UIMA Magazine - Spring 2015

UIMA

University of Iowa Museum of Art

Spring u i m a . u i o wa .2015 edu 1

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Locations & Hours

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Spring 2015 Calendar of Events

20–21 Education: Technology in Museums

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From the Director

22–23 Education: New to the Collection

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Spring 2015 Exhibition

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Food for Thought and First Friday

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Museum Party

Eye on UI

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New Building

14–15 Sackler Donation

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From the University of Iowa Foundation

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Education: Steven Hill Workshop

16–18 Lectures Cover: Mortimer L. Menpes (British 1855–1939) Portrait of Whistler, c.1890 Etching, 9 3/8 x 8 3/8 in.

Given in the name of Michael G. Lankford by Alden Lowell Doud, 2005.10

Editor: Elizabeth M. Wallace Copy editor: Gail Zlatnik Design: Meng Yang Copyright © 2014

NEWS/STUDIO ONE 90.9 FM NEWS 910 AM ClaSSICal 91.7 FM 2

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www.iowApublicrAdio.org

LOCATIONS & HOURS

TE M P O R A RY O F F IC E S

uima.uiowa.edu

S TU DIO AR T S BU I LDI N G 1375 Highway 1 West/1840 SA Iowa City, IA 52242-1789 319.335.1727

TE M P O R A RY LOC ATI O N S

IOWA M EMORIAL U N IO N

THIRD FLOOR

F I GGE AR T MU SEUM

125 North Madison St. Iowa City, IA 52242 319.335.1742

Free admission

225 West Second St. Davenport, IA 52801 563.326.7804

Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, 12–5 p.m.

UIMA@IMU On-campus visual classroom featuring an extensive installation from the Museum’s permanent collection

Free admission to the Figge Art Museum for University of Iowa students, faculty, and staff with UI ID cards, and UIMA members with their membership cards.

BLACK BOX THEATER On-campus space for UIMA special exhibitions

BECOME A MEMBER TODAY STAND BY YOUR MUSEUM!

Gallery space and storage for 13,000 objects from the UIMA’s permanent collection, located one hour east of Iowa City

MEMBE RSHIP MEMB ERSH IP CARD CARD

JOIN ONLINE

uima.uiowa.edu

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PUBLIC PROGRAMS

E X HIB I T I O N S

SPRING 2015 CALENDAR

February 21– May 17

From the Grand Tour to American Pop: Learning with the Alden Lowell Doud Collection

Black Box Theater third floor, Iowa Memorial Union

January 31– June 21

Eye on UI: Brodsky, Dorfman, Kipniss, Lanyon

Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA

April 4–May 31

University of Iowa Art Faculty Biennial Exhibition

Figge Art Museum , Davenport, IA

Through April 1, 2015

Jackson Pollock: Mural

Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA

Ongoing

UIMA@IMU

third floor, Iowa Memorial Union

Ongoing

VIDEO CLASSROOMS

Studio Arts (SA) and Iowa Memorial Union (IMU)

February 6

FIRST FRIDAY

FilmScene, 118 E. College St., Iowa City

EXHIBITION LECTURE Travel and Remembrance: Experiencing the Grand Tour and Bringing It Back Home by Carole Paul

240 Art Building West

7:30–8:30 p.m.

March 6

FIRST FRIDAY

FilmScene, 118 E. College St., Iowa City

SMART TALKS The Art of Propaganda: French and American Posters of the First World War by Brett Bowles

240 Art Building West

UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom

7:30–8:30 p.m.

Food for Thought: Inedible Aesthetics

by Dale Fisher

April 3

FIRST FRIDAY

FilmScene, 118 E. College St., Iowa City

SMART TALKS At the Threshold: A Janusian Reflection on the Process of Reinvention by Amy Frazier

240 Art Building West

PUBLIC RECEPTION Eye on UI and University of Iowa Art Faculty Biennial exhibitions

Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA

ARTIST TALK Steven Hill: A Potter’s Journey by Steven Hill

240 Art Building West

Throwing, Spraying, and ^6 (Cone) Electric Firing Workshop with Steven Hill

Studio Arts building

9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

May 1

FIRST FRIDAY

Black Box Theater, third floor, IMU

MUSEUM PARTY

Coralville Marriott Hotel & Conference Center

5:00–6:30 p.m.

March 5

5:00–6:30 p.m.

March 25 7:30–8:30 p.m.

April 1

5:00–6:30 p.m.

April 9 7:30–8:30 p.m.

April 11 3:00–5:00 p.m.

April 13 7:30–8:30 p.m.

April 13–15

5:00–7:00 p.m.

May 9 8:00–11:00 p.m.

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FROM THE DIRECTOR

from the Director Dr. O’Harrow with Yayoi Kusama’s Red No. 28 (1960) (detail) Oil on canvas, 52 x 41.75 in.

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gaston de Havenon 1969.517 Photo by Heather Aaronson

Dear Museum Supporter, After six very long years, we have finally reached the point we have all been waiting for: The Beginning.

For the first time since the Great Flood of 2008, we have been given the green light to start work on a new museum facility. The development partners selected for negotiations are H + H Development Group of Iowa City and Mortenson of Minneapolis.

Their work is of the highest caliber, and they have experience with building and operating facilities in extreme climates, such as ours here in Iowa.

The university will now enter into a multi-month negotiation phase with the selected development team. This phase will include selection of the design team; development of the design concept and schematic design while targeting a project size of 60,000 square feet; and the establishment of a proposed lease agreement. The lease agreement and design will be presented for Board of Regents consideration and approval as they are completed.

The university intends to deliver the project as a public-private partnership, with the benefit of local, privately owned land near the core of the UI academic campus. This process will deliver a better building, efficiently and effectively. We are grateful to the UI president and administration, as well as the Board of Regents, for their support in helping the UIMA recover from the 2008 flood. We thank them for their help as we create a new museum facility to serve Iowa in the twenty-first century.

We are pleased with the location of the new building: the southeast corner of the Burlington and Clinton Streets intersection. Not only is it “easily accessible for all UI students,” according to UI Provost Barry Butler, but the public will have a convenient approach via Burlington Street, with ready parking in three nearby structures. As a bonus, the new Voxman Music Building will open in 2016 on the southwest corner of the intersection. It is a spectacular location, and possibly the most prominent site in Iowa City after the Pentacrest. It is also the highest point in Iowa City and virtually flood-proof, which, given our history, is a very good thing indeed.

As I mentioned, this is only the beginning and there is much to do. The next year or so will include many activities related to planning the new facility, such as what it will look like and how it will be situated on the site. We will make sure you are kept involved, informed, and interested.

So on this happy note, I thank you for your generous support of the museum’s present and future activities.

Yours sincerely,

Sean O’Harrow, Ph.D. Director

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SPRING EXHIBITIONN

FROM THE GRAND TOUR TO AMERICAN POP Learning with the Alden Lowell Doud Collection February 21–May 17, 2015 Black Box Theater, Iowa Memorial Union

Wayne Thiebaud (American, b. 1920), Dark Cake, 1983, woodcut, 20 1/4 x 22 1/4 in.

The Alden Lowell Doud Collection, 2014.109, Art © Wayne Thiebaud/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Alden Lowell Doud, known always by his middle name, was a soft-spoken man whose quiet demeanor belied his passion for art and his loyalty to Iowa.

After a career in international law and finance,

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he returned to his home state and settled in Iowa City, where he became a valued supporter of the UIMA. With him came more than two hundred works of art.

SPRING EXHIBITION

Carlo Lasinio (Italian, 1759–1838) Mercurius (Mercury) from I Sette Pianeti (The Seven Planets) after Pinturicchio and Giovanni da Udine's frescoes on the ceiling of the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, late 18th century to early 19th century Engraving, red ink on wove, 13 1/8 x 15 7/8 in.

The Alden Lowell Doud Collection, 51e.2013

This exhibition provides not only an intimate look at a unique personal collection, but also a laboratory for students enrolled in the UI class “The Art Museum: Theory and Practice.” A video of Lowell Doud’s collection as it was displayed in his home introduces the exhibition of seventy-five works, with additional pieces and accompanying research provided by members of the class during the semester.

Students in the course, taught in the gallery by School of Art and Art History Professor Joni L. Kinsey, will literally put theory into practice. They will review histories and methods by which museums collect and display art, and examine questions related to curating and research, as they develop wall labels and small displays within the exhibition.

The overarching theme of the Doud Collection exhibition is popular culture. Lowell Doud was a sophisticated world traveler who favored both the

Neoclassical art collected as fashionable mementos of the Grand Tour and contemporary prints addressing subjects of popular culture by renowned American artists.

From about 1660 to 1820, aristocratic young European travelers were expected to make the Grand Tour, an educational journey through Italy with a focus on Rome. They collected artworks as souvenirs of their travels, and these watercolors, prints, and decorative arts, often depicting the myths and themes of antiquity and the monuments of ancient civilizations, became essential décor for the refined home.

Highlights of this exhibition thus include treasures from this earlier era of collecting: a series of etchings of the planets with their mythological partners by Carlo Lasinio, possibly after Giovanni da Udine’s (School of Raphael) frescoes (since destroyed and restored, although not to the high standard of the

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SPRING EXHIBITION

Artist unknown Untitled (Coliseum), 19th century Watercolor on paper 11 x 13 1/2 in.

The Alden Lowell Doud Collection, 2014.3

originals as described by Vasari and others) on the ceiling of the Borgia Apartments entrance, called the Hall of the Popes, in the Vatican Palace; watercolors for the tourist trade depicting Roman monuments like the Coliseum and the Arch of Titus; and biblical narrative etchings by such artists as Annibale Carracci, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Hendrick Goltius.

The exhibition also reflects Lowell Doud’s interest in modern American popular culture. Similarly collected during his travels, these works include etchings of famous Los Angeles street intersections

by Ed Ruscha, a luscious classic cake in an etching

by Wayne Thiebaud, and David Hockney’s printed water spouts (created in 1963, the same year Hockney taught at the University of Iowa). Lowell also collected works by artists living in his own residential areas; the exhibition includes a photograph by Washington, DC-based William Christenberry and a painting by Iowa City artist Genie Patrick.

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And while Lowell traveled most often within the United States and Europe, he also went to Asia, Mexico, and Africa, choosing souvenirs such as a group of masks that now supplement others in the UIMA K-12 School Programs Collection.

All collections inspire questions: What does it mean to be a collector? How does a collection reflect its owner and its contemporaneous culture? And how does a collection, such as the one exhibited here, contribute to history and art history? Many of the Doud works are the only records we have of their subjects. Did the elevation of “tourist” art to appropriate upper-middle-class décor give us more than a taste of domestic culture from two hundred years ago? Lowell Doud’s death in 2012 leaves us with his answers to these questions evident only through these objects and the stories about his life and travels. Viewers may ponder these answers, as he surely did in creating his fine and particularly focused collection.

SPRING EXHIBITION

Micali Painter (Etruscan) Oinochoe (wine jug), 525 BCE–500 BCE Terracotta, black-figure style 12 1/2 x 6 x 6 in.

Mark Ranney Memorial Fund, 1983.53

Alden Lowell Doud was born in Douds, Iowa, platted in 1866 by relatives Eliab and David Doud. He was educated at Iowa Wesleyan College and Harvard Law School, and worked for many years as an attorney for the World Bank, based in Washington, DC. In retirement he studied decorative art and architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and at Bard Graduate Center, New York City, before coming to Iowa City. Lowell was active in the UIMA as a generous donor and friend. He served on the Advisory Board and Members Council, and as president of the Print and Drawing Study Club.

This exhibition was curated by UIMA Chief Curator Kathleen A. Edwards. The Alden Lowell Doud Collection was catalogued by Edwards and former UI students Alice Phillips, PhD, and Sarika Sugla, MFA. Funding for the exhibition was provided in part with a grant from the International Fine Print Dealers Association, and with donations from H. Dee and Myrene Hoover, the Koza Family Fund, and the UIMA Members Special Exhibition Fund.

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I.O.W.A.

MAKI NG THE MOST OF I.O.W.A. “Integrated Outreach With Art”

As part of the University of Iowa’s mission to reach all parts of the state of Iowa, the UI Museum of Art recently launched Integrated Outreach With Art (I.O.W.A.), a free statewide program comprised of a wide range of art exhibitions, loans, education programs, and consulting services offered to partner institutions in Iowa. Under I.O.W.A.’s auspices, several successful initiatives, such as the statewide arts education program and the Legacies for Iowa

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collections-sharing project, as well as other services, will create a single, easily understood partnership plan for all participating museums, organizations, schools, and institutions in Iowa.

The objective is to match the offerings of the UIMA with the needs of other Iowa organizations, enhancing the quality of arts education and coordinating services to make them more effective and efficient.

I.O.W.A.

Legacies for Iowa African American Museum of Iowa Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Dubuque Museum of Art Figge Art Museum Grinnell College Kirkwood Community College: Main Campus Maquoketa Art Experience National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library Peter Paul Luce Gallery Sioux City Art Center University of Northern Iowa

UIMA K-12 School Programs (2008–present)

“The 2008 flood devastated the UI Museum of Art's facility, but during the recovery process its staff worked tirelessly to create an all-encompassing program that took art exhibitions and educational programming to audiences in Iowa,” says UIMA director Dr. Sean O’Harrow. “The Great Recession made it difficult for cultural institutions in Iowa to serve their populations.

However, UIMA outreach has proven to be a lifeline for audiences in many Iowa communities.”

Alburnett Amana Colonies Ankeny Belle Plaine Bloomfield Blue Grass Buffalo Burlington Cedar Rapids Clear Lake Clive Columbus Junction Conroy Coralville Davenport Des Moines Dubuque Durant Eldridge Fairfield Farmington Fort Madison Hiawatha Iowa City Kalona Lake Mills

Lisbon Maquoketa Marion Mason City Mount Pleasant Mount Vernon Muscatine Nora Springs North English North Liberty Pleasant Hill Princeton Sioux City Solon Spencer Thornburg Tiffin Walcott Washington Waukee West Branch West Des Moines West Liberty Williamsburg Wilton

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I.O.W.A.

The I.O.W.A. project reaches many of the state’s leading art, cultural, and educational organizations— including eleven museums and galleries, sixteen communities, and fifty schools—in ninety-nine locations statewide (2013–2014 academic year).

I.O.W.A. partners share a vision of creating a network that can be a national leader in transforming arts education through innovations in shared exhibitions and educational programming, encouragement of new research in the arts, development of integrated, efficient models of exhibitions and programming delivery and financing, and optimizing operating activities.

In doing this, I.O.W.A. strives to address the changing cultural and educational environment, ensuring that residents and visitors throughout Iowa receive the best possible art exhibitions, arts educational programming, and other services relevant to nonprofit educational institutions and their audiences.

Any organization in Iowa can take part in I.O.W.A., and the goal is to include as many partners as possible.

There are four levels of participation, developed to encourage each organization to find an appropriate place in the program.

• Level 1: Partners that can host UIMA art exhibitions, take in loans of artwork, accept educators and other visiting experts for educational programs, and consult with UIMA staff on issues and solutions. This level could include substantial long-term loans if appropriate.

• Level 2: Partners that can host an occasional loan of artwork, accept educators and other visiting experts for educational programs, and consult with UIMA staff on issues and solutions.

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• Level 3: Partners that can host educators and other visiting experts for educational programs, and consult with UIMA staff on issues and solutions.

• Level 4: Partners that would like to consult with UIMA staff on issues and solutions.

The UIMA’s post-flood outreach efforts have yielded great results. O’Harrow says that within the first three years, the initiative tripled the number of people participating per year in UI Museum of Art programs—close to one hundred thousand people.

Currently, around 150,000 people per year take part across the state. “This translates to five percent of the population of Iowa being served by an organization of fewer than ten museum professionals, which by any measure confirms it as one of the most successful programs in the state today,” says O’Harrow.

EYE ON UI

Bruce Dorfman (b. 1936), Thus, 2004, mixed media on canvas, 49 x 48 x 3 in., planned gift from the artist, reproduced with permission from the artist, photo by Deborah Winiarski

EYE ON UI

Brodsky, Dorfman, Kipniss, Lanyon January 31–June 21, 2015 Figge Art Museum Reception, 3:00–5:00 p.m., April 11, 2015 An exhibition of paintings, drawings, and prints by New York artists Stan Brodsky, Bruce Dorfman, Robert Kipniss, and Ellen Lanyon, all distinguished graduates of the UI School of Art and Art History.

The exhibition includes recent and planned gifts of art to UIMA.

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SACKLER DONATION

2014 the year of the great Chinese art donation

Pendant, 1100–771 BCE Western Zhou Dynasty Jade 1 1/2 x 1 3/16 x 1/4 in.

Gift from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, New York, 2014.74

On December 14, 2013, the Chinese landed an unmanned vehicle on the moon. It was called Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, after the Han Dynasty poets’ stories of a rabbit living on the moon. A few days later, Dr. Elizabeth Sackler, president and CEO of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in New York City, called the UIMA director to announce that the foundation had decided to give to the museum a number of art objects, including a significant Han Dynasty imperial jade rabbit. “Beautiful objects, such as this jade rabbit, were to the emperors of China what the pyramids were to the pharaohs of Egypt,” University of Chicago professor Wu Hung explained—the effort involved in creating a jade rabbit two thousand years ago was so great that only the emperor commanded the resources necessary for making so lavish an object.

The UIMA’s new jade rabbit, and other important Chinese masterpieces from the Sackler benefaction, are on view in the UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom this semester.

This remarkable donation of art came from a remarkable charitable organization. Indeed, the

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Sackler Foundation was once described as “by far the largest and most important collection of ancient Chinese art in the world” by then Princeton art history professor and Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Dr. Wen C. Fong. This major addition to the university collections is one of the most significant donations of Asian art ever to a public institution in Iowa, and will further the mission of the UIMA to provide the finest educational and research opportunities to students, academics, and visitors.

Dr. Sackler, the eponymous founder of the foundation, was a remarkable man. Entrepreneurial from an early age, by the time he graduated from NYU’s medical school he was a key executive with the William Douglas MacAdams medical advertising agency, and rose to become its principal owner. He was also the founder and publisher of the Medical Tribune, a journal for doctors. Meanwhile, as a research psychiatrist interested in the biological basis of mental illness, he pioneered the field of biological psychiatry, and he helped to author more than140 research papers during his medical career.

SACKLER DONATION

As a philanthropist, Dr. Sackler was a major donor to numerous educational and research organizations, establishing with other members of his family important entities at places such as the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beijing University, Long Island University, Clark University, Tufts University, New York University, and Tel Aviv University.

Yet Dr. Sackler's international renown comes from the great collection of primarily Asian art he assembled, and the foundation he established to make his collection available to the public. His achievements in the world of art resulted from his approach as “more of a curator than a collector,” primarily because of his interest in forming and acquiring groups of objects, rather than isolated single items. And the UIMA and its audiences are surely grateful for this talent of his and the generosity of his foundation.

Soon after the objects were installed at the museum, as UIMA director Dr. Sean O’Harrow concluded a class for UI graduate teaching assistants in Chinese language and literature (most of whom were Chinese citizens), he was approached by several students who were fascinated to hear more about the ancient Chinese artwork. The reason for their interest, they said, was simple: growing up in communist China, none of them had ever seen art like this before.

O’Harrow says that “by acquiring this art and using it in its educational mission, the University of Iowa is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing: exposing inquisitive minds to unique and profound experiences—even if that means showing examples of ancient Chinese art to Chinese students for the first time in their lives.”

This is what education at a university art museum is all about, and what the Sackler benefaction allows us to achieve.

Head of Bodhisattva, 618–906 Tang Dynasty Gray limestone 36 1/2 x 17 x 19 in.

Gift from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, New York, 2014.62

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LECTURES

EXHIBITION LECTURE

CAROLE PAUL

March 5 7:30–8:30 p.m.

240 Art Building West

TRAVEL AND REMEMBRANCE Experiencing the Grand Tour and Bringing It Back Home

The practice of collecting artworks as mementos of one’s travels, as Alden Lowell Doud did, dates back to the Grand Tour. The biggest attraction of the tour’s culmination in Italy was the wealth of great art and architecture—ancient, medieval, and Renaissance—that visitors could study and enjoy. The desire of travelers not only to see artworks and monuments in situ, but to bring back memories captured in an object, gave rise to the souvenir industry in the eighteenth century. Carole Paul’s talk will explore the pleasures of Italy’s art and architecture for Grand Tour travelers and the many forms in which they brought its influence home, from small souvenirs to actual artworks to interior decoration.

Carole Paul's visit is sponsored in part by Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and their 18th-19th Century Interdisciplinary Working Group

Carole Paul is a scholar of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art in Italy. Her recent work concerns the history of museums and collections in the early modern period, especially in Rome. Her publications include The Borghese Collections and the Display of Art in the Age of the Grand Tour (2008) and, as editor, The First Modern Museums of Art: The Birth of an Institution in 18th- and Early-19th-Century Europe (2012).

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LECTURES

BRETT BOWLES

March 25 7:30–8:30 p.m.

240 Art Building West

THE ART OF PROPAGANDA French and American Posters of the First World War

Despite the increasing importance of radio and cinema during World War I, print media were still the primary tools of persuasion—that is, propaganda—for all the major combatant nations.

Brett Bowles, associate professor of French studies at Indiana University Bloomington and an avid collector of vintage posters, will discuss wartime bond-poster design and aesthetics in France and the U.S. Large-format, illustrated mural posters played an important role in convincing the public to purchase war bonds, thereby participating morally and materially in the war effort. Bowles will consider the political and economic contexts in which the posters were produced, evaluate their effectiveness as public art, and analyze the different stylistic and aesthetic strategies employed in the two countries.

Brett Bowles is a cultural historian of twentieth-century France, specializing in the political and social dimensions of cinema and other mass media. In addition to serving on the editorial boards of French Historical Studies, French History, Modern & Contemporary France, and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, he has been collecting and restoring vintage posters for more than ten years.

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LECTURES

AMY FRAZIER

April 9 7:30–8:30 p.m.

AT THE THRESHOLD

240 Art Building West

A Janusian Reflection on the Process of Reinvention

Identity and heritage inform our sense of the past; adaptation and possibility inform our sense of the future. Like Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, museums bestride both realms. The creativity scholar Albert Rothenberg considered “Janusian thinking" to be a hallmark of creativity. A museum in transition finds itself at a turning point in its story—and at a time of great potential creativity. Amy Frazier’s presentation will invite consideration of the themes of transition, thresholds, identity, and creativity as they inform the path that lies before the UIMA in anticipation of its new home.

Amy Frazier, MS, works in the field of applied creativity and leadership development. The programs she offers through her company, Stages of Presence, are targeted at improving organizational health and human effectiveness though a multidisciplinary approach to successful creativity. Amy holds a Master of Science degree from the International Center for Studies in Creativity, the world’s first and leading program for applied creativity and innovation. A former professional actor, she has presented her work at conferences nationally and internationally. She is the author of a chapter on creativity and leadership in Big Questions in Creativity 2013, published by the ICSC Press. Amy lives in Seattle.

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EDUCATION

Throwing, Spraying, and ^6 (Cone) Electric Firing with Steven Hill WORKSHOP April 13–April 15, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. daily UI Ceramics Department, Studio Arts Building

ARTIST TALK April 13, 7:30 PM, 240 Art Building West Steven Hill became a functional potter in 1974, shortly after receiving a BFA degree from Kansas State University.

At first he worked out of a backyard studio and sold his art mainly at art festivals, but by the mid-1990s he was looking for a way to expand his studio, begin a residentartist program for aspiring potters, and provide working space for other ceramic artists. In 1998 Steven co-founded Red Star Studios Ceramic Center in Kansas City, MO, and in 2006 co-founded Center Street Clay in Sandwich, IL. Currently Steven is creating artworks, writing about ceramics, teaching workshops, and performing administrative duties for his business institutions.

Steven’s work has been featured in nationally juried shows and in many ceramics publications. He has taught more than 250 workshops throughout the United States and Canada, and has written multiple articles on the theory and practice of ceramics. These include, for Ceramics Monthly, “An Approach To Single-Firing” (January 1986), “Where You’ve Been Is Good and Gone, All You Keep Is the Gettin’ There” (April 1998), “An Approach to Single Firing—Further On” (January 2006), “Rethinking Ceramic Workshops” (comment, May 2007), “The Eight-Month Workshop – A Journey of Discovery” (June 2008), “Don't Put the Flames Out" (February 1994), and “Atmosphericlike Effects for Electric Firing” (March 2012); “Long Distance Runner” (December 1989, Studio Potter); and for Pottery Making Illustrated, “Pulling Handles” (Spring 1998) and “Spraying Glazes” (March 2002).

Photo courtesy of the arttist

Yunomi, 2014 Photo courtesy of the arttist

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EDUCATION

TECH N OLOGY IN MUSEUMS

To many avid museum-goers, the very idea of visitors glued to phones and tablets in museum galleries is blasphemous, a rude and distracting addition to the museum experience. To others, technologies like these are a welcome enhancement, a way to delve deeper and engage further with objects and exhibitions.

This polarizing issue is one with which museums across the country are grappling, and now, as the University of Iowa Museum of Art looks forward to having a permanent building once again, we too must face a pressing question:

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EDUCATION

How many and which technologies should we include?

The UIMA had recent success with incorporating technology into the gallery during the exhibition Art and Life in Africa. Visitors were encouraged to use their smart phones or tablets to explore the African artworks on display; scanned QR codes provided links to corresponding in-depth information on the Art and Life in Africa website. “It’s the idea that when people are able to direct their own experience and choose which objects they want to learn about, they tend to learn more, retain information longer, and reproduce it better,” said former UIMA curator Catherine Hale.

But introduction of this new-to-UIMA technology did not come without its doubters. In fact, Education Curator Dale Fisher had serious reservations about the exhibition before it opened, and said he was surprised to see how effective the technology was at facilitating learning and engagement. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m the big dragging-my-feet-kicking-andscreaming person regarding technology, and somewhat of a twentieth-century Luddite. I’m saying this: I’m amazed because three months ago you would have never heard this positive response come out of my mouth.”

Fisher changed his mind after seeing how technology can put into practice the idea of “learning by doing” of the philosopher and education reformer John Dewey, as well as the Russian Constructivist theorist Lev Vygotsky’s idea that learning is a social process, facilitated by interacting with others. “As students and visitors used the available resources, the amount of interaction among small groups was more evident than in any other exhibition I have witnessed,” he said. “The cultural norms of museum behavior shifted organically to social interaction, and perhaps a much richer, more enjoyable experience.” Many of the African objects currently on display at the UIMA@IMU Gallery still have these QR codes posted for visitors to use.

Other museums across the country have also adopted a number of new and interesting technologies into their galleries, including computer kiosks with collection

information, interactive websites, games and apps, audio enhancements, and electronic display screens and labels. UIMA Director Sean O’Harrow says that while he is excited about the technological possibilities for the museum (he’s particularly hoping to include more audio to complement the visual objects), he cautions against allowing enhancements or the internet to overwhelm or replace the experience of viewing artworks. “I view technology as a facilitator, not an end in itself. Even though it’s a cool thing, it doesn’t replace the experience,” he said. “To see something real has a power over something virtual.”

Despite the pro-tech trend, some museum professionals hesitate to delve into the world of technology. Their concerns include funding, the rapidly changing technological landscape, visitor alienation, and the overall message the technology communicates. Funding is, of course, a major concern for a small museum like the UIMA, but O’Harrow stresses that a benefit of being a university museum is the greater access to a host of professionals and specialists who can contribute expertise to projects. UIMA Associate Director of Development Beth Nobles also anticipates that some donors may be interested in new UIMA tech projects.

“I think there’s always an interest in seeing what new avenues will enhance the visitor’s experience,” she said. “That’s also the interest of museum supporters in general.”

As the UIMA moves forward, Fisher hopes that it can strike a balance between new technologies and the traditional museum experience. “I would like to see that integration of technology, but I would also like to keep some boundaries,” he says, “so that the technology that one person is using does not become a distraction to somebody who wants a more introspective, contemplative experience.”

UIMA Education Coordinator Julia Jessen adapted this article from her paper originally written for a UI journalism class.

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EDUCATION

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Kurt Weiser (American, b. 1950) Nightshade, 2012 Porcelain, 19 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 5 in.

UIMA School Programs Collections, CCC.54A–B Gift of UIMA Education Partners

EDUCATION

UIMA SCHOOL PROGRAMS COLLECTIONS

“

For years the work I did in ceramics was an effort to somehow express the beautiful nature of the material. Somewhere in the midst of this struggle I realized that the materials are there to allow you to say what you need to say, not to tell you what to say. So I gave up trying to control nature and decided to use what I had learned about the materials to express some ideas about nature itself and my place in it.”

—KURT WEISER

Using multidimensional forms as surfaces to be enriched, Kurt Weiser makes the traditional medium of painting on porcelain vibrant and engaging. The simple concept of a human figure placed in a lush landscape becomes a source of engagement and reflection, as the viewer builds a narrative out of the surreal, dreamlike imagery of the work. In Nightshade (2012), Weiser has created images that are both lyrical and modernist, classical and timeless.

Kurt Weiser studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO, where he earned his BFA in 1972, and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving his MFA in 1976. Since 1988, he has taught ceramics at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he is now a Regents Professor. Weiser was named a United States Artists Fellow in 2012, and won the Aileen Osborn Webb National Artist Award and was inducted into the American Craft Council College of Fellows in 2003. He received the Artist Fellowship of the Arizona Commission on the Arts in 1999, and visual artists fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1992 and 1989. His works are included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Ceramics in Shigaraki, Japan, Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Racine Art Museum, and the National Museum of History in Taipei.

UIMA Education Partners u i m a . u i o wa . e d u 2 3

INEDIBLE AESTHETICS Lecture by Dale Fisher April 1, 7:30–8:30 p.m.

UIMA@IMU Visual Classroom Join the UIMA for UI’s campus-wide 2014– 2015 thematic programming, Food for Thought. Have an up-close and personal look at functional ceramics from the UIMA permanent and School Programs Collections, as well as works from the collection of UIMA Curator of Education Dale Fisher. Fisher will discuss the delineations between the artwork of ceramic artists and the functional craft of “potters,” and examine how function determines form and how form may hinder or undermine function. He will also cover some related and very general history and tradition, and enlighten his listeners about terminology, hand-building, wheel-throwing, and the firing processes.

Richard Notkin (American, 1948– ) Hexagonal Curbside Teapot, 1985 Stoneware 4 x 8 1/2 x 4 in.

Gift of Joan E. Mannheimer, 1995.263a,b University of Iowa Museum of Art

UIMA EXTENDS A SINCERE THANK YOU TO OUR FIRST FRIDAY SPONSORS:

H. Dee & Myrene Hoover and John Menninger

24 U I MA FilmScene is a nonprofit, member-supported cinema arts organization in downtown Iowa City.

www.icfilmscene.org

Destination Venice —the Journey Continues Saturday

MAY 9, 2015

Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, Coralville u i m a . u i o wa . e d u 2 5

NEW BUILDING

Photo by John Moyers

BUILDING

for THE FUTURE Above is a photo of the planned location for the new UIMA building. Although the development process is still under way, supporters and staff can easily imagine the wonderful opportunities for such a great location in Iowa City. Activities downtown and at the new School of Music building will add variety to the new UIMA on the corner of Burlington and Clinton Streets.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

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FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION

This is a good time to come home.

In 2008, word of the Iowa flood reached me near the Mexican border in Marfa, Texas. In climate, landscape, and culture, you couldn’t be farther from Iowa and remain in the United States, but the loss of the University of Iowa arts campus hit me hard. A longtime Iowa City resident and UI Foundation employee, I’d taken the directorship of a small nonprofit organization a few years earlier in Texas’s mountain region, working on community and economic development with unconventional partners such as Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation.

Day by day, I watched the bad news about the flood unfold online. I was cheered only when I learned that the staff’s heroic efforts had saved the collection at the UI Museum of Art. It was a collection I loved and missed.

director. Since then, the biggest challenge I’ve faced has been building financial support for the new UIMA building.

As you may know, the process is finally under way. The UI is working with Mortenson (the construction company responsible for the Denver Art Museum and our own new Hancher Auditorium), along with local Iowa City firm H + H Development. Mortenson has a reputation for building cultural projects that are also architectural award winners, including winners of the Excellence in Architecture Award by the American Institute of Architects.

As they say in Texas, “things are fixin’ to get real good, and get real fast!”

Last summer, I received more news from Iowa. After ten years of distinguished service, my former UI Foundation colleague Pat Hanick had plans to retire from her position as the development director for the UI Museum of Art. Iowa would need help building a new museum.

This winter and spring, we’ll reach out to all our UIMA friends to share information about the project, answer your questions, and ask for your support. We’ll need all hands on deck to expand the UIMA’s service to the state, and I look forward to building a great new museum together.

It didn’t take much research to learn that while I was away, the museum had been in extremely good hands and was experiencing an unprecedented and unconventional renaissance. Without a bricks-and-mortar museum in place, the staff—led by Director Sean O’Harrow—was busy sharing the collection in schools, senior centers, arts centers, and museums across the state. They were developing innovative partnerships and working in innovative ways—and with the help of friends and donors—extending the reach of the collection far beyond Iowa City. The work still was touching lives, and the flood had made the UIMA “Iowa’s museum.”

When we’re done in a just few years, the doors will open, and we’ll call the flood of 2008 “done,” “vanquished,” “history.” Our truly excellent collection—the paintings and sculptures, the prints and ceramics, the works from other parts of the world—will be back home in Iowa City and on view again. It will be the best homecoming.

Though I hadn’t planned to leave Texas, when the opportunity was offered to me, I was happy to come “home” to become the museum’s new development

Beth Nobles Associate Director of Development, UIMA beth-nobles@uiowa.edu

Please let me know how I can help you support the new UIMA. For information about giving, visit the UI Foundation website at www.uifoundation.org or call (319) 467-3814 or (800) 648-6973.

University of Iowa Museum of Art 1375 Highway 1 West/1840 Studio Arts Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1789 (319) 335-1727

uima.uiowa.edu

Through–April 1, 2015 | Sioux City Art Center

JAC KSO N P O LLO C K: MU RAL UIMA participation in this exhibition is made possible in part by

and

Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) Mural, 1943 Oil and casein on canvas 95 5/8 x 237 3/4 in.

Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1959.6 Reproduced with permisson from the University of Iowa

Rod & Deborah Zeitler

The State University of Iowa Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of The University of Iowa. The organization is located at One West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52244; its telephone number is (800) 648-6973. Please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your gift.

If you are a resident of the following states, please review the applicable, required disclosure statement. GEORGIA: A full and fair description of the charitable programs and activities and a financial statement is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above. MARYLAND: A copy of the current financial statement is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above. For the cost of copies and postage, documents and information submitted under the Maryland Solicitations Act are available from the Secretary of State, 16 Francis Street, Annapolis, MD 21401, 410-974-5521. NEW JERSEY: INFORMATION FILED WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL CONCERNING THIS CHARITABLE SOLICITATION AND THE PERCENTAGE OF CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED BY THE CHARITY DURING THE LAST REPORTING PERIOD THAT WERE DEDICATED TO THE CHARITABLE PURPOSE MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BY CALLING 973-504-6215 AND IS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET AT http://www.state.nj.us/lps/ca/charfrm.htm. REGISTRATION WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT. NEW YORK: A copy of the last financial report filed with the Attorney General is available upon request from the organization using its address/telephone number, listed above, or from the Office of the Attorney General, Department of Law, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. PENNSYLVANIA: The official registration and financial information of the State University of Iowa Foundation may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll free, within Pennsylvania, (800)732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement. WASHINGTON: Financial disclosure information is available upon request from the Secretary of State, Charities Program, by calling (800) 332-4483. WEST VIRGINIA: West Virginia residents may obtain a summary of the registration and financial documents from the Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, West Virginia 25305. Registration does not imply endorsement.