Reimagining Rit Last year we witnessed worldwide calls for cultural industries to re-envision their entrenched standards of practice. Museums—which had already experienced multiple evolutions since their beginnings in the early modern period as institutions for storing “collections of curiosities”— were especially at an inflection point. In response, museum directors and curators confronted questions of representation, equity, and social justice. At the Stanley Museum of Art, curators are continuing to explore these questions in many ways, including through an inaugural exhibition, History is Always Now, that will open to the public in September 2022. Ahead of the inaugural, the Stanley’s Curator of African Arts, Dr. Cory Gundlach, will facilitate a series of online events this fall titled “Reimagining Ritual and Style in African Art.” With major support from the Interdisciplinary Project for Advanced Study of Art and Life in Africa (PASALA), these panel discussions will bring together a diverse group of scholars and artists in the field of African art. According to Gundlach, the Stanley’s literal repositioning to a new building in downtown Iowa City, alongside a metaphorical one focused on re-animating its collections, offers the museum a unique opportunity to reconsider its collection of historical African art, one of the largest in the country. He notes, “we [must] take stock of life, our values, and our norms.”
Taiye Idahor Taiwo (Ivie series), 2020 Giclee print collage, pen drawing, acrylic paint and colored pencil on paper 112 x 80 cm Collection of the artist © Taiye Idahor
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Gundlach will moderate three online events anchored by a central question: “With special attention to ritual and style in historical and/ or contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora, how must we comport ourselves to the [conditions] of our research and practice today?” Each event will feature two to three twenty-minute presentations from panelists who will then join in a roundtable discussion.
STAN S TANLEY LE Y M MUS U SE UM U M O F A RT
