Posts tagged allen memorial art museum
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Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Denise Birkhofer contributes another blog post to Artsy.net on “The Felt Suit of Joseph Beuys.” Our multiple of the suit is on view through May 26 in the Ellen Johnson Gallery.
Image:
Joseph Beuys (German, 1921–1986)
Suit of Clothes, 1970
Felt
Fund for Contemporary Art, 1972.48
This work is featured in our current exhibition, Illuminating Faith in the Russian Old Believer Tradition, on view through July 31.
The account of St. John the Baptist’s descent into Hell after his beheading derives from apocryphal literature and carries a particular apocalyptic inflection for Old Believers, who consider the end of time to be near. In Hell, St. John the Baptist, also known as St. John the Precursor in Eastern Orthodoxy, meets the patriarchs and prophets from the Old Testament to announce those souls that Christ would take away during the Second Coming. The artist has portrayed St. John with wings, an indication of his multi-layered sanctity as angel, apostle, and martyr.
Image:
Russian, late 18th–early 19th century
Descent of St. John the Baptist into Hell
Ink and color on paper
Gift of Frederick Binkerd Artz, 1958.32H
As part of a recent Kress Foundation Digital Resources planning grant, the AMAM and the Oberlin College Library teamed up to provide high-quality scans of all available Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletins. The Bulletin is a series of scholarly journals published by the Museum since 1944 which contain articles related to exhibitions and works in the collection. A valuable resource for faculty, students, staff, and scholars around the world, these Bulletins provide a wealth of information on collection works, often dating back to when a piece was first acquired by the AMAM.
To browse the complete selection of scans, click here to visit the Oberlin College Digitial Resource Commons page.
(via oberlin-alumni)
Among the ten paintings in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) that were gifts of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1961, is one by the artist Giampietrino of the death of Cleopatra, dating to circa 1515. The painting is the AMAM’s closest link to the work of Leonardo da Vinci, as Giampietrino is known to have worked in his studio.
It had been in storage, due to discolored varnish, uneven surface, extensive overpaints, and cleaving paint. With a generous grant fro the Kress Foundation, the painting was conserved from 2010-2012 at the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Cleveland (an organization founded in 1952 at Oberlin College with the support of AMAM director Charles Parkhurst).
In this video, AMAM Director Andria Derstine and ICA paintings conservator Andrea Chevalier discuss the extensive process of research and conservation, which included submitting the painting to x-ray scans, ultraviolet imaging, infra-red reflectography, and comparisons to similar work in other collections. Very interesting!
Poem by Connor McNamara Stratton (OC ‘13), inspired by Barnett Newman’s “Onement IV.” Submitted as part of our recent Muse in the Museum poetry event.
“scenes from bedrooms.
A response to Holly Wright’s “Final Portrait: Holly & Charles”
I.
crooks of our elbows
lying. touching in the way
our bodies cannot.
it used to be small-your spring-mattress college bed.
now i can’t see you.
air is dense between
us. once you were royalty.
now i’ve lost your crown.
sigh to your elbow :
i miss you when i’m with you.
it doesn’t hear me.
sheet corners are tucked.
neat & prepared for nothing.
i feel like they do.
II.
crooks of our elbows
lying. touching in the way
our bodies cannot.
the bed is excess-
ive. encrusted in pretend,
this is how we’ll die:
in our sunday best,
lying next to each other,
utterly alone.
my white hands are clasped
yours are loose & unattached.
i wish you’d touch me.
lying next to you,
imagining my death &
somehow you feel odd.”
- Kaitlyn Custer (OC ’ 15)Submitted as part of the recent Muse in the Museum evening of ekphrastic poetry readings at the Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College.
Image:
Holly Wright (American, b. 1941)
Final Portrait: Holly and Charles, 1981–82
Gelatin silver print
Friends of Art Purchase Fund, 1982.87
Our final First Thursday of the semester is this week! Join us as we welcome Audrey Flack to the museum. A pioneer of Photorealism and a nationally recognized painter and sculptor, Flack will give a lecture titled: Women the Passion and the Sorrow in conjunction with the exhibition, “Religion, Ritual and Performance in Modern and Contemporary Art.” This talk is sponsored by the AMAM and the Art Department Ellen Johnson Fund.
Originally scheduled to give a talk in November, and delayed by Hurricane Sandy, we are thrilled to welcome her to campus. The talk will begin at 5:30pm, and galleries remain open until 8pm. Hope to see you there!
(via coffeewithclarence)
Check out our new video (with music and captions!) documenting the recent creation of a sawdust carpet in the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s King Sculpture Court. The carpet was de-installed on April 14. During that time, we had a large number of visitors who saw the installation, from a second-grade tour to adults and admitted students in town for All Roads Lead to Oberlin visitation days.
And, if you like this be sure to visit our Vimeo page for our other videos. More to come!
(via coffeewithclarence)
This Thursday and Friday, April 25 and 26, we will be hosting a very special symposium on Renaissance art in conjunction with our year-long exhibition “Religion, Ritual and Performance in the Renaissance” which presents important Renaissance paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from the AMAM and the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) collections. The symposium - free and open to the public - will be held in the museum’s King Sculpture Court, and will last from 11am to 6:30pm on April 25, and from 9am to 5pm on April 26.
Presenters include Oberlin College faculty members from the Art, English, History and Musicology departments, three Oberlin College students who were selected via a competitive process, faculty from Case Western Reserve University, Washington & Lee University, Miami University of Ohio, and Ohio State University, along with staff from the AMAM, the YUAG, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Intermuseum Conservation Association.
These two days promise to be exciting ones, and the public is warmly urged to attend. Presentations will range widely on topics related to medieval, Renaissance and baroque art, literature, history and music, as well as pilgrimage and religious practice.
A complete schedule of speakers and events can be found on the symposium’s page here.
If you are in town, we hope you can make it out to some of the talks!
(via coffeewithclarence)
New on view in the exhibition Religion, Ritual and Performance in Modern and Contemporary Art is this gorgeous color lithograph from Roy Lichtenstein’s Cathedral series. Lichtenstein’s later work was inspired by well-known masterpieces from art history. Here, Lichtenstein references Claude Monet’s painting series of Rouen Cathedral at different times of day and under different weather conditions.
The work references both the religious subject matter of Monet’s series, as well as the French artist’s ritual of painting the same view of the cathedral over a period of two years
Image:
Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)
Cathedral #1, from the series Cathedrals, 1969
Color lithograph and silkscreen
Fund for Contemporary Art, 1969.48
