The final phase of competition is the public Grand Finals concert on the Met stage, accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy, on Sunday, March 1
Winners will receive individual cash prizes of $20,000 and invaluable exposure in the opera world
Finals concert to be broadcast live on the Met’s website and SiriusXM
Following February 24th’s semi-final competition, nine young singers have advanced to the final round of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2020 National Council Auditions. In the public concert, finalists perform on the Met stage Sunday, March 1 at 3 p.m., for an audience of judges, agents, industry leaders, and the general public (in the auditorium and live on the radio). The finalists, chosen by a panel of opera administrators from the Met and other companies, each perform two arias with the Met Orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy. Prize money will increase for the first time in 20 years, with the winners receiving individual cash prizes of $20,000 (previously $15,000), and the prestigious and potentially career-launching title of National Council Auditions Winner. The remaining finalists receive $10,000 (previously $7,500).
The concert will be hosted by soprano Lisette Oropesa, a 2005 National Council Auditions winner, and will also feature a performance by tenor Javier Camarena, while the judges deliberate.
The concert will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM Channel 75, and streamed live on the Met’s web site, www.metopera.org.
The 2020 finalists, the regions they represent in the competition, and their hometowns are:
Grammy Award-Winning Choir Performs New York Premiere of Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaragua Featuring Cellist Maya Beiser
On Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall. Grammy Award-winning new music choir The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, performs the New York premiere of Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaraguawith cutting-edge cellist Maya Beiser, a work co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of its 125 Commissions Project.
Photo of The Crossing by Kevin Vondrak and photo of Maya Beiser by ioulex.
Travel Guide to Nicaragua is inspired by Gordon’s hazy memory of his first eight years of life living on the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua with his Eastern European parents who had emigrated to the country. In writing this third substantial work for The Crossing, Gordon—one of the founding members of Bang on a Can—also reaches beyond his childhood memories, pondering the world of the Maya and Aztecs and drawing on the words of poet Rube´n Dari´o and Mark Twain, who visited the country in the mid-1860s.
There’s a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.: Conductor Donald Nally and composer Michael Gordon in conversation with John Schaefer, host of WNYC’s New Sounds and Soundcheck. Support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by members of Carnegie Hall’s Composer Club.
Hailed as “America’s most astonishing choir” (The New York Times) and “ardently angelic,” (The Los Angeles Times), The Crossing is a Grammy-winning professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally and dedicated to new music. It is committed to working with creative teams to make and record new, substantial works for choir that explore and expand ways of writing for choir, singing in choir, and listening to music for choir. Many of its nearly 90 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 19 releases, receiving two Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019), and five Grammy nominations in three years. They have presented nearly 90 commissioned world premieres.
The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, LA Phil, the American Composers Orchestra,Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Tempesta di Mare Baroque Chamber Orchestra, the Annenberg Center, Beth Morrison Projects, The Rolling Stones, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and more. The Crossing holds an annual residency at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana where they are working on an extensive, multi-year project with composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison. Their concerts are broadcast regularly on WRTI 90.1FM, Philadelphia’s Classical andJazz Public Radio.
The Crossing’s recordings of Robert Convery and Benjamin Boyle’s Voyages (August 2019, Innova) and Kile Smith’s The Arc in the Sky (July 2019, Navona) were both nominated for 2020 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance. Lansing McLoskey‘s Zealot Canticles won the 2019 Grammy; The Crossing’s collaboration with PRISM, Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (ECM, October 2016), won the 2018 Grammy Award; and Thomas Lloyd’s Bonhoeffer (Albany 2016) was nominated for the 2017 Grammy, all for Best Choral Performance. The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was the American Composers Forums’ 2017 Champion of New Music. The Crossing’s 2014 commission Sound from The Bench by Ted Hearne was named a 2018 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Learn more at www.crossingchoir.org.
Hailed for her “stirring emotional power” by The New York Times, Maya Beiser has been called a “cello rock star” by Rolling Stone, praised as “a force of nature” by The Boston Globe, and dubbed “the queen of Avant-garde cello” by The Washington Post.
Raised on a Kibbutz in the Galilee Mountains in Israel, by her Argentinean father and French mother, Beiser was discovered at the age of twelve by the late violinist Isaac Stern. Upon graduating from Yale University, she embarked on a rebellious career, passionately forging her artistic path through uncharted territories, expanding her art form and bringing a bold and unorthodox presence to contemporary classical music.
Beiser is a featured performer on the world’s most prestigious stages including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, The Kennedy Center, BBC Proms, London’s Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican, Sydney Opera House, Barcelona’s L’auditori, Paris’ Theatre de La Ville, Stockholm’s Concert Hall, and in major venues and festivals across five continents.
Among the wide range of artists she has collaborated with are Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Erin Cressida-Wilson, Brian Eno, Shirin Neshat, Steve Reich, Lucinda Childs, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Mark Anthony Turnage, David Lang, Bill Morrison, and Wendy Whelan.
Beiser’s discography includes twelve solo albums, many of them topping the classical music charts. In the summer of 2019, she launched her own record label – Islandia Music records – and released delugEON, a concept album that deconstructs the classical canon. On January 10 2020, she released “Bowie Cello Symphonic: Blackstar” – a reimagination of David Bowie’s last album – topping the Classical Crossover charts and receiving rave reviews. Beiser is the featured soloist on many film soundtracks, including an extensive collaboration with James Newton Howard.
Maya Beiser is a United States Artists Distinguished Fellow in Music and was a Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at MIT. Her mainstage TED Talk has been watched by over one million people. (www.mayabeiser.com)
Over the past 30 years, Michael Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles and major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio and kaleidoscopic works for groups of identical instruments. Transcending categorization, his music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness.
This season, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players with Roomful of Teeth and Splinter Reeds premiere the concert-length In a Strange Land, the Strings of Autumn festival in Prague feature Gordon as composer-in-residence and perform Timber plus all of Gordon’s string quartets; and the percussion/piano/bass trio Bearthoven premieres a new work.
Travel leader also introduces Norway and Slovenia adventures, expands cycling and Grand Canyon collections
REI Co-op‘s adventure travel company has introduced its first active trips in Shenandoah National Park, along with new trips in Norway and Slovenia. The global leader in small group active travel also announced its first international backpacking trip in Patagonia and continued expansion of its Grand Canyon and cycling collections.
REI Co-op Logo (PRNewsFoto/REI) (PRNewsfoto/REI Co-op)
“We intentionally design every active adventure to connect with local communities in a meaningful way that only REI can offer,” said Mark Seidl, REI divisional vice president of Experiences. “By doing so, we want our guests to gain a broader perspective of the world and be transformed through the experience.”
National Park Expansion: Shenandoah and Grand Canyon Created in 1925, Shenandoah National Park was one of the first national parks in the eastern United States. Three REI itineraries are now available – a multi-sport Shenandoah National Park Adventure, Shenandoah Lodge-to-Lodge Hiking and Shenandoah National Park Weekend Cycling. All trips are four days in length with departures during spring blossoms through fall’s vibrant colors. Next month, REI will add a four-day Shenandoah backpacking trip to the collection.
Building on REI’s widely popular North America backpacking trips, the travel leader is introducing its first international itinerary to explore the undiscovered heart of Patagonia’s remote and rugged beauty. Pictured: Backpacking Patagonia – Fitz Roy and Los Glaciares National Park. https://www.rei.com/adventures/trips/latin/patagonia-argentina-backpacking.html
On REI’s multisport trip, guests hike to Shenandoah’s highest point and through deep caverns with streams and anthodite formations, zipline through the treetops, and float down the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. Star-filled evenings at camp are complete with hearty meals to refuel guests. The company’s lodge-to-lodge itinerary hikes a section of the Appalachian Trail from the doorsteps of iconic lodges that boast unique histories. The company’s cycling weekend stays at charming inns and lodges, providing a welcome reward from vigorous daily rides of 40 to 60 miles along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Adding to REI’s postcard-perfect national parks adventures is its expansion in the Grand Canyon. The company recently added six itineraries for a total of 14 adventures Grand Canyon National Park that range from three to eight days of hiking, backpacking and cycling. With so many options, adventurers can confidently select a trip based on his/her available time, interests and ability.
Backpacking Patagonia – Where Nature Reigns Supreme Building on REI’s widely popular North America backpacking trips, the company is introducing its first international itinerary to explore the undiscovered heart of Patagonia’s remote and rugged beauty. On Backpacking Patagonia – Fitz Roy and Los Glaciares National Park, the eight-day adventure starts in the small outpost of El Chalten known as the region’s trekking capital. Guests hike through meadows and lenga forests, across moraines and glaciers, and up to breathtaking vistas. A trip highlight is a trek past iceberg-laden bays and over high passes to reach the unparalleled views of the second-largest non-polar ice mass in the world.
The co-op now offers seven itineraries in Patagonia ranging in length from seven to 13 days for hiking, cycling, kayaking and volunteer trail maintenance to protect the famous “W” trail.
New Europe trips: Norway and Slovenia Known as the “land of the midnight sun” because one-third of the country is in the Arctic Circle, REI is expanding its classic Norway offering with the launch of two more itineraries – Norway Lofoten Islands Hiking and Norway Fjords Cycling. The nine-day archipelago hiking trip offers unparalleled beauty as guests hike up glacier-carved mountains to the reward of epic views, kayak “little Hawaii,” and experience life in remote fishing communities. Highlights also include a cruise through one of the country’s steepest and narrowest fjords in search of Europe’s largest eagle, a visit to the outermost and wildest islands of Værøy, and plenty of opportunities for traditional cold-water swims.
On REI’s Slovenia Hiking – The Alps to the Adriatic trip guests venture into the quiet solitude of the Julian Alps and more. The rugged Julian Alps are just as awe-inspiring as their Swiss and French cousins, with a big difference: far fewer hikers. Over eight days, marvel at high limestone peaks and dense spruce forests; raft the Soča River and swim in its pools and waterfalls; take a private tour of the subterranean chambers of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Škocjan Caves; and discover the region’s wine, olive oil and local cuisine with visits to a prosciutto producer and local beekeeper farm. For such a small country, its beekeepers produce up to 2,500 tons of honey a year.
An Expanded Range of Sketchers Styles Feature Goodyear Rubber Technology Outsoles For Enhanced Grip, Stability And Durability
Skechers Logo
Global footwear powerhouse Skechers is building on the technology in its footwear through a new collaboration with The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Select styles across multiple categories for men, women and kids will utilize Goodyear rubber technology in custom Skechers outsoles that will deliver increased grip, stability and durability.
Skechers x Goodyear 2020 – Select Skechers styles now feature Goodyear Performance Outsoles for enhanced grip, stability and durability. (Photo: Business Wire)
“This collaboration is an example of two trusted brands coming together to create a high-tech product that will truly benefit our consumer,” said Michael Greenberg, president of Skechers. “Through this effort, select products will feature Goodyear Performance Outsoles, offering that extra edge where it’s needed most—be it enhanced stability on a run, excellent grip over slippery surfaces in the workplace, or durability on the playground for long-lasting wear. We expect this will resonate with our customers who need these innovations in the comfortable Skechers footwear that they love.”
Skechers Collaborates with Goodyear on Footwear (PRNewsfoto/The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Comp)
“Goodyear has always worked to create innovative products that provide consumers with high-performance tires, and now we’re using that same ingenuity to enable consumers to wear high-performance shoes,” said Christian Jurado, Goodyear’s global director of licensed products.
Skechers Collaborates with Goodyear on Footwear (PRNewsfoto/The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Comp)
The shoes, featuring Goodyear Performance Outsoles, are designed for durability with long-lasting wear, excellent grip on a variety of surfaces and weather conditions and enhanced stability through exceptional traction. This is made possible with Goodyear-developed rubber technology that contains a special polymer including sustainable soybean oil—a renewable, bio-based material used in some of the company’s top-performing tires – available in the U.S. and Canada – the Assurance® WeatherReady®, Eagle® Exhilarate® and Eagle® Enforcer® All Weather® and the Assurance ComfortDrive®.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is pleased to announce the 2020-21 recipients of VMFA fellowships. Twenty-six students and professional artists were selected from more than 500 applicants to receive a total of $146,000 towards professional advancements in the arts. The VMFA Fellowship Program has awarded more than $5.8 million to over 1,395 artists since 1940. Recipients must be Virginia residents and may use the award as desired, including for education and studio investments. Each year, professional curators and working artists serve as jurors to select fellowship recipients.
“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program is proud to support student and professional artists working across the Commonwealth,” said Alex Nyerges, VMFA director and CEO. “We offer one of the largest fellowship programs of its kind in the United States and recognize this effort as a core part of our mission.”
Abigail Lucien, Sculpture, Richmond
Fellowship Recipients
VMFA awarded ten professional fellowships of $8,000 each this year. Professional fellowship recipients are:
Emma Gould, Photography, RichmondMargaret Meehan, Sculpture, Richmond
Paul Finch, New & Emerging Media, Richmond;
Emma Gould, Photography, Richmond;
Sterling Hundley, Drawing, Chesterfield;
Sue Johnson, Mixed Media, Richmond;
Abigail Lucien, Sculpture, Richmond;
Margaret Meehan, Sculpture, Richmond;
David Riley, Film/Video, Richmond;
Dash Shaw, Drawing, Richmond;
Jon-Philip Sheridan, New & Emerging Media, Richmond; and
“Jitish Kallat: Return to Sender” March 13–June 28, 2020
The Frist Art Museum presents Return to Sender, an exhibition of immersive installations created by the celebrated Indian artist Jitish Kallat. The dramatic works, which engage both mind and body, are inspired by historic messages that reveal the best and worst of humanity. The exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from March 13 through June 28, 2020.
Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)
Jitish Kallat is a Mumbai native who produces installations, paintings, photographs, and sculptures that often recall historic acts of speech. Return to Sender brings together two works based on missives: Kallat’s widely exhibited work titled Covering Letter (2012), which was selected for India’s pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), and a new project called Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) (2019). “Kallat’s explorations of the epistolary mode are well suited to our museum as our building is the former main post office of Nashville,” says Frist Art Museum Curator Trinita Kennedy. “From here countless letters have been sent and received.”
Covering Letter is a haunting interactive digital projection of a 1939 typewritten letter from Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, sent just a few weeks before the outbreak of World War II. The letter is seen on a curtain of traversable dry-fog in the dark. “Gandhi makes a radical appeal for peace, anticipating the brutal bloodshed that the impending war would unleash,” says Kennedy. In the spirit of his doctrine of universal friendship, Gandhi uses the salutation “Dear Friend…” and urges Hitler to resist “reducing humanity to a savage state.” Visitors walk through the screen of descending mist, simultaneously inhabiting and dissipating the moving text. Kallat describes the letter as “a space for self-reflection; a petition from one of the greatest proponents of peace to one of the most violent individuals who ever lived. It can also be read as an open letter from the past destined to carry its message into our turbulent present, well beyond its delivery date and intended recipient.” Kennedy hopes the work will have special resonance in Nashville. “This exhibition marks the first time that Covering Letter has been exhibited in the American South, a place where Gandhi’s ideas about of nonviolent resistance were a vital part of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) commemorates and reinvokes the Golden Record, sent as time capsules aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes launched by NASA in 1977. For those expeditions, select sounds, music, and images were placed on two gold-plated phonographic records with the intent to represent life on Earth to any extraterrestrial discoverer. Currently located over 13 billion miles away from planet Earth, they are expected to continue their cosmic journey well beyond the probable extinction of our species and our planet.
Upon entering this installation, visitors will hear a chorus of humanity greeting the universe in 55 languages. There is a projection of a map indicating Earth’s position in our solar system and a large round table with over a hundred images printed on parallax lenses, which are illuminated by lights that pulsate at the rate of human breath. The images, drawn from the Golden Record, include scientific and cosmological diagrams, representations of our genetic makeup and anatomy, as well as other life forms, and architecture, often annotated with measurements. “This is an epic presentation of Earth to an unknown other,” says Kennedy. At a time when we find ourselves in a deeply divided world, Kallat foregrounds these sounds and images for a collective meditation on ourselves as united residents of a single planet.
In Covering Letter (terranum nuncius) there is also a bench shaped like the hands of the Doomsday Clock. This symbolic clock, updated annually by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, represents a hypothetical human-made global catastrophe as midnight, and the proximity of the world to apocalypse as a number of minutes or seconds to twelve. “The Golden Record’s presentation of unity and harmony among earthlings is belied by the actual state of the world,” says Kennedy. “The reality is that our planet hangs in the balance through circumstances of our own making, and the clock bench is an ominous metaphor that differs from the euphoria and optimism associated with the midnight on occasions such as New Year’s Eve.” Woven into the hour are humankind’s worst fears and greatest hopes.
This exhibition marks the first time that Kallat’s two Covering Letter installations will be shown together. Exhibited in darkened galleries and open ended in meaning, they are intended to provoke contemplations of our world and the universe.
Born in India in 1974, Kallat has exhibited his work widely across the world in contexts such as galleries, museums, and biennials. In 2017, the National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi) presented a mid-career retrospective of his work titled Here After Here, 1992–2017, curated by Catherine David. Kallat has had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bhau Daji Lad Museum (Mumbai), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and other museums.
He has exhibited widely, at Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Serpentine Galleries (London), Tate Modern (London), the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Spain), and other institutions. His work has been part of the Asian Art Biennial, the Asia Pacific Triennial, the Curitiba Biennial, the Gwangju Biennale, the Havana Biennial, the Kyiv Biennial, and the Venice Biennale, among others. Kallat also served as the curator and artistic director of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale’s second edition, in 2014.
Public Programs
Thursday, March 12
Artist’s Perspective: Jitish Kallat
6:30 p.m., Frist Art Museum Auditorium
Free; first come, first seated
Mumbai-based artist Jitish Kallat will share a cross section of his work, exploring the many processes, themes, and ideas that recur throughout his wide-ranging artistic practice. Kallat’s works often engage with the ideas of time, transience, sustenance, the ecological, and the cosmological. These explorations take the form of investigative animation videos, photo-works, paintings, sculptures, and elemental drawings that participate in atmospheric phenomena such as wind and rain. In works such as Covering Letter (2012), which will be on view at the Frist, a historic moment is invoked, prompting a contemplation on our present by mediating it through the past. This artist-talk may unfold into a dialogue, as a Q&A session will follow Kallat’s lecture.
The Exhibition Features Quilts And Wall Hangings By The Artist That Showcase Her Expressive And Narrative Approach To Quiltmaking.
A new exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum presents colorful quilts and wall hangings made by artist Pauline Parker (1915-2013), who used fabric and stitching as a platform for storytelling.
Opening March 20, 2020, The Quilts of Pauline Parker features more than thirty objects that showcase her expressive approach to quiltmaking, illustrating how Parker transformed a traditionally domestic craft into one that highlighted current events, historical and Biblical figures, and her own travels and experiences.
“Parker’s works are a wonderful result of her training as a painter, her exquisite eye for pattern, and her ability to create beautifully cohesive compositions from disparate parts,” said Margaret Andera, Curator of Contemporary Art. “The Milwaukee Art Museum has a long and rich history of presenting quilt exhibitions, dating back to the 1930s, and we are pleased to continue that tradition by presenting the work of this talented artist.”
Parker studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but her work in fabric began in Wisconsin, where she moved upon retirement. She initially worked with traditional patterns and used techniques she had learned from her mother and aunts, before expanding her subject matter, stitching more freely and exploring a less traditional approach to quiltmaking.
Many of Parker’s narrative quilts, or “fabric collages” as she termed them, resemble paintings in their construction, use of perspective and three-dimensionality. Each quilt was inspired by a personal experience, a poem or a misprinted piece of fabric, which could often lay the groundwork for a story. The artist layered fabrics and materials, including netting, buttons and shells, to build her compositions. Parker made the more than thirty fabric collages featured in the exhibition between the late 1980s and early 2000s.
The Quilts of Pauline Parker runs from March 20 through July 19, 2020, in the Bradley Family Gallery, and is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and curated by Margaret Andera, Curator of Contemporary Art.
The McCombe and Pfeifer Families and the Gottlob Armbrust Family Fund in Memory of Helen Louise Pfeifer is the Presenting Sponsor of this exhibition. The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Garden Club is the Contributing Sponsor.
Exhibitions are made possible by the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Visionaries: Debbie and Mark Attanasio, Donna and Donald Baumgartner, John and Murph Burke, Sheldon and Marianne Lubar, Joel and Caran Quadracci, Sue and Bud Selig and Jeff Yabuki and the Yabuki Family Foundation.
Programming
Gallery Talks
Tues, 1:30 p.m.
March 24, April 28, May 12
With Margaret Andera, Curator of Contemporary Art
Free with Museum admission, free for Members
Gallery Talk with Special Guest
Thurs, March 19, 6:15 p.m.
Discover the stories behind the works in the exhibition during this in-gallery conversation with the artist’s daughter, Margaret Parker, and Margaret Andera, Curator of Contemporary Art.
Stitch 2-Gather
Sun, 1-4 p.m.
March 22, March 29, April 5
East End
Bring your sewing project to the East End to sew and socialize with (and get tips from!) the guest artist. Museum admission is not required.
Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin to lead orchestra with stops in London, Paris, and Baden-Baden
The Metropolitan Opera today announces that the Met Orchestra will tour Europe in the summer of 2021, immediately following its annual residency at Carnegie Hall. With all performances conducted by the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the tour includes stops at the Barbican Centre in London on June 29, 2021; the Philharmonie in Paris on June 30 and July 1, 2021; and the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany, on July 3 and 4, 2021. Four of the world’s leading opera stars join the Met Orchestra: mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who will sing selections from Berlioz’sLes Troyens, and soprano Christine Goerke, tenor Brandon Jovanovich, and bass Günther Groissböck, who will perform the first act of Wagner’s Die Walküre.
The Met Orchestra last toured in 2002, when it performed in Salzburg, Austria; Lucerne, Switzerland; and Baden-Baden and Wiesbaden, Germany.
The tour also features performances of American composer Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres). Nézet-Séguin and the Met Orchestra will perform Mazzoli’s chamber opera Breaking the Waves at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the summer of 2020, and Mazzoli has been commissioned to compose an opera for a future season at the Met. The complete itinerary and programming for the tour is below.
“These concerts will show off the Met Orchestra at full capacity under Yannick,” said Met General Manager Peter Gelb, “demonstrating their dual strengths in symphonic and operatic repertoire.”
“This is a major milestone in the Met’s recent history. I am very grateful for the music we make all season long at the Met, and I cannot wait to have European audiences experience the Met Orchestra’s brilliant artistry in person. And what better way to celebrate their excellence than to bring along dear friends Joyce, Christine, Brandon, and Günther as collaborators?” said Nézet-Séguin. “I am proud that the Met is continuing to reach audiences beyond Lincoln Center. This European tour is the perfect capstone to the coming season.”
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra 2021 European Tour
Tuesday, June 29, 2021, at 7:30 p.m.
Barbican Centre, London
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Chers Tyriens,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Berlioz: Les Troyens, Royal Hunt and Storm
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Adieu, fière cite,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Wednesday, June 30, 2021, at 8:30 p.m.
Philharmonie, Paris
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
R. Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20
Missy Mazzoli: Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)
Wagner: Die Walküre, Act I, featuring Christine Goerke, Brandon Jovanovich, and Günther Groissböck
Thursday, July 1, 2021, at 8:30 p.m.
Philharmonie, Paris
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Chers Tyriens,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Berlioz: Les Troyens, Royal Hunt and Storm
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Adieu, fière cite,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Saturday, July 3, 2021, at 6:00 p.m.
Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Chers Tyriens,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Berlioz: Les Troyens, Royal Hunt and Storm
Berlioz: Les Troyens, “Adieu, fière cite,” featuring Joyce DiDonato
Artistic Director Harry Christophers Will Celebrate Final Season With a Powerful Line-up of Favorites, Major Choral Works
The Handel and Haydn Societywill celebrate Artistic Director Harry Christophers’s 12th and final season with nine major subscription concerts at Symphony Hall and the New England’s Conservatory’s Jordan Hall and select other venues. The 2020-21 season, the 206th in the organization’s history, will feature a host of Christophers’s favorite compositions and a powerful line-up of major choral works featuring the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra, Chorus and notable guest artists.
Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society is dedicated to performing Baroque and Classical music with a freshness, a vitality, and a creativity that inspires all ages. H+H has been captivating audiences for 205 consecutive seasons (the most of any performing arts organization in the United States). Today, H+H’s Orchestra and Chorus delight more than 50,000 listeners annually with a nine-week subscription series at Boston Symphony Hall and other leading venues.
Handel and Haydn Society Announces 2020-21 Season
The season will feature guest conductors Harry Bicket, Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Equilbey, Raphaël Pichon, and Václav Luks. Special guest soloists will include sopranos Amanda Majeski, Amanda Forsythe, Carolyn Sampson, and Mary Bevan; mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers; tenors Nicholas Phan, James Way, Jeremy Budd, and Robert Murray; baritones Ryan McKinny, Tyler Duncan, and Sumner Thompson; countertenors Anthony Roth Costanzo, Iestyn Davies; and bass-baritones Henry Waddington and Matthew Brook.
The Handel and Haydn Society brings Classical and Baroque music to life on period instruments in historically informed performances. For the 2020-21 season, Harry Christophers has selected a series of acclaimed choral and orchestral works, rarely performed in one season. The selected compositions will highlight the immense talent of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus. Christophers will conduct Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt; and Haydn’s The Creation, Drum Roll symphony, and Theresienmesse.
Christophers was appointed Artistic Director at H+H in 2009, the thirteenth artistic director in the organization’s history. During his tenure, the organization has been transformed. H+H has grown to be regarded as one of the finest Baroque and Classical ensembles in the nation. Christophers led the organization through its 2015 Bicentennial. He has hired more than 60% of the current roster of musicians, whom he has led in 13 commercial recordings, the most of any H+H artistic director. There has been an increase in touring, sharing the H+H magic with audiences at Tanglewood and in New York City. During his tenure, subscription sales have risen more than 70%, and philanthropic support has risen significantly, including an increase in the endowment from $3 million to $11 million.
“Since his initial appointment, Harry Christophers has been the accomplished artistic beacon of the Handel and Haydn Society. Under his leadership, we’ve expanded, taking the Orchestra and Chorus to new heights and delivering one exceptional performance after another,” said David Snead, president and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society. “In the upcoming season, we’ll celebrate his legacy, showcasing the compositions he loves best and shining a spotlight on the H+H Chorus. It will be a monumental season, not to be missed.”
The 2020-21 Season
The Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020-21 season begins on September 25 and 27, 2020 at Boston’s Symphony Hall with Brahms A German Requiem. Led by conductor Harry Bicket, the performance will open with the H+H premiere of Abendfeier in Venedit, Op. 19 from Clara Schumann, a close friend of Brahms and regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists and composers of the Romantic era. This composition, for an a capella chorus, will be followed by Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, featuring soprano Amanda Majeski, baritone Ryan McKinny and the H+H Orchestra and Chorus.
The season continues with Bach + Vivaldi Gloria on October 23 and 25, 2020, at Symphony Hall. Conductor Jonathan Cohen will lead the H+H Orchestra in a rousing performance of J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1, BWV 1066 followed by C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat, featuring festive trumpets and drums, and Vivaldi’s sunny Gloria, RV 589. Soprano Amanda Forsythe, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, tenor Nicholas Phan, and baritone Tyler Duncan will join the H+H Orchestra and Chorus for the concert.
Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) held the opening of MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), Boston’s newest, free contemporary art museum this past weekend. MAAM will offer an accessible contemporary art experience for all, partnering with emerging and established artists to bring diverse perspectives to Boston. As a teaching museum, MAAM will educate MassArt students about the professional museum field and bring inspirational and aspirational exhibitions to campus.
After extensive renovations, MAAM opened in the space formerly known as the Bakalar & Paine Galleries at the heart of MassArt‘s campus on the Avenue of the Arts. MAAM will be a kunsthalle, or non-collecting museum, showing temporary exhibitions that feature the work of emerging and established artists to bring fresh, diverse perspectives to Boston. As MassArt’s teaching museum, MAAM will be a resource for MassArt students and faculty, educating students about contemporary art, partnering with faculty to support the curriculum, and preparing students for careers in the museum field. As an extension of the College’s public mission, the Museum will also be a vital resource to the community, offering a pathway to education in the arts and free, unique educational programming to Boston-area public schools and community groups. Always free, MAAM will be open year-round to the public. (To learn more visit maam.massart.edu.)
MAAM’s inaugural exhibitions will feature the U.S. solo premiere of internationally-renowned artist Joana Vasconceles; a group exhibition titled Game Changers: Video Games & Contemporary Art; and a site-specific installation by artist duo Ghost of a Dream.
Inaugural Exhibitions
Joana Vasconcelos: Valkyrie Mumbet (On View: February 22 – August 2, 2020)
Joana Vasconcelos: Valkyrie Mumbet
To mark the grand opening of MAAM, Vasconcelos’ new Valkyrie commission, Valkyrie Mumbet, honors a courageous American – Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman – the first woman of African descent to sue for her freedom in Massachusetts and win, starting the chain of events that helped make slavery illegal in Massachusetts. The work is tailored to fit exclusively in the MAAM space, highlighting the myriad possibilities of the new gallery’s 37 foot high ceiling and 40 foot wide second level art viewing balcony. These distinctive architectural attributes will allow visitors to see the work from different vantage points – beneath the sculpture from the gallery floor, and from over 20 feet high from the balcony.
Game Changers: Video Games & Contemporary Art (On View: February 22 – April 19, 2020)
Game Changers: Video Games & Contemporary Art – Pixel Momo Momoland Banner
The Game Changers: Video Games & Contemporary Art exhibition features works by a group of artists (Paloma Dawkins, Cao Fei, Tracey Fullerton, Dan Hernandez, Nyamakop, MassArt professor Juan Obando, Momo Pixel, Skawennati and Brent Watanabe) who are creating at the confluence of contemporary art and video games.
From 1994-2010, the Walker Art Center presented an annual month-long screening series featuring women directors, starting with a touring program “Women in the Director’s Chair (WIDC): Homegirls”, which blossomed into the Walker’s very own “Women With Vision” (WWV) festival. This March, the Walker Art Center will celebrate the legacy and influence of these groundbreaking programs that both launched and inspired so many women directors from our region.
Celebrate the legacy and influence of the Walker’s Women with Vision programs, which supported female filmmakers and sought to bring their experiences and perspectives to the forefront. Celebrated international directors screened side by side with local artists at all stages of their careers. Two past participants, Melody Gilbert and Kelly Nathe, guest curate and pay tribute to this era of film programming, largely helmed by Senior Curator Sheryl Mousley.
Image courtesy Walker Art Center.
“My indie filmmaking career kicked off in 2002 when Sheryl Mousley selected my first indie doc Married at the Mall to screen at the Walker in the Women with Vision program. I was so honored, and I know there are so many other women in our region who came up through this program just like me. Finding those filmmakers and having a reunion as well as celebrating the up-and-coming women filmmakers of today are reasons why I wanted to guest curate this program with Kelly Nathe. We both had life-changing experiences by screening films at the Walker, and we wanted to find out what happened to the others. And with the Academy Awards leaving women off the best director list again, we thought now would be a good time to do this.” —Melody Gilbert
The four-day program includes shorts screenings, on-stage conversations, introductions of new films by emerging local directors and a celebratory reception.
Image courtesy Walker Art Center.
“I have always believed that filmmaking is women’s work. When I came to the Walker in 1998, I took on the annual film program that had started in 1994 called “Women in the Director’s Chair” which had a local sidebar called “Homegirls.” I turned the program into Walker’s “Women With Vision” film festival, always keeping the local filmmakers at the center,” states Sheryl Mousley, Senior Curator, Moving Image. “After my eleven years with the festival, and only when a woman, Katherine Bigelow, in 2010 finally won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director, did I hear the shout, “We’ve won!” While ending the series on a high note, I vowed to continue showing women filmmakers at Walker throughout all our programs. I am proud to say that 25% of the Walker Dialogues are women, and the year-round cinema program continues to give voice to local filmmakers and celebrate the legacy and influence of women in international cinema. I am proud of all the Minnesota filmmakers who have shown their films at Walker. It is a wonderful history and confirmation of home-based talent.”
“My very first short film, Rock-n-Roll Girlfriend, screened in the WIDC: Homegirls program back in 1995 when I was still a student, and I can’t begin to explain how much my inclusion in the program meant to me back then. It remains a badge of honor to this day! I’ve always wondered what happened to all the women who started here. Where did they end up and how did the Walker program that focused on women directors shape their careers? Melody Gilbert and I were co-chairs of Film Fatales in Minnesota, an international organization of women and non-binary directors of feature films, and we both pondered that question and decided to go on a journey together to find these women as well as celebrate the emerging filmmakers in our region.” adds Kelly Nathe
Enjoy a sampling of recent works directed by MN women and selected by Film Fatales, a national organization of women and non-binary filmmakers advocating for intersectional parity in the film industry. The evening’s screening is followed by an onstage conversation led by Film Fatales about making the leap to feature filmmaking in our region.
Alison Guessou’s Happily Married After. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
Film Fatales Twin Cities Reel, 10 min
Santuario, Christine Delp & Pilar Timpane, 3 min. (excerpt)
A Winter Love, Rhiana Yazzie, 4 min. (excerpt)
Master Servant, Julie Anne Koehnen, 3 min. (excerpt)
North Side Boxing Club, Carrie Bush and Amanda Becker, 3 min.
Peeled, Naomi Ko, 2 min.
Muslim Sheroes of MN: Nimo Omar, Ariel Tilson, 4 min. (excerpt)
The Coyote Way, Missy Whiteman, 4 min. (trailer)
Oh My Stars, Cynthia Uhrich, 3 min. (excerpt)
Happily Married After, Alison Guessou, 3 min. (excerpt)
Little Men, Ayesha Adu, 3 min. (excerpt)
Untitled Hmong Doc, Joua Lee Grande, 3 min. (excerpt)
Underground, Beth Peloff, 3 min.
Self-Creation, Shelby Dillon, 5 min.
Jasmine Star, Jo Rochelle, 5 min. (excerpt)
Shelby Dillon, Self Creation, 2019. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
The Frist Art Museum presents Mel Ziegler: Flag Exchange, an installation of fifty American flags—one from each state—suspended row after row from the ceiling. The exhibition invites consideration of the American flag as a symbol of national identity and ideals, and it will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from March 13 through June 28, 2020.
Exhibition view of A Living Thing: Flag Exchange, curated by Hesse McGraw, at Federal Hall, New York, 2017. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli
Mel Ziegler (b. 1956), the Paul E. Shwab Chair of Fine Arts Professor at Vanderbilt University, is renowned as a social and community engagement artist whose work seeks to foster discourse and the sharing of ideas relating to history, politics, and society. He divides his time between Nashville and rural Nebraska, where he is the founder and executive director of the Sandhills Institute, a grassroots organization dedicated to civically engaged art, in part by connecting local ranchers and farmers with artists around the world.
During his travels across the United States, Ziegler frequently saw the American flag on display in front of schools, homes, small businesses, construction sites, or simply alongside the road. Many were in poor condition—often ragged, faded, or torn. “Mel was intrigued that these expressions of national pride were kept on view by people who either couldn’t afford to replace them or in many cases hadn’t noticed or cared whether theirs had gotten shabby,” says Frist Art Museum Chief Curator Mark Scala. “And he wondered if their owners might be willing to trade theirs for a fresh new flag.”
So, from 2011 to 2016, in what Ziegler calls “inquisitive travels,” he visited all fifty states, with a supply of American flags, and offered to replace old flags with new ones, renewing people’s outdoor displays while acquiring the materials for the exhibition.
Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)
“Flag Exchange is simultaneously a physical installation, an expression of an idea, and a site for performance,” says Scala. “The flags themselves symbolize a nation that has survived tumult and stress.” Displayed in the gallery, the rows of flags create a dense spatial layering. “The effect is optically powerful, as the inherent beauty of the flags’ patterns is intensified through repetition and the irregularity of the damaged cloth,” says Scala.
Flag Exchange has been installed in large spaces, often surrounding or hanging behind a stage or podium. At the Frist, a stage will be part of the installation and may be used for speeches, readings, musical performances, and discussions about the relationship between people and their ideas of democracy. The overall experience is one in which the civic realm is re-imagined in an atmosphere committed to the respectful exchange of viewpoints.
The symbolism of frayed and worn flags in Flag Exchange raises questions about the capacity of the American experiment to be sustained through national triumphs and shortcomings, including our own time of extreme political divisiveness. Ziegler writes that when he started acquiring the flags, “I could have never known what the political climate in the United States might be like today. It seems rather significant and pertinent that this project should help develop open, unpartisan dialogue at a moment when it seems to be needed most.”
Throughout the process of gathering and showing the flags, Ziegler was careful to follow the dictates of the U.S. Flag Code regarding their proper handling and display. In thus demonstrating that respect for the flag should rise above partisanship, he hopes to inspire viewers to find common ground in the vision of indivisibility for which the flag stands.
“In the end, it is the act of collecting the flags—the openness and vulnerability of an artist who is keenly interested in interacting with people in all corners of the country—that will inspire the trust and enthusiasm of all participants as they work to find common ground in the meaning of the flag and the promise of the nation,” says Scala.
The House of Representatives voted Tuesday, Feb. 11, to pass H.R. 1980. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), calls for the creation of a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum and includes cost-sharing language that is consistent with that used for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—a 50/50 split of federal and private funds for the development and construction of a new museum. The bill must now pass through the Senate and then be signed by the President.
“With full support from Congress, the Smithsonian has proven adept at creating museums that paint a more comprehensive picture of the American experience,” said Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian. “We remain committed to that goal, and we look forward to working with Congress and supporters nationwide to illuminate the profound impact women have had on the American story.”
The Smithsonian is committed to recognizing and celebrating the stories of all Americans. If the legislation is enacted into law, the Smithsonian will use its resources and expertise to create a world-class museum dedicated to telling the stories of women’s contributions throughout American history.
In the meantime, the Smithsonian has used funds appropriated by Congress ($4 million) and privately raised funds to begin a robust program of exhibitions, public programs and research focusing on women’s contributions to American history. In 2018, the Smithsonian officially launched the American Women’s History Initiative—“Because of Her Story”—to document, research, collect and exhibit the stories of women who have helped shape America. To date the initiative has:
Raised nearly $10 million toward the development of exhibitions, programs, educational material and digital content across the Smithsonian
Hired four curators dedicated to women’s history, with five more curatorial positions pending
Mentored 13 paid interns through the Because of Her Story Internship Program
Published Smithsonian American Women, a book that offers a unique, panoramic look at women’s history through objects from the Smithsonian’s collections
The High Museum of Art today announced the appointment of Monica Obniski as its curator of decorative arts and design. Obniski currently serves as the Demmer curator of 20th- and 21st-century design at the Milwaukee Art Museum. She will join the High on March 16, 2020.
Monica Obniski Appointed Curator Of Decorative Arts And Design At High Museum Of Art. Image courtesy of The High Museum of Art/Atlanta.
Obniski will oversee the decorative arts and design department, including related exhibitions and programs, as well as its collection of more than 2,300 objects dating from the 17th century to the present. These holdings include significant international contemporary design with works by Joris Laarman Lab, Jaime Hayon, Ron Arad and nendo, as well as the renowned Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection – the most comprehensive survey of 19th- and early 20th-century American decorative arts in the southeastern United States. Other significant works are represented in the Frances and Emory Cocke Collection of English ceramics, the Marjorie Eichenlaub West Collection of Meissen ceramics and the Museum’s extensive holdings of historical decorative arts from the southeastern United States. Obniski also will lead the High’s Piazza activations, a multiyear initiative that launched in 2014 to animate the Museum’s outdoor space with site-specific commissions that engage visitors of all ages in participatory art experiences.
“Monica is a forward-thinking curator with a proven track record of achievement organizing compelling exhibitions, creating new scholarship and building strong collections,” said Rand Suffolk, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director of the High. “These accomplishments, combined with her commitment to expanding the field and engaging diverse audiences, make her perfectly positioned to lead the continued growth of our decorative arts and design department.”
Added Kevin Tucker, the High’s chief curator, “We look forward to Monica joining the High’s team, knowing her efforts will enrich a program of true international significance and resonance with our region and communities. Considering the varied strengths of the Museum’s curatorial program, her collaborative nature, diverse expertise and interest in forging connections—including that between historical and contemporary design—makes her an exemplary choice for the position.”
Obniski earned a doctorate in art history, with specialization in architecture and design, from the University of Illinois at Chicago; a Master of Arts in history of decorative arts and design from the Bard Graduate Center; and a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University Chicago.
Beginning her career in the American wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Obniski then served in the American art department at the Art Institute of Chicago from 2007 to 2014, including four years as assistant curator of American decorative arts. There she collaborated on special exhibitions including “Art and Appetite” (2013) and “Apostles of Beauty” (2009), completed several gallery installations and continued to build the collection.
Obniski joined the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2015, where she oversees an expanding collection of historical and contemporary design and manages an active exhibition program, including “Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980,” organized with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which begins its international tour this year. Other notable exhibition projects include “Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America” (2018) with the Denver Art Museum and “Jaime Hayon: Technicolor” (2017-18), which originated at the High. She reinstalled the Milwaukee Art Museum’s modern and contemporary design galleries for its November 2015 reopening, with a presentation geared toward audience engagement through traditional methods and new technologies. She also stewarded important acquisitions to build the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection.
Semifinalists move on to a closed competition on Monday, February 24 for the chance to advance to the Grand Finals
Finalists will then compete at the public Grand Finals Concert on the Met stage, accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and conductor Bertrand de Billy, on Sunday, March 1
Winners will receive individual cash prizes of $15,000 and invaluable exposure in the opera world
The 23 young opera singers who have won regional auditions around the United States will compete in the semifinal round of the country’s leading vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, on Monday, February 24. The closed semifinal competition, held on the Met stage before a panel of judges, will determine the select group of finalists who will advance to the final round of the competition—the Grand Finals, which is open to the public and will be held on the Met stage on Sunday, March 1.
The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, now in their 66th season, are a potentially career-making opportunity for aspiring opera singers, given the reach of the auditions, the number of applicants, and the program’s long tradition.
The Met National Council Auditions have been crucial in introducing many of today’s best-known stars, such as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt, Thomas Hampson, Stephanie Blythe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee, Eric Owens, Angela Meade, Susanna Phillips, Michael Fabiano, Latonia Moore, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Nadine Sierra, Jamie Barton, and Ryan Speedo Green. The competition gained international notoriety with the release of the 2008 feature-length documentary The Audition, directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, which chronicled the 2007 National Council Auditions season and Grand Finals Concert.
This year’s semifinalists were chosen from more than 1,000 singers who participated in auditions held in 40 districts throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, and who then competed in the 12 regional finals. These auditions are sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council and administered by National Council members and hundreds of volunteers from across the country.
The semifinalists, ranging in age from 23 to 30, arrive at the Met on Saturday, February 22 to rehearse for the semifinals competition on Monday, February 24. The finalists of this event will then go on to sing in the Grand Finals Concert on Sunday, March 1 at 3 p.m., hosted by soprano Lisette Oropesa, who was a Grand Finals winner in the 2005 competition.
The 2020 semifinalists include ten sopranos, four mezzo-sopranos, one countertenor, three tenors, two baritones, two bass-baritones, and one bass.
The ten soprano semifinalists, along with the regions they represent in the competition and their hometowns, are:
Erika Baikoff (Upper Midwest Region: New York, New York);
Claire de Monteil (Middle Atlantic Region: Paris, France);
Cara Gabrielson (Northwest Region: Portland, Oregon);
Courtney Johnson (Eastern Region: Chesapeake, Virginia);
Chasiti Lashay (Western Region: Houston, Texas);
Jana McIntyre (Midwest Region: Santa Barbara, California);
Whitney Morrison (New England Region: Chicago, Illinois);
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has named Benjamin Filene as its new associate director of curatorial affairs as the museum engages in a strategic-planning process focused on public history and an audience-centered approach. Filene began his appointment Feb. 3.
The museum embarked on a strategic-planning process in November 2019 to shape how it will present history and engage with diverse audiences into 2030. The plan will be designed to guide the museum through one of the country’s most significant anniversaries – the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. With the vision of becoming the most accessible, inclusive, relevant and sustainable history institution in the nation, the museum is reaching out to the public with a bilingual (English/Spanish) national public survey asking for input.
Filene joins the museum from the North Carolina Museum of History, where he served as the chief curator, responsible for shaping the museum’s exhibition program and collections development. Before that, he was the director of public history and a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he initiated projects that brought together students and community partners to collaborate on projects designed to engage the public with historical issues that had contemporary resonance. He served as the senior exhibition developer at the Minnesota History Center, one of the nation’s largest state history museums. Filene gained a global perspective from Fulbright Fellowship work with the Helsinki City Museum and the University of Helsinki, which further developed his goals to re-envision national museums to foster collective identity.
“A committed public historian, Benjamin Filene has devoted three decades to the museum field as a leading scholar, curator, exhibition developer and a professor and mentor to many,” said Anthea M. Hartig, the Elizabeth MacMillan Director of the museum. “He is a true believer in museums, committed to ensuring that audiences see themselves reflected in history.”
This year the Frist Art Museum is expanding two of its public program series to enhance the visitor experience and increase learning opportunities for guests of all ages and backgrounds. The changes to Art After Dark and ARTlab are effective immediately and will continue to evolve over the course of the year.
Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)
Art After Dark is a grouping of fun and educational offerings that takes place on the third Thursday of every month* from 5 to 9 p.m. Guests are invited to combine their viewing of current exhibitions with participation in gallery programs and activities such as Drop-In Drawing, as well as access to live music, food trucks, and cash bars. The evenings are free to members; regular admission is required for not-yet-members.
“Art After Dark evenings provide a chance to enrich your visit and meet fellow art lovers,” says Frist Art Museum educator for interpretation Meagan Rust. “Every month, the programs will change and offer something new for everyone to enjoy. We look forward to exploring creative connections in the Middle Tennessee community and helping visitors engage with the exhibitions in new ways.”
Gallery talks will now be regular components of Art After Dark. Discussions will be led by Frist educators and special guests who will offer different interpretations of and perspectives on works on view and foster dialogues with visitors.
In Drop-In Drawing sessions, visitors are encouraged to study the works in the galleries or the architecture of the building as they practice with materials provided by the Frist. All skill levels are welcome, and Frist educators and volunteers are available to supply hands-on technical guidance.
On most Art After Dark Thursdays, there will be food trucks in the Turner Courtyard, and cash bars in the café and the lobby. Guests can enjoy a meal while listening to some of Nashville’s best and brightest performers from the worlds of jazz, soul, blues, Latin, country, folk, bluegrass, and classical music.
ARTlabs are hands-on studio sessions designed to offer a creative outlet for teens, adults, and participants of all ages. Visitors are encouraged to drop in to explore themes of current exhibitions and experiment with techniques in the company of professional artists. ARTlabs will be offered on various days throughout the year at the Frist, on select Art After Dark evenings, and at community events.
Upcoming Art After Dark and ARTLab Dates
Thursday, February 20
Teen ARTlab: Illustration and tattoo art with Elisheba Israel Mrozik
4:00–6:00 p.m.
(for ages 13–19).
Free; registration not required; materials provided
In recognition of Women’s History Month, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center in New York highlights the stories and artistry of Native women. The schedule of programs in March will feature scholarly talks about artworks by women, and a film that touches upon the many layers of identity navigated by Indigenous women.
Caption: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Cree/Shoshone, b. 1940), “Trade Canoe: Adrift”, 2015. Acrylic on canvas. Museum purchase, 2016. (26/9791)
Marking Space: Abstraction and Place will take place Thursday, March 5, at 6:30 p.m. This talk, presented by museum curator Rebecca Head Trautmann, considers the significance of landscape, place and narrative in the abstract paintings of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Cree/Shoshone, b. 1940), Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, b. 1935) and Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo, b. 1956).
On Thursday, March 19, at 6:30 p.m., Patricia Marroquin-Norby, the New York museum’s senior executive, will present20th Century Art and Environmental Conflicts. Highlighting the art of Tonita Peña (San Ildefonso/Cochiti Pueblo, 1893–1949) and Helen Hardin (Santa Clara Pueblo, 1943–1984), this scholarly talk examines connections between Pueblo watercolor paintings and environmental conflicts in 20th-century northern New Mexico.
Film Screening
On Saturday, March 7, the museum will screen The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Canada/Norway, 105 min.) from 2–5 p.m. Directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Blackfoot/ Sámi) and Kathleen Hepburn, the film tells the story of two Indigenous women living very different lives who are briefly brought together on the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, by desperate circumstances. The story of their encounter explores the complexities of motherhood, class, race and the ongoing legacy of colonialism. A discussion with actress Violet Nelson will follow the screening.
Panel Discussion and Workshop
The museum will host the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience for two days of programing that explore how to remember, acknowledge and contemplate the presence of Haudenosaunee women in the landscape of western New York. On Thursday, March 12, the museum will host a panel discussion at 6 p.m. titled “Rethinking the Landscape: Haudenosaunee Women.” On Friday, March 13, a daylong workshop is offered to staff and volunteers from museums and historical sites, university students and faculty, and other interested parties. More information about the workshop is available at their Eventbrite page.
Both events feature Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora Nation), director of the American Indian and Indigenous Program at Cornell University; Michelle Schenandoah (Oneida Nation), founder and CEO of Rematriationmagazine; and architect Julia Watson. The events will be facilitated by Linda Norris, global networks programs director at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The National Museum of the American Indian is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere—past, present and future—through partnership with Native people and others. The museum’s George Gustav Heye Center is located at One Bowling Green in New York City. For additional information, including hours and directions, visit AmericanIndian.si.edu. (Follow the museum via social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.)
Opening Night features a new Aida, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała, in a new staging by Michael Mayer.
Maestro Nézet-Séguin, in his third season as Music Director, will conduct six operas, including new stagings of Aida, Don Giovanni, and Dead Man Walking, as well as three classic revivals and two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall.
The six operas conducted by Maestro Nézet-Séguin will all be featured in The Met: Live in HD series—the most transmissions ever led by a single conductor in an HD season.
Renowned directors Barrie Kosky (The Fiery Angel), Ivo van Hove (Don Giovanni and Dead Man Walking), and Simon McBurney (Die Zauberflöte) make notable Met debuts with new productions.
For the first time in recent decades, the Met season will extend into June and will include no performances in February.
There will be more weekend opera than ever before, with 22 Sunday matinee performances, plus onstage post-performance discussions with the stars of each Sunday matinee.
Notable debuts include conductors Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, and Lorenzo Viotti and singers Varduhi Abrahamyan, Benjamin Bernheim, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Lucia Lucas, Thomas Oliemans, Svetlana Sozdateleva, and Okka von der Damerau.
Other notable conducting engagements include Harry Bicket (Giulio Cesare), Gustavo Dudamel (Die Zauberflöte), and Simone Young (Billy Budd), among others.
The 2020–21 season will be General Manager Peter Gelb’s 15th as the Met’s General Manager.
The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2020–21 season, the first in which Yannick Nézet-Séguin assumes his full breadth of musical duties as the company’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducting six productions. His schedule includes the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, the first contemporary opera conducted by the maestro on the Met stage, as part of his ongoing commitment to opera of our time at the Met, which will expand in the seasons to come.
The season—which includes five new productions and 18 revivals—kicks off on September 21 with the first new staging of Verdi’s Aida in more than 30 years, directed by Michael Mayer, conducted by Nézet-Séguin, and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała. Australian director Barrie Kosky makes his company debut with the Met-premiere production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, with Michail Jurowski leading an extraordinary cast in his Met debut. Two Mozart operas will also be seen in new stagings: an acclaimed production of Die Zauberflöte directed by Simon McBurney and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and a sophisticated new take on Don Giovanni,Ivo van Hove’s highly anticipated Met-debut production, conducted by Nézet-Séguin and starring Peter Mattei, Gerald Finley, Ailyn Pérez, and Isabel Leonard in the leading roles. And in April, Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s 21st-century masterpiece Dead Man Walking, with a new staging by van Hove featuring Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Latonia Moore, and Etienne Dupuis.
Following the successful addition of 16 new Sunday matinee performances last season, the Met will offer even more weekend options in 2020–21, with 22 Sunday matinee performances. Each Sunday matinee will be followed by an onstage post-performance discussion with the stars.
For the first time, the Met season will include no performances in February, with the company instead extending its performance calendar into the month of June.
In his third season as Music Director, in addition to the three new stagings, Nézet-Séguin conducts revivals of Fidelio, Roméo et Juliette, and Die Frau ohne Schatten, as well as two of three Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall in June. (Semyon Bychkov will conduct the first concert in the Carnegie Hall series, on June 10.)
“This is the season in which the Yannick era hits its stride,” said General Manager Peter Gelb. “In conducting six operas, he will be present throughout the entire season, raising the artistic bar for the orchestra, the chorus, and the entire company.”
“The artistic excellence we achieve each season is due to the invaluable contributions in the pit and on stage by the great Met Orchestra and Chorus,” Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin said. “This is an exciting time for opera, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my passion for it with the Met’s discerning and loyal audience, while deepening my relationship with this great institution. As we look forward to future seasons, we will not only continue to expand our repertoire with new commissions by living composers but will also be adding to our artistic ranks with more women on the podium and a greater emphasis on artistic diversity.”
Dozens of the world’s leading opera stars bring their artistry to 18 repertory revivals throughout the season, including Marcelo Álvarez, Jamie Barton, Piotr Beczała, Angel Blue, Stephanie Blythe, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Javier Camarena, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Stephen Costello, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, Angela Gheorghiu, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Günther Groissböck, Ekaterina Gubanova, Anita Hartig, Evelyn Herlitzius, Quinn Kelsey, Tomasz Konieczny, Isabel Leonard, Peter Mattei, Angela Meade, Latonia Moore, Erin Morley, Anna Netrebko, Lisette Oropesa, Eric Owens, Ailyn Pérez, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, Anita Rachvelishvili, Brenda Rae, Golda Schultz, Nadine Sierra, Stuart Skelton, Nina Stemme, Krassimira Stoyanova, Elza van den Heever, Christian Van Horn, Klaus Florian Vogt, Michael Volle, Pretty Yende, and Sonya Yoncheva. They perform alongside a number of significant newcomers to the Met stage, including Benjamin Bernheim, Okka von der Damerau, and Varduhi Abrahamyan. This is also a remarkable season for new conductors, with Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Michail Jurowski, Nimrod David Pfeffer, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, Lorenzo Viotti, and Kensho Watanabe all appearing for the first time on the podium.
New Productions
OPENING NIGHT: Aida — Giuseppe Verdi
A set model by Christine Jones for the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Verdi’s “Aida.”
Opening: September 21, 2020
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production: Michael Mayer
Set Designer: Christine Jones
Costume Designer: Susan Hilferty
Lighting Designer: Kevin Adams
Projection Designer: 59 Productions
Choreographer: Oleg Glushkov
Live in HD: October 10, 2020
Verdi’s opera receives its first new staging at the Met in more than three decades, with a season-opening premiere production directed by Michael Mayer, whose dazzling vision of ancient Egypt comes alive with intricate projections and eye-catching animations. Anna Netrebko and Anita Rachvelishvili portray archrivals Aida and Amneris on Opening Night—reprising their acclaimed partnership in the same roles from the 2018–19 season—and Piotr Beczała completes the triumvirate as Radamès. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a benchmark cast that also includes Ludovic Tézier as Aida’s father, Amonasro, and Krzysztof Bączyk in his Met debut as the King of Egypt. A co-production with the Bolshoi Theatre, this Aida also features Latonia Moore and Hibla Gerzmava in later performances of the title role, as well as Ekaterina Semenchuk and Marcelo Álvarez as Amneris and Radamès.
MET PREMIERE: The Fiery Angel — Sergei Prokofiev
Evgeny Nikitin as Ruprecht and Svetlana Sozdateleva as Renata in Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel.” Photo: Alfons Altman / Munich’s Bavarian State Opera
Opening: November 12, 2020
Conductor: Michail Jurowski
Production: Barrie Kosky
Set Designer: Rebecca Ringst
Costume Designer: Klaus Bruns
Lighting Designer: Joachim Klein
Choreographer: Otto Pichler
Australian director Barrie Kosky, a bright and bold force in the opera world, makes his long-awaited company debut with the Met premiere production of Prokofiev’s devilish masterwork, conducted by Michail Jurowski, also in his Met debut. Portraying the vagabond knight Ruprecht, Evgeny Nikitin stars opposite Svetlana Sozdateleva, who makes her Met debut in the role of Renata, the pious young woman obsessed with a mysterious angelic lover. Kosky’s visually stunning production was hailed by the Financial Times as “a gripping evening” when it premiered in Munich in 2015.
Museum Renames Prestigious Award to Honor Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins
Honoring AstronautMichael Collins’ legacy in aviation and space, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is renaming its trophy for the Apollo 11 command module pilot. The recognition is awarded annually for Lifetime and Current Achievements. The 2020 recipients are Charles Elachi for Lifetime Achievement and the Hubble Space Telescope Team for Current Achievement. The recipients will receive their awards March 26 at a ceremony at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
The National Air and Space Museum Trophy event is made possible through the support of Atlas Air Worldwide, BAE Systems Inc., Blue Origin, Booz Allen Hamilton, The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation, Jacobs, Leidos, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, National Business Aviation Association, Pratt & Whitney, Seabury Capital, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Thales.
Established in 1985, the award recognizes outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology and their history. Trophy winners receive a miniature version of “The Web of Space,” a sculpture by artist John Safer. The renaming of the trophy recognizes Collins’ contributions to aerospace and his service to the museum as director during a critical time in its evolution.
“The Web of Space” sculpture by John Safer. A miniature version of this sculpture is given to the National Air and Space Museum’s Michael Collins Trophy winners every year.
“I am deeply honored to have been made a part of the museum’s legacy recognizing the best in the aerospace industry,” said Michael Collins. “The National Air and Space Museum is a testament to thousands who helped craft it into the wonder it is today. I hope the award inspires future generations to keep reaching outward bound.”
2020 Michael Collins Trophy Recipients
Elachi will receive the 2020 Michael Collins Trophy for Lifetime Achievement honoring his distinguished career in the fields of remote sensing, planetary science and spaceflight-program management. After pioneering techniques in radar remote sensing for surface, ocean and atmospheric phenomena, he executed these techniques in leadership roles in various missions. He was the director for space and Earth sciences for almost 20 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), and the director of JPL for 15. Under his leadership, JPL achieved many successful planetary, earth and astronomy missions including several Mars lander, rover and orbiter missions, pioneering missions to outer planets, such as the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the Spitzer and Kepler Space Telescopes. The breadth of his expertise allowed synergy between the technical aspects of radar remote sensing and the interpretation of the acquired science data, which is now a standard approach in Earth and planetary science. Through this lifetime of success, he has also served as a significant mentor to many in industry and academia.
Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum logo
As the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 30th year in operation, the team behind Hubble will receive the 2020 Collins Trophy for Current Achievement. Hubble has changed humans’ fundamental understanding of the universe, having taken over 1.4 million observations and provided data that astronomers have used to write more than 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications on a broad range of topics. Through the efforts of the Hubble team since 2018, the observatory has continued to produce science unachievable with any other instrument, including studies of the first possible moon orbiting a planet outside the solar system, imaging the first known interstellar object to visit the solar system and finding water vapor on an extrasolar planet in the habitable zone. System engineers in Hubble’s control center and science operations facility have continued to find creative ways to operate the 30-year-old spacecraft to make this revolutionary science possible and ensuring its capabilities will continue for years to come.
The National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is located at 655 Jefferson Dr. The museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington Dulles International Airport. Both facilities are open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free, but there is a $15 fee for parking before 4 p.m. at the Udvar-Hazy Center.
Tour Launches at Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, Missouri, March 28
A new exhibition exploring the life and work of artist Robert Blackburn, whose innovation and masterful expertise with the medium helped define the overall aesthetic of the American graphics “boom,” will debut at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, March 28. “Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking,” curated by Deborah Cullen, is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in cooperation with the Trust for Robert Blackburn and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts’ Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program. The exhibition will remain on view through Aug. 2 before continuing an eight-city national tour through 2022.
Robert Blackburn, Girl in Red, 1950. 18 ¼ x 12 ½ inches, Color Lithograph. The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art.
Blackburn was a key artist in the development of printmaking in the United States. He became known as an influential teacher and master printer, engaging with avant-garde artistic ideas while promoting a new collaborative approach to a traditional medium. The exhibition traces Blackburn’s artistic evolution alongside the original prints of other iconic 20th-century American artists with whom he collaborated.
“The exhibition brings together a variety of works that highlights the prolific life of an artist and a skilled technical printmaker who openly shared his knowledge with the community, providing an open graphics studio for artists of diverse social and economic backgrounds, ethnicities, styles and levels of expertise,” said Myriam Springuel, director of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations.
Blackburn was born to Jamaican immigrants Dec. 10, 1920, and raised in Harlem, New York, during the Harlem Renaissance, an unparalleled flourishing of the arts centered in New York City’s creative black community. The arts were considered crucial to the well-being of society as well as a fertile medium for activism, and these values resonated with Blackburn throughout his life and work. In 1947, he founded a printmaking workshop as a welcoming space where artists of any level could learn and create together, and it remains in operation to this day. Blackburn’s art gradually shifted from figurative work to highly colored abstraction, creating a fascinating and engaging body of work.
“Robert Blackburn help forge a modernist graphic aesthetic, producing work of astonishing relevance for more than 60 years,” Cullen said. “He also directed the oldest and largest artist-run print workshop in the United States, welcoming thousands of artists from around the world.”
“Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking” celebrates both the artist and the democratic, diverse and creative community that he created. It features approximately 60 works, including lithographs, woodcut, intaglio and watercolors by Blackburn and the artists with whom he collaborated, including Grace Hartigan, Robert Rauschenberg, Elizabeth Catlett and Romare Bearden, among others. The exhibition is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and funding from the Smithsonian’s Provost Office.
Now Accepting Donations for the MFIT Hip Hop Style Archive
#50yearsofhiphopstyle
The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, and to commemorate the occasion, The Museum at FIT (MFIT) will present Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style (February–April 2023), an exhibition that examines the roots and history of hip hop fashion from inception to the present time. This exhibition will explore several themes, such as the transition of hip hop from the ‘hood to the runway; luxury and designer influence; the impact of hip hop celebrities on the fashion industry; and the growth of hip hop style as an international phenomenon. Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style is made possible by the support of The Couture Council.
FIT Logo (PRNewsfoto/Fashion Institute of Technology)
“For 50 years, hip hop has made its mark on U.S. culture and the world,” says Elena Romero, exhibition co-curator and assistant professor, Advertising and Marketing Communications at FIT. “It is the perfect time to exhibit, examine, and celebrate the contributions of our youth and people of color who ignited a multibillion-dollar industry, once considered a passing fad.” Romero has extensively chronicled hip hop fashion as a journalist, author, and scholar. She is the author of Free Stylin’: How Hip Hop Changed the Fashion Industry and has been featured in several documentaries on the subject, including Fresh Dressed and The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion.
“The Museum at FIT has established the Hip Hop Style Archive in preparation for our big 2023 exhibition,” says Dr. Valerie Steele, director of MFIT. “We have already acquired some important pieces—ranging from Dapper Dan to Chanel—but we are dedicated to finding much more material that will elucidate a very important cultural phenomenon.” The archive, founded in 2019 in recognition of the importance of hip hop style in the 20th and 21st centuries, is a continually growing collection within The Museum at FIT’s permanent holdings and is comprised predominantly of male and female garments, footwear, and related accessories. It includes works from a range of designers, including American sportswear and luxury designers, European luxury brands, and most significantly, works by designers of color, particularly African American and Latinx designers who helped initiate hip hop style’s international success.
MFIT is currently seeking and accepting donations of objects to continue to build the Hip Hop Style Archive and to accurately represent hip hop fashion in the upcoming Fresh, Fly and Fabulous exhibition. If you wish to donate an object, please click here to submit your information through an online form.
Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style will be supported by an advisory committee made up of experts from the fields of fashion, music, journalism, academia, and education. The exhibition will be organized and co-curated by Romero and Elizabeth Way, assistant curator of Costume at The Museum of FIT.
Immersive Audio Experience Featuring the Music of David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, and Other Rock & Roll Icons and a Recreation of the Fillmore East’s Famous “Joshua Light Show” Bring Visitors into the Rock & Roll World
Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution On View Now Through August 23, 2020
Bill Graham between takes during the filming of “A ’60s Reunion with Bill Graham: A Night at the Fillmore,” Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, 1986 Courtesy of Ken Friedman
Bill Graham combined an ear for talent with an eye for business. A refugee from Nazi Germany and a child of the Bronx, he instinctively grasped rock & roll’s relevance and potential, swiftly becoming one of history’s most influential concert promoters.
The New-York Historical Society presents the rock & roll world of Bill Graham (1931–1991), one of the most influential concert promoters of all time. Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution, (opened February 14 and) now on view through August 23, 2020, explores the life and work of the legendary music impresario who worked with the biggest names in rock music—including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Led Zeppelin, and The Rolling Stones—and launched the careers of countless music luminaries at his famed Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and the Fillmore East in New York City. Organized by the Skirball Cultural Center, which debuted the exhibition in Los Angeles, this comprehensive retrospective of Graham’s life and career explores some of the 20th century’s momentous cultural transformations through the lens of rock & roll.
American singer-songwriter and poet Jim Morrison (1943-1971), lead singer of The Doors, at the Winterland Auditorium in San Francisco, December 1967. Gelatin silver print Iconic Images/Baron Wolman
Graham started using the 5,400-seat Winterland in 1966 for shows too big for the Fillmore Auditorium. Winterland became a communal hub, and people from across the Bay Area would cruise by on Saturday nights to see what was happening. Graham sometimes sold as many as 2,000 tickets at the door.The Grajonca Family, Berlin, ca. 1938 Gelatin silver print Collection of David and Alex Graham
Born Wolfgang Grajonca in 1931, Graham’s Russian Jewish parents immigrated to Berlin searching for a better life; the Nazis’ rise to power crushed those dreams. When Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Graham’s mother put him on a children’s transport to France, thinking this would keep him safe. He never saw her again. His mother perished on the train to Auschwitz.
Showcasing more than 300 objects—including rock memorabilia, photographs, and concert posters—the New-York Historical presentation, coordinated by Associate Curator of Exhibitions Cristian Petru Panaite, highlights Graham’s personal connections to New York. Admission to the exhibition will be via timed-entry tickets and begins with a site-specific installation of “The Joshua Light Show,” the trailblazing liquid light show conceived in 1967 by multimedia artist Joshua White that served as a psychedelic backdrop to Graham’s concert productions in New York.
Jimi Hendrix performs at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, February 1, 1968 Gelatin silver print Iconic Images/Baron Wolman Graham once said: “Live, Jimi Hendrix was a combination of the ultimate trickster and the ultimate technician with great emotional ability. There was nobody close to him.”Prince and the Revolution perform at the Cow Palace, Daly City, CA, March 1, 1985 Chromogenic print Courtesy of Ken Friedman Graham continued enchanting audiences, presenting memorable shows featuring Madonna, U2, Prince, David Bowie, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.Madonna performs during her Blonde Ambition tour, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, May 18, 1990 Chromogenic print Courtesy of Ken Friedman
Unique to New-York Historical is a special, immersive audio experience, providing a musical tour through the exhibition with songs by rock & roll superstars the Allman Brothers, Chuck Berry, Blondie, David Bowie, Cream, the Doors, Aretha Franklin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, KISS, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Tom Petty, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Carlos Santana, the Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols, and Neil Young, among others. Included in the four-hour soundtrack available to visitors are also mambo hits by Tito Puente that Graham loved in his early years in New York. The audio experience is generously sponsored by luxury audio brand Master & Dynamic. A playlist of featured songs is available on Spotify.
View from the audience: The Rolling Stones at Day on the Green Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, California, July 26, 1978 Gelatin silver print Iconic Iconic Images/Baron Wolman
After a long and involved courtship, Mick Jagger finally agreed to let Graham take the Rolling Stones on a nationwide tour of the U.S. in 1981. They played before three million people in 30 cities and grossed $50 million in ticket sales, making the tour the most profitable in rock & roll history.
“Even though Bill Graham and the Fillmore East transformed the city’s music scene in the late 1960s, few know about Graham’s immigrant background and New York roots,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of New-York Historical. “We are proud to collaborate with our colleagues at the Skirball Cultural Center to present this exhibition in New York—Graham’s first American hometown—and to highlight his local experience. His rock & roll life was a pop-culture version of the American dream come true.”
The Museum of Modern Art announces the appointment of Clément Chéroux as the next Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography. MoMA has exhibited and collected photography since its founding in 1929, and formally established a Department of Photography in 1940. Chéroux succeeds Quentin Bajac, who served as Chief from 2013-2018, and now directs the Jeu de Paume, Paris. Chéroux will lead a department with a renowned legacy and unparalleled collection of more than 30,000 works that continues to play an important global role in exploring photography’s diverse and powerful impacts on modern life. He will guide all aspects of the department, including its installations, acquisitions, exhibitions, publications, and loan programs. Chéroux will join MoMA in June 2020.
“After an extensive and international search, we’re thrilled to welcome Clément as the new Chief Curator of Photography,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the David Rockefeller Director of MoMA. “Clément’s outstanding success and reputation as a gifted leader, curator, scholar, and collaborator is matched by his deep passion for and knowledge of the diversity of modern and contemporary photography practice.”
Clément Chéroux poses inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in San Francisco on July 21, 2016. Chéroux is the new senior curator of photography at the museum. The position oversees the Department of Photography and its renowned collection of more than 17,000 photographs — half the works of art in the entire SFMOMA collection. Photo by Frederic Neema
Chéroux is currently the Senior Curator of the Pritzker Center for Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco—one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States and a thriving cultural center. At SFMOMA, he organized exhibitions including Don’t! Photography and the Art of Mistakes (2019); snap + share. Transmitting photographs from mail art to social networks (2019); Louis Stettner. Traveling light (2018); Johannes Brus (2018); The Train, RFK’s Last Journey: Paul Fusco, Rein Jelle Terpstra, Philippe Parreno (2018); Carolyn Drake, Wild Pigeon (2018); and Walker Evans (2017).
From 2007-2016, Chéroux served in the Department of Photography at the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris—first as Curator, and then leading the department as Chief Curator from 2013-2016. He organized more than 25 exhibitions featuring the work of Walker Evans, Josef Koudelka, Jafar Panahi, Agnès Varda, Thierry Fontaine, Valérie Belin, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edvard Munch, and many others. Chéroux has published more than 45 books and catalogues and lectured widely on the topic of photography, its history, and its modern and contemporary contexts.
Chéroux previously held positions as a freelance curator, as executive editor of the magazine Études Photographiques published by the Société française de photographie, and as a lecturer at the Universities of Paris I, Paris VIII, and Lausanne. He holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Paris I Panthéon/Sorbonne and a degree from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (Arles).
“It was a pleasure to work at SFMOMA for three years and to have the support of a fantastic Bay Area photo community. I am very excited to be part of the energy of the new MoMA and to work with the team and collection to develop great projects,” shared Chéroux.
This summer, the High Museum of Art will premiere “Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Children’s Books” (June 20–Sept. 20, 2020), an exhibition organized in collaboration with The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
The exhibition is the first of its kind to delve into the events, people and themes of the civil rights movement, both celebrated and forgotten, through one of the most compelling forms of visual expression, the children’s picture book. The more than 80 artworks on view, ranging from paintings and prints to collages and drawings, will evoke the power and continuing relevance of the era that shaped American history and continues to reverberate today.
The year 2020 marks the anniversary of several key events from the civil rights movement. Sixty-five years ago, in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Ruby Bridges integrated her New Orleans elementary school, and four black students catalyzed the sit-in movement at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
These actions and more are explored in the exhibition with titles by beloved children’s book authors and artists as well as talented newcomers. “Picture the Dream” will emphasize children’s roles as activists and tell important stories about the movement’s icons, including Parks, Bridges, Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“One of the guiding aspects of our mission is a commitment to family audiences. Through our children’s book exhibitions, we aim to help adult visitors open meaningful dialogues with the children in their lives and create memories that will last a lifetime,” said Rand Suffolk, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director of the High. “This exhibition will spark important conversations across generations about a crucial period in our nation’s history that connects directly to our city, a birthplace of the civil rights movement.”
The exhibition will be organized into three thematic sections that explore the forces that sparked the civil rights movement, its key players and events, and stories about the reemergence of activism in contemporary America. From Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the March on Washington and Black Lives Matter, the picture books’ topics bridge the past and present, emphasizing how historical moments and leaders continue to inspire the struggle for equal rights.
The High Museum of Art today announces artist Jamal D. Cyrus as the 2020 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize in recognition of his contributions to the field of African American art. Awarded annually by the Museum since 2005, the prize demonstrates the High’s ongoing dedication to furthering innovation and research of African American artists and scholars.
Cyrus will receive the $25,000 cash award and be honored at the 16th annual Driskell Prize Dinner at the High on Friday, April 24, at 7 p.m. Proceeds from the dinner support the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition Restricted and Endowment funds. Since the prize’s inception, the funds have supported the acquisition of 50 works by African American artists for the High’s collection.
Established by the High in 2005, the David C. Driskell Prize is the first national award to honor and celebrate contributions to the field of African American art and art history. Past recipients include Huey Copeland (2019), Amy Sherald (2018), Naima J. Keith (2017), Mark Bradford (2016), Kirsten Pai Buick (2015), Lyle Ashton Harris (2014), Andrea Barnwell Brownlee (2013), Rashid Johnson (2012), Valerie Cassel Oliver (2011), Renee Stout (2010), Krista A. Thompson (2009), Xaviera Simmons (2008), Franklin Sirmans (2007), Willie Cole (2006) and Kellie Jones (2005). A cash award of $25,000 accompanies the prize. Proceeds from the High’s annual Driskell Prize Dinner support the David C. Driskell African American Art Restricted and Endowment Acquisitions funds, other ongoing African American initiatives and expenses associated with the David C. Driskell Dinner. The current balance of the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition Endowment Fund is $1 million. Through the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition Restricted Fund, the High has acquired works by artists including Romare Bearden, Rashid Johnson, Radcliffe Bailey, Nick Cave, Willie Cole, John T. Scott and Renee Stout.
David Driskell (American, born 1931) is a practicing artist and scholar whose work on the African Diaspora spans more than four decades. The High’s relationship with Driskell began in 2000 when the Museum presented the concurrent exhibitions “To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities” and “Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection,” which examined African American art in the broad historical context of modern and contemporary art. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Driskell is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland,College Park. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University in 1955 and his Master of Fine Arts degree from Catholic University in 1962. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 1953 and studied art history in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1964. More information about Driskell is available at www.driskellcenter.umd.edu.
Jamal Cyrus. Photo by Ronald Jones.
Based in Houston, Texas, Jamal D. Cyrus works across media in a conceptual, research-driven practice that interrogates American history within the framework of black political movements, the influence of the African Diaspora and social struggle. Encompassing object-based to performance art, Cyrus’ work is a form of self-education, aiming to rectify gaps in the understanding of cultural and national heritage.
The Art Institute of Chicago announced this week the acquisition of an extraordinary memorial window, attributed to Agnes F. Northrop and made by Tiffany Studios in 1917. Originally commissioned for the Central Baptist Church (now known as Community Church of Providence) as the gift of Mary L. Hartwell in memory of her husband, Frederick W. Hartwell, the window is a pinnacle achievement in the medium of stained glass.
Design attributed to Agnes F. Northrop (American, 1857–1953); Tiffany Studios (American, 1902–32). Hartwell Memorial Window (Light in Heaven and Earth), 1917. Corona, New York. Leaded glass; 701 x 487.7 cm (276 x 192 in.). Restricted gift of the Antiquarian Society, the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Family Foundation, and Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; through prior gift of the George F. Harding Collection; Roger and J. Peter McCormick Endowment Fund; American Art Sales Proceeds, Discretionary, and Purchase funds; Jane and Morris Weeden and Mary Swissler Oldberg funds; restricted gift of the Davee Foundation, Pam Conant, Stephanie Field Harris, the Komarek-Hyde-McQueen Foundation, and Jane Woldenberg; gifts in memory of John H. Bryan, Jr.; Wesley M. Dixon, Jr. Endowment Fund; through prior gift of the Friends of American Art Collection and Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson; restricted gift of Jamee J. and Marshall Field, Roxelyn and Richard Pepper, and an anonymous donor; Goodman Endowment Fund; restricted gift of Abbie Helene Roth in memory of Sandra Gladstone Roth, Henry and Gilda Buchbinder Family in memory of John H. Bryan, Jr., Suzanne Hammond and Richard Leftwich, Maureen Tokar in memory of Edward Tokar, Bonnie and Frank X. Henke III, Erica Meyer, Joseph P. Gromacki in memory of John H. Bryan, Jr., Louise Ingersoll Tausché, Christopher and Sara Pfaff, Charles L. and Patricia A. Swisher, Kim and Andy Stephens, and Dorothy J. Vance; B. F. Ferguson Fund; Jay W. McGreevy, Dr. Julian Archie, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Puth, and Kate S. Buckingham endowment funds, 2018.121
Art Institute President and Eloise W. Martin Director James Rondeau shared: “It is with great pride we welcome this transformative work of art into the collection, an object that demonstrates the highest level of achievement in American glass production and exemplifies our ongoing commitment to excellence. Tiffany Studios became synonymous with radiant materials and technical brilliance, and this monumental work of stained glass by the firm is an unparalleled example of beauty, ingenuity, and universality. Prominently installed in our galleries, with the rich architectural history of Chicago as a stunning backdrop, this singular work will certainly inspire visitors and undoubtedly has the power to become one of the museum’s icons.”
The design of the window is attributed to Agnes F. Northrop, the firm’s leading landscape window designer. At twenty-three feet high by sixteen feet wide, and made up of 48 different panels, the scene depicts a distant view of Mount Chocorua, one of the most beloved peaks of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Numerous landscape painters including Thomas Cole and John F. Kensett memorialized the mountain as a powerful symbol of the American landscape. In its scale, intricacy of design, and complexity of glasswork, it is one of the largest and most ambitious landscape window projects ever undertaken by Tiffany Studios.
This majestic window had been housed in the sanctuary of the Community Church of Providence. Speaking on behalf of the church, Pastor Evan Howard noted: “Our congregation decided to find a new home for the window where it could be experienced by a broad public audience that includes scholars, artists, and visitors from around the world. The church approached a number of different museums and ultimately selected the Art Institute of Chicago as the ideal institution to care for and display the window.” Added Pastor Howard, “We are extremely pleased that this exceptional work of art has entered such a renowned collection.”
Sarah Kelly Oehler, Field–McCormick Chair and Curator of American Art stated: “Landscape windows are rare within the overall production of Tiffany Studios, and the opportunity to acquire such a superlative example of Tiffany glass is one that will likely never be repeated. The Art Institute has a strong commitment to collecting the work of women artists, and we are especially thrilled to showcase Agnes Northrop, whose vision truly shaped the aesthetic of Tiffany Studios. This acquisition positions the museum as a leading institution for visitors to experience the artistry and vitality of stained glass as it joins other works in the medium, especially the iconic America Windows by Marc Chagall. We are thrilled to be the stewards of this remarkable and deeply resonant work of art for future generations.”
The window is currently undergoing conservation treatment at the Art Institute of Chicago. It will be installed this fall in the Henry Crown Gallery at the top of the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase. Located near the Michigan Avenue entrance, it will welcome visitors as they begin their journey through the museum.
Enjoy the best of both worlds with the ultimate city and mountain getaway filled with winter fun, including skiing, snowmobiling, ice-skating, snowshoeing, a spa retreat and the finest gastronomy the city has to offer
Guests can take advantage of a Third Night Free offer when booking two consecutive nights to extend the fun
Montreal is the seductive Paris of North America sitting at the edge of the Canadian wilderness. So, as such, the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal has crafted the quintessential winter experience to treat travellers and locals to the perfect Montreal winter escape. The luxurious package features a two-night stay with a complimentary third night to enjoy seasonal activities from intense to utterly relaxing.
On arrival, guests will settle in at MARCUS Lounge + Bar inside the Hotel’s bustling Social Square, where the city’s who’s who and global travellers mingle. They will challenge the resident mixologist to craft a bespoke cocktail just for them and follow their libation with dinner at MARCUS Restaurant, the first Canadian outpost by internationally-acclaimed Chef Marcus Samuelsson. Their senses will be awakened with an innovative feast of seafood and farm-to-table vegetables at this lively contemporary brasserie.
On the second day, guests will head for a rugged snow adventure at Mont-Tremblant, North America’s #1 ski resort in the East. They will ride a chauffeured SUV or private helicopter to exhilarating mountain slopes and sharpen their skiing and snowboarding skills with elite instructors. Alternatively, they may explore invigorating forest trails on a snowmobile, snowshoe or skate on a majestic frozen lake, and warm up with a hot chocolate at a luxurious mountain chalet. At nightfall, they will stroll under the twinkling lights of Mont-Tremblant’s European-style pedestrian village and enjoy dinner before returning downtown to the enveloping comfort of their Four Seasons room.
On the last day, their winter adventure will continue on Mount Royal Park, a mountain in the heart of the city, minutes away from the Hotel. They will venture through its winding paths on snowshoes or cross-country skis, skate on Beaver Lake, or snow-tube down the hills with their whole family. As the sun sets, they will relax and restore their body and mind at Four Seasons Spa, where they may explore the sensations of Kneipp hydrotherapy, solo or couple massages, steam sauna, and a glass of champagne poolside before drifting to dreamland on a Spa daybed.
Advance booking is required with a minimum of 48 hours’ notice. Inclusions cannot be modified or substituted. This experience is not valid in conjunction with any other offer or contract, and does not apply to groups. Rates are per room, per night, may vary by arrival date, and do not include taxes, service charges, gratuities or surcharges, unless otherwise noted. Early departure fees may apply, and rates and availability are subject to change, with some blackout dates in place.
All Images provided by the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal.
Expansive Exhibition Will Trace Gilliam’s Six-Decade Career
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present the first American museum retrospective of Sam Gilliam in more than 15 years opening in spring 2022. This groundbreaking exhibition will encompass Gilliam’s six-decade-long practice, from his early explorations of the ideas of the Washington Color School and his now-iconic “Drape” compositions to key examples of his most recent work.
Photo Credit: Sam Gilliam, “Light Depth,” 1969. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy Corcoran Gallery of Art. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2018.
One of America’s most influential living artists, Gilliam (b. 1933) is best known for abandoning the traditional stretcher apparatus to transform painting into a medium that bridged painting, sculpture and architecture and thus stands among the earliest examples of installation art. This major exhibition will span the full arc of Gilliam’s career, bringing attention to key moments in his innovative practice through a selection of paintings, sculptures and works on paper drawn from the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection and public and private collections. Among the exhibition’s highlights will be Gilliam’s “Light Depth” (1969), one of his most important “Drape” paintings, which was commissioned by Walter Hopps for an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and gifted to the Hirshhorn upon the Corcoran collection’s dispersal. This retrospective will be organized by Evelyn C. Hankins, senior curator at the Hirshhorn, with the full cooperation of the artist.
“We are honored to present a Sam Gilliam retrospective,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “This overdue in-depth survey builds on our museum’s mission: to showcase the most important local, national and international artists of our time. Gilliam’s influence spans these three realms. There is no more fitting place to celebrate his contribution to our understanding of abstraction than on the National Mall in his chosen hometown of Washington, D.C., at the national museum of modern art.”
Exhibition Features Major Loans From Museums in Mali, Morocco and Nigeria and Is on View in Washington for the First Time
“Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa” opens at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art April 11 and runs until Nov. 29. The first major exhibition to explore global medieval Saharan Africa, “Caravans” features over 300 works primarily from the eighth–16th centuries A.D. from across the Saharan region of West Africa as well as its diverse peripheries and sites of exchange—from England and Italy to Iran and China, as well as Nigeria and Ghana.
Photo Credit: Inland Niger Delta artist; Djenné, Mopti Region, Mali; Equestrian Figure; 13th-15th century C.E.; Ceramic; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, museum purchase, 86-12-2; Photograph by Franko Khoury.
Developed at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University by its Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs Kathleen Bickford Berzock, the exhibition includes unprecedented loans from national museums and institutions in Morocco, Mali and Nigeria, the result of nearly a decade of collaborative research and planning with partners on the African continent.
“The exhibition is a landmark opportunity to reconsider our understanding of world history,” said Kevin D. Dumouchelle, curator at the National Museum of African Art and coordinator of the exhibition in Washington. “Gold from West Africa was the engine that drove the movement of things, people and ideas across Africa, Europe and the Middle East in an interconnected medieval world. As the incredible works in this exhibition show, it is not possible to understand the emergence of the early modern world without this West African story. Africa’s history truly is a world history.”
“Caravans of Gold” draws on recent archaeological discoveries, including rare fragments from major medieval African trading centers like Sijilmasa in Morocco and Gao and Tadmekka in Mali. Built in close collaboration with partner institutions in Africa, the exhibition displays only archaeological works from African museum collections or those in U.S. public collections legally exported from their country of origin. These “fragments in time” are seen alongside works of art that invite audiences to imagine them as they once were. The exhibition features works in a variety of media—terracotta, copper alloy, ivory, glass, leather, textiles (including fragments of Africa’s oldest), paper and parchment, and of course gold—that together tell the story of medieval Saharan West Africa, beginning with the spread of Islam in the eighth century A.D. and receding with the arrival of Europeans along the continent’s Atlantic Coast at the end of the 15th century. During this era, the Sahara Desert supported routes that connected to global networks of exchange. As these networks spread, so too did cultural practices, fostering the broad circulation of distinctive Saharan aesthetic and intellectual traditions connected to Islam.
The exhibition also includes significant works that illustrate the global interconnection of far-flung regions in the medieval period: from French sculptures of Mary and the infant Jesus carved in African ivory, to Italian altar pieces adorned with African gold, to world-famous sculptural works from sites in Nigeria, including Igbo-Ukwu and Ife, that remain marvels of technical sophistication and use European-sourced metals and trade-goods.
“‘Caravans of Gold’ is the starting point for a new understanding of the medieval past and for seeing the present in a new light,” Berzock said. “The legacy of medieval trans-Saharan exchange has largely been omitted from Western historical narratives and art histories, and certainly from the way that Africa is presented in art museums. ‘Caravans of Gold’ has been conceived to shine a light on Africa’s pivotal role in world history through the tangible materials that remain. We are honored to join with our colleagues in Mali, Morocco and Nigeria, as well as at the National Museum of African Art, in order to share this world-shaping story.”
HI Smartphone Application
Visitors to the exhibition can engage further with the artworks on their smartphones using the Smithsonian-developed, web-based HI application. Visitors can scan an interactive map to discover an added layer of digital content, including videos, images and key facts connecting the site and its histories and networks of exchange with art works featured in the exhibition. The HI application does not require download, and it can be accessed at www.hi.si.edu.
Educational and Public Programs
Public programs will accompany the exhibition to engage the museum’s diverse audiences K–12 to adult. The exhibition’s curator will conduct a “first look” public tour of exhibition highlights Saturday, April 11, at 2 p.m. Visitors should meet at the museum’s visitor desk on the Pavilion level at 2 p.m.
Exhibition Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time, edited by Berzock and co-published by the Block Museum of Art and Princeton University Press. Shortlisted for The Alice Award, the publication draws on the latest discoveries and research to construct a compelling and interdisciplinary look at medieval trans-Saharan exchange and its legacy. In the lavishly illustrated volume, 21 international contributors present case studies that form a rich portrayal of a distant time. Topics include descriptions of key medieval cities around the Sahara; networks of exchange that contributed to the circulation of gold, copper and ivory and their associated art forms; and medieval glass bead production in West Africa’s forest region.
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