSMA.

Learn more: https://jsma.uoregon.edu/artteaches

Above: Ten Symbols of Longevity Screen , Korean; Joseon dynasty, 1879-80. Ten-panel folding screen; ink, color and gold on silk. 79 x 203 1/8 inches. Murray Warner Collection Inset: The Collections Lab was used to display the screen during production of the newest Art Teaches video.

Art Heals Whole Personhood: Using the Arts to Improve Medical Education

In January 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Elizabeth Lahti, Director of Narrative Medicine from Oregon Health Science University School of Medicine (OHSU SOM); John Weber, JSMA Executive Director; and Lisa Abia-Smith, JSMA Director of Education, met to discuss expanding the Art Heals program and furthering collaboration to improve the health and lives of Oregonians. The JSMA had already developed one research study in 2016, examining the impact of teaching Artful Observation workshops to 3rd -year medical students from OHSU in Portland who were completing a 6-week residency at PeaceHealth Riverbend Hospital. That study, investigated by Dr. Patricia Lambert and Co-Principal Investigator Lisa Abia-Smith, revealed how studying works of art using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) could improve visual acuity and observation skills.

In fact, the arts and humanities are increasingly being included in health sciences education to improve providers’ diagnostic tools, empathy, resiliency, and communication skills. After that initial meeting in January 2020, OHSU and the JSMA spent eight months co-creating Whole Personhood in Medical Education Curriculum, which emphasizes the arts and humanities with an equity lens. All artwork and reading materials were created by BIPOC, persons with disability, or LGBTQ+ artists. We also selected artists from the JSMA collection and works on loan as part of Shared Visions, including artists Belkis Ayón, Rick Bartow, Kerry James Marshall, Wendy Red Star, and Hung Liu.

After research approval from both UO and OHSU, we began an Intervention and Study Design in January 2021.  For the next nine months, a team from OHSU and JSMA taught the curriculum during OHSU’s Intersessions, which are 2-week blocks between terms.  Each class session was taught on Zoom for 105 minutes and covered themes such as cancer, cognitive impairment, pain, and infection. Students were divided into groups of 6-10 for reflection and discussion, led by a trained facilitator in narrative medicine, including JSMA museum educators Lisa Abia-Smith, Hannah Bastian, and Sherri Jones.

As part of Art Heals, the JSMA’s Education Department travels to Oregon Health Sciences University for regular workshops and research with Dr. Christine Lahti and physicians in training. Led by Lisa Abia-Smith with support from Yeseul Lee, artmaking is a foundational component of an Art Heals workshop.

Intervention: Although we began teaching the classes in January 2021, we formally conducted the study and intervention in the Spring of 2021 and researched the impact pre and post of 184 medical students.

Study Design/ Methodology: We utilized pre-post surveys using the Interpersonal Reflexivity Index (IRI) scale on perspective taking and empathy concern, as well as open-ended questions for qualitative analysis to report the impact on bias and reflection. We conducted pre- and post-surveys for 184 students, and 121 participants took part in at least one intersession.

Results: Participants of narrative medicine sessions showed the largest increases in their arts and bias score.

KEY POINTS FROM THE QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS

Art and Bias

This had the biggest change across all scales and participants.

53% of participants showed an improvement on the arts and bias scale.

Perspective Taking

Second largest effect among participants of all subgroups.

43% of participants overall showed an improvement in perspective taking.

Implications:

This innovative curriculum led to a general increase in perspective taking, empathy, reflection, and bias awareness among medical students. The OHSU/JSMA team believes more medical schools need to consider incorporating and expanding such curriculum, not only for medical students, but for other healthcare professions as well. More scholars, educators, and policy makers are urging medical schools to provide training that emphasizes a range of marginalized populations, to increase humility and empathy. Institutions such as museums can play a critical role in supporting students to become physicians who engage and reflect on topics of bias, stigma, privilege, and inequities. This intervention demonstrated how creating space in a demanding educational environment to reflect, connect, and pause can positively affect all medical students’ educational experience, motivation, and sense of community. The artsbased strategies were viewed as positive and even essential to becoming a more effective and better health care provider.

“It’s refreshing. I can put my thoughts into a totally different context—in fact, it often helps me process my thoughts and emotions in a more coherent way. The humanity in art is grounding —helps me calm myself, helps me realize I am human.”

—OHSU Medical Student

Member Spotlight: Violet Fraser

Violet Fraser has been a supporter, volunteer, and member of the JSMA for over 50 years. She’s held various positions at the JSMA, including docent, chairman of the docent program, president of the Board of Directors, and member of the Gourmet Group. Her work throughout the years has helped shape what the JSMA is today.

How did you first get involved with the JSMA over 50 years ago?

I learned about the museum from a lecture and tour presented by Hope Pressman through the Junior Service League. She, along with the expertise and guidance of Dr. Wallace Baldinger, had created the docent program, now known as Exhibition Interpreters. I knew immediately that this was something I wanted to be a part of and did join a short time later after my youngest daughter, Diane, was in first grade. I loved the preparation lectures that docents were required to attend every week, coinciding with the school year schedule. Eventually, I became docent chairman and spent many happy years giving and participating in that aspect of the museum.

Over the years I was part of a group of interested women who created several interest groups (e.g. the Gourmet Group) to augment the once-a-year fundraising event. This was to encourage membership and raise much-needed funds in support of museum programs. I had the privilege to serve as president of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Museum in 1977.

Such happy years! I even had my own parking permit.

How has the JSMA changed over the years?

Gertrude Bass Warner was very protective of her collection in the early years. By the time I became a docent, the museum was becoming more accessible to the public. How fortunate we are to have Gertrude Bass Warner’s generous gift of her fabulous collection! The seeds planted by her collection have grown vastly. There is something for everyone here. The building was built during the Depression, mostly from private funds, to be added onto, and Jordan Schnitzer’s contribution made it possible to expand the building.

What has been your favorite JSMA exhibition?

That’s a difficult question! I have seen so many “favorite” exhibits over the years. Of the permanent collection, I adore the jade pagoda donated by Winston Guest, not only to look at, but talking about to tour groups. The pagoda’s history is fascinating. I so enjoyed it all! Several years back I remember an Andy Warhol exhibition that was just wonderful to view. I think my favorite exhibition in recent years has to be the Black Lives Matter exhibition; it was quite the work to take in, but was important to see and show. Of course, the McCosh exhibitions were especially appreciated; my husband Bob and I were close to the McCoshes. I was privileged to be a student of Ann’s.

How has art impacted your life?

Life without the arts would be a desert. My mother made sure to expose me to the arts, including music. I had the usual piano and violin lessons and, lucky for me, concerts, especially through the Civic Music Association. I grew up in the country, but was one of the few of my classmates who went to concerts. I also have enjoyed painting in my adulthood… just for fun!

What has been your favorite program at the JSMA?

I was a docent into the 80s and I just loved it, especially tours with the 4th and 5th graders. Those grades are more pliable and can take in artistic concepts more easily. Their enthusiasm was contagious and such fun. I was a teacher prior to having children, so it was nice to flex the same muscles I had used in the classroom.

From the Leadership Council President

It’s an honor to serve as the President of the Leadership Council (LC) with an extraordinary group of dedicated volunteers and staff. We are gathering in person in the newly renovated Ford Lecture Hall, a welcoming environment that can also host remote attendees via the stellar technology in this space.

We are grateful to the staff who tirelessly manage the myriad jobs from behind the scenes to the opening nights. And a shout out to the staff and volunteer Exhibition Interpreters who are again bringing University classes and K-12 school groups through the exhibitions on a regular basis.

The work of the LC continues in its advisory role by supporting the JSMA’s mission and Long Range Strategic Planning goals. Special thanks to Ken Kato for his commitment to ensuring we are in strategic alignment with the University. Additional wisdom comes to the LC from the extensive expertise of individuals serving at the committee level. I want to acknowledge the Committee Co-Chairs, Sarah Finlay

(Communications and Engagement), Doug Blandy (Education), Doug Park (Development) and Ina Asim (Collections). In addition, Paul Peppis convenes a Faculty Engagement Working Group that informs and enriches our capacity to be a great academic museum.

The LC, with John Weber’s wonderful encouragement, will be participating in Action Teams again. These ad hoc planning groups connect JSMA exhibitions with community and civic organizations; schools and teachers; UO faculty, staff, and students; artists and arts partners. Our first Action Team is tasked with networking with these groups to inform and engage them in the upcoming installation of Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass, a multi-channel video installation about Frederick Douglass coming this fall.

Lastly, I want to personally invite all of you to join us to celebrate the Art of the Harvest: JSMA at 90, a grand event on September 22nd highlighting great food and great art (for 90 years)!

On behalf of the entire Leadership Council, thank you for your ongoing membership and support,

Patti Barkin Leadership Council President, 2022-2024

Thank You Leadership Council Members

The JSMA celebrates the contributions and service of David Hilton, Margaryta Golovchenko, and Isabella Cirillo, whose terms on the Council concluded in June 2023.

David Hilton served with the Friends of the Museum in the 1990s and early 2000s before joining the Leadership Council from 2012-2015, 2015-2018, and 2020-2023 while participating on several committees, including Collections, Education, Development, Long Range Planning, and Executive Committees. An avid collector and ardent supporter of the museum’s academic mission, David has mentored UO students, sponsored Art of the Athlete programs, donated works from his collection to the museum for academic use, and much more.

Margaryta Golovchenko and Isabella Cirillo served as student representatives on the Council for academic year 2022-2023. Margaryta is a Ukrainian settler-immigrant from Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada, and a PhD student in art history. Her research looks at depictions of human-animal relationships in 18th and 19 th century French and British art, while her doctoral project focuses on portraits of women with animals. Isabella Cirillo is from the East Coast and graduated from the UO in June, where she pursued a degree in Journalism. After graduation, Isabella hopes to work in an art museum or a PR agency specializing in arts and culture.

The JSMA is deeply grateful to David, Margaryta, and Isabella for their service to the Leadership Council, museum, and University of Oregon.

Thank You.

Thank you to all of the JSMA members, donors, and friends who participated in Ducks Give on May 18, 2023, and helped raise $24,135 for the JSMA’s Education program, Art Heals, which includes ten robust arts and wellbeing programs for many different communities, such as Latina mothers, cancer patients, adults with dementia and early onset Alzheimer’s, students with disabilities, and those working in the medical field. Thank you for helping us make a difference not just in Eugene and Springfield, but throughout Oregon.

photo by Mike Barkin

JSMA at 90… and beyond!

As we celebrate the JSMA’s 90 th year serving audiences on campus and beyond, it’s thanks to generous donors and members like you that the JSMA is a vibrant center for arts and education.

All gifts and memberships to the JSMA support our mission to foster global understandings of art and cultural histories working with faculty, students, and communities to contribute to a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. Endowment gifts are particularly meaningful as they offer a dependable, perpetual source of funding because, each year only a portion of the fund is spent, while the remainder is added to the principal for growth. An endowment is a perpetual gift – a lasting legacy – that supports your passion and sustains the museum for years to come.

Did you know that the JSMA has endowment funds for nearly all areas of the museum that you can support with a one-time gift, annual gift, or estate gift? The museum benefits from unrestricted endowment funds that provide for museum operations, facility needs, and staffing as well as restricted endowments that support K-12 and community outreach programs, art acquisitions and conservation, museum internships, and more.

Endowments are the best way to support your passion and ensure the financial stability of the museum at 90, 100, and beyond!

Looking back…

To learn more about the museum’s existing endowment funds, how to create a new endowed fund, or to make a lasting gift to sustain the programs you care about, please contact Esther Harclerode at 541-520-6981 or estherh@uoregon.edu.

Welcome, Yeseul Lee

The JSMA welcomes Yeseul Lee as our new Museum Educator for Community Engagement and Wellbeing.

Lee has a diverse background in art education. She is a native of Seoul, Korea, and currently resides in Portland/Eugene, Oregon. She received her BFA and Master of Education from North Dakota State University, and Master of Divinity from Sioux Falls Seminary (Kairos University). In her studies, she focuses on capturing interactive relationships between fine arts, theology, and creative process. More than 13 years of exposure to both the U.S. and Korean culture is also reflected in her work.

Her experience includes teaching art in K-12 schools, founding and directing an art studio, spiritual counseling, curating 30+ art exhibitions and collaborating with diverse groups of people. In her former role as an art teacher engaging K-12 students, Lee designed project-based lesson plans that connected multiple subjects, such as chemistry, biology, English, math, and visual arts. While she worked at a university gallery, she collaborated with the science department to design object-based lessons in which students were provided with the option of implementing the art collection as a tool to learn various subjects.

arts seen captions

1. This year marks the 100th year of the university’s MFA degree, making it one of the oldest programs in the country. Congratulations to Lily Wai Brennan, Mary Evans, Anastasiya Gutnik, David Peña, and William Zeng, a cohort of five artists whose various practices engage a broad range of inquiry.

2. Anastasiya Gutnik’s work provided a place to reflect during the opening reception of the 2023 MFA exhibition.

3. Guests experience the multi-media installation by Lily Wai Brennan.

4. Artist Malia Jensen and McCosh Curator Danielle Knapp in front of Jensen’s work on view In Our Shared Breath: Creativity and Community

5. Raise your glass to Margo Grant Walsh! The crowd toasts the incredible contributions Margo has made to the JSMA and the University of Oregon during the opening weekend of The First Metal: Arts & Crafts Copper. Margo is a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and recipient of the prestigious Lawrence Award.

6. Guests explore The First Metal: Arts & Crafts Copper during the opening reception. This is the first exhibition and catalogue to explore copper and its role in the Arts & Crafts movement.

7. The First Metal curatorial consultant Margo Grant Walsh and guest curator Marilyn Archer (seated) with visiting lecturer Monica Penick, Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Design, University of Texas at Austin, and John Weber.

8. Thanks to Susan Selig, seen here with John Weber, for organizing a successful reunion of the JSMA’s Gourmet Groups I and II this spring. We loved having all those familiar faces back in the museum!

9. Professors Akiko Walley (History of Art and Architecture) and Glynne Walley (East Asian Languages & Literatures) explore Framing the Revolution, the first major exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography from the Jack and Susy Wadsworth Collection.

10. JSMA Faculty Engagement Working Group member Roy Chan, associate professor of East Asian Languages & Literature, discusses photographs by Qin Ga in Framing the Revolution with guests during the Patron Circle Reception in February 2023.

11. Anne Rose Kitagawa, JSMA Chief Curator of Collections & Asian Art and Director of Academic Programs, leads a tour of Framing the Revolution during our Members Reception.

12. Clark Honors College professor Kate Mondloch brought several students from her Global Contemporary Art class to the Patron Circle Reception for Framing the Revolution. From left to right: Immie Burstein, Mondloch, donors Susy and Jack Wadsworth, Helia Megown, and Lena Wen.

13 Xcaret Bello, Latinx Student Ambassador, and Dr. Audrey Lucero, Associate Professor, Education Studies and Director, Latinx Studies, welcomed colleagues at the First Latinx Studies Night at the Museum on March 1, 2023.

14. The JSMA partnered with the University of Oregon’s Government & Community Relations, Advancement, and the UO Black Alumni Network at Eugene’s Annual Juneteenth Celebration at Alton Baker Park.

15. Mac Coyle, JSMA Post-Graduate Museum Fellow in Asian Art, encounters an Ainu robe at the Brooklyn Museum during Asia Week New York in March 2023.

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

1223 University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403–1223

ORDER TODAY

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art gratefully acknowledges the sponsor of our Members Magazine.

Mailing address: Street address: 1223 University of Oregon 1430 Johnson Lane Eugene, OR 97403–1223 Eugene, OR 97403

In the heart of the University of Oregon campus

Phone: 541-346-3027

Fax: 541-346-0976

Website: http://jsma.uoregon.edu

Hours

Wednesday: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Thursday - Sunday: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Academic visits by appointment

Cover Image: Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977). The World Stage: Brazil: Marechal Floriano Peixoto II (detail), 2012, oil on canvas. 107 x 83 inches. Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

Image: Aaron Wessling Photography

The fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue for The First Metal: Arts & Crafts Copper includes essays by scholar-curators Mary Greensted of the United Kingdom and Jonathan Clancy of the United States, tracing the rise of the Arts & Crafts movement and the role that copper played in its development and ethos.

An equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication will be made available in accessible formats upon request. Accommodations for people with disabilities will be provided if requested in advance by calling 541-346-3213.