Blog Addison

Flash Back—November 22, 1963

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 14:19:00 -0500

Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Visitors of all ages have been coming to the Addison see the exhibition Flash Back—November 22, 1963 and thinking about how artists have responded to this tragic event and the role of the media in shaping what we see and how we see it.

At this past Sunday’s gallery talk, exhibition curator Jaime DeSimone shared her ideas and perspectives. Visitors added their recollections of JFK as a president and how they felt when they heard the news that he had been shot.

Firsthand accounts from teachers, visitors, and Addison staff members have helped our younger visitors understand the ways in which JFK’s death impacted individuals as well as the nation.

10th graders from the Math Science and Technology School at Lawrence High School explored the idea of “the American Dream” in relation to JFK’s presidency. Sophomores focused on how JFK’s legacy connects to the idea of “Community and Civic Engagement.”

8^th grade students from South Lawrence East wrote poems based on newspaper images of this historic event and read their work during their visit to the Addison. Students exercised their creativity by exploring unique perspectives and focusing on specific aspects of JFK’s assassination.

Phillips Academy international students explored the exhibition through the lens of the objectives of their English course, helping them to construct their own narratives of the American experience.

Phillips Academy history classes used the exhibition not only to contextualize their studies of the United States in the 1960s, but as inspiration for their own forays into curating historical narratives. Just as Flash Back—November 22, 1963 asks viewers to examine the ways in which history is documented and communicated through media, the students selected, sequenced, and juxtaposed images from the Addison’s collection in the Addison Museum Learning Center to construct narratives that spoke to their own perspectives on themes from their U.S. history curriculum.

Flash Back—November 22, 1963 will remain on view until January 12, 2014.

- Posted by:

Christine Jee, Education Associate for School and Community Collaborations

Jamie Kaplowitz, Education Associate and Museum Learning Specialist

Collection Spotlight: Hollis Frampton, The Secret World of Frank Stella, 1958-1962

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 15:50:00 -0500

Frank Stella (Class of 1954), one of the most significant and influential American artists of the postwar period, began his journey as a painter six decades ago in the basement of the Addison Gallery of American Art. It was also at Andover that he first met Hollis Frampton (Class of 1954), who went on to become an equally distinguished photographer and filmmaker. Four years after graduation from Phillips Academy, the two met again in New York, where they briefly shared an apartment and rekindled what was to be a lifelong friendship. Frampton began his series of fifty-two black-and-white images, The Secret World of Frank Stella, in collaboration with Stella, who posed both in his studio and across the city.

Hollis Frampton (1936-1984), #3 (28 painting Getty Tomb) from The Secret World of Frank Stella, 1958-1962, gelatin silver print, gift of Marion Faller, Addison Art Drive, 1990.34.3

In fact, 1958 is a milestone in the careers of both artists; for Frampton, it was the year he reconnected with Andover classmates Frank Stella and Carl Andre (Class of 1953) and settled in New York; for Stella, it was the year Leo Castelli first visited his Broadway studio and saw his now famous Black Paintings. The time period documented by Frampton’s series includes several other noteworthy moments in Stella’s career; the presentation of his Black Paintings—an example can be seen in #3 (28 painting Getty Tomb) above—in the 1959-60 MoMA exhibition Sixteen Americans (Frampton also took Stella’s picture for the accompanying exhibition catalogue) was followed by the creation of two more series of stripe paintings, Aluminum and Copper, examples of which can be seen in #5 (112 hand through hole in aluminum ptg) and #45 (688 naked, ventral view) respectively.

In addition to photographing Stella and his paintings, Frampton also wrote about him; one such instance is the following passage from 12 Dialogues 1962-1963, a book he co-authored with Carl Andre: “Frank Stella is a Constructivist. He makes paintings by combining identical, discrete units. Those units are not stripes, but brush strokes. We have both watched Frank Stella paint a picture. He fills in a pattern with uniform elements. His stripe designs are the result of the shape and limitation of his primary unit.” Throughout 12 Dialogues, Frampton and Andre often refer to Stella to illustrate their intellectually rigorous analysis of various aesthetic issues pertaining to specific mediums or works of art. Indeed, Stella’s own intellectually rigorous approach to painting is, in great part, what elevated him to the pantheon of abstract art.

The presentation of The Secret World of Frank Stella at the Addison coincides with Mr. Stella’s receiving the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction on November 1, 2013. For more information on attending the award ceremony, please visit https://secure.www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/PAA/event/showEventForm.jsp?form_id=158035.

— Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant

Further reading: Michael Zryd, "Hollis Frampton," in Addision Gallery of American Art 65 Years: A Selective Catalogue (Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1996), 373-74.

1 Hollis Frampton, "On Painting and Consecutive Matters November 4, 1962," in 12 Dialogues 1962-1963 (The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and New York University Press, 1980), 37.

Addison Family Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:06:00 -0500

James Prosek reads from his
children's books at Memorial Hall
Library's story hour

Earlier this month, the Addison hosted a fun-filled weekend for our younger audiences. We partnered with Andover's Memorial Hall Library, where our Artist-in-Residence James Prosek read from his children’s books Bird, Butterfly, Eel and A Good Day's Fishing. The library now has James’s books in their collection, so stop by and grab your copies today!

Visitors of all ages create art
inspired by James Prosek's
work at our Drop-In Family Day

On Sunday, October 6th, more than 125 people joined us for the Addison’s Drop-In Family Day, held in conjunction with the exhibition James Prosek: The Spaces In Between. Visitors of all ages created prints with stamps shaped like fish, contributed to a collaborative bird silhouette mural, and created their own hybrid animals with feathers and foil paper, all inspired by James Prosek’s work. Music from James’s band Troutband was playing in the background. James was on hand to talk with visitors about his work, offer art-making tips, and answer the many questions of his young star-struck fans.

--Christine Jee, Education Associate for School and Community Collaborations

Interested in staying up to date with future family events at the Addison? Follow us on Facebook or email cjee@andover.edu to sign up for the Addison’s family email list.

Collection Spotlight: Joan Lyons, Prom, 1975

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 13:52:00 -0500

In celebration of National Design Week, the Addison presents three objects from its collection, each highlighting different time periods, mediums, and aspects of American design. The final installment features a set of six offset lithographs that together compose Joan Lyons's Prom (1975).

Joan Lyons, Prom, 1975, six offset lithographs on wove paper, museum purchase, 1980.2.1-6

When put together, these six lithographs by Joan Lyons compose an image that is at once sweet and subtly intriguing.

On the one hand, the life-size scale of this piece invites a personal reading, by creating the illusion of peering into one’s closet and thus allowing for a rather intimate relationship with the object depicted. The delicate floral pattern and slightly faded pastel colors create an atmosphere of innocence and nostalgia for a time past, which turns the act of looking at this work of art into looking at the dress itself and reminiscing about the event at which it was once worn—whether a prom, as indicated by the title, or another moment of personal importance projected by the viewer.

On the other hand, the title informs the viewer about artwork’s intended associations. For Lyons, this hand-made dress symbolizes the difficulties of balancing the priorities of a mother and an artist, as well as the contrasts between preconceived and evolving notions of artistic expression; at first, the making of the dress delayed artistic output, then the dress itself dictated the imagery of the piece. The very way these two identities influence each other results in a delicate image with a powerful statement about the parallels of motherhood and artistic production: the mother sews together pieces of fabric to make her daughter’s prom dress, while the artist creates a set of images for the viewer to visually “sew” together.

Active as a visual artist for four decades, Joan Lyons (b. 1937) was the subject of a 2007 retrospective exhibition at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Lyons’s works on paper effortlessly span several mediums, including various photographic processes and printmaking techniques. As the Founding Director of the Visual Studies Workshop Press between 1972 and 2004, Lyons has published over 450 titles, primarily artists’ books.

--Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant

Collection Spotlight: Stuart Travis, Design for Yacht Interior, c. 1914

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:38:00 -0500

In celebration of National Design Week, the Addison presents three objects from its collection, each highlighting different time periods, mediums, and aspects of American design. The second installment is an early 20th century drawing, Design for a Yacht Interior by Stuart Travis.

Stuart Travis, Design for a Yacht Interior, c. 1914, ink, watercolor, gouache, pencil on wove paper, gift of Stuart Travis, 1959.8

This elegant mixed-media drawing, Design for Yacht Interior, features Stuart Travis’s proposed design for the breakfast room of a yacht, and reflects interior decorating practices of the Gilded Age, a period in which luxury yachting was a status symbol of paramount importance. The Arts and Crafts silver breakfast service shown on the table to the left, including what appears to be a pair of cafe-au-lait pots, and the Sheraton-style settee with rattan seat and back—as indicated by the designer’s note at the bottom of the drawing—suggest an environment of relaxed opulence, with a white cloth napkin nonchalantly placed on the edge of the tray and the yellow drapery flapping in the ocean breeze. For the floor of the breakfast room, Travis proposed a rather unassuming “hand-woven rag-rug in oval shape,” presumably to add an air of informality to the space; unlike the main saloon of a yacht, which would have featured the most extravagant furnishings and textiles, the breakfast room was, by nature, a more private space, and therefore its decoration could be based more so on the owner’s personal taste rather than the etiquette of elite society.

Though the patron of this sketch is not identified and therefore his tastes cannot be known, comparison with other high society interiors from this period, both afloat and ashore, indicates that the American aristocracy took its cultural cues from several European sources, primarily French chateaux, Italian villas, and English manors, eclectically combining Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, Rococo, Renaissance Revival, Neoclassical, and various English styles across the different rooms. While in the early twentieth century the profession of decorator was gradually becoming established, it was yet not uncommon for patrons to hire artists for part or all of their interior decoration needs.

A prolific American artist, illustrator, and designer, Stuart Travis (1868-1942) studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and subsequently established a New York studio. Numerous of his drawings and watercolors appeared in contemporary magazines, books, and advertisements; specifically, between 1907 and 1910, seven of his illustrations graced the pages and cover of Vogue magazine. Travis also created two murals on the Phillips Academy campus: History and Traditions of the School and Vicinity (1928) at the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library and Culture Areas of North America (1938-42) at The Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology. For more information on Travis and his Andover murals, visit www.andover.edu/Museums/MuseumOfArchaeology/Pages/Stuart-Travis-Mural.aspx and
www.andover.edu/library/About/Facilities/Documents/Opus_Travi.pdf.

-- Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant

Collection Spotlight: Phoebe Denison Billings, Bed Rug, 1741

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 11:58:00 -0500

In celebration of National Design Week, the Addison presents three objects from its collection, each highlighting different time periods, mediums, and aspects of American design. The first installment is an exquisite example of an 18th-century Bed Rug by Phoebe Denison Billings.

Phoebe Denison Billings, Bed Rug, 1741, wool worked on wool ground, bequest of Henry Perkins Moseley, 1940.25

The bed rug, used as an outer bedcover during the cold New England winter, is a fascinating object of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century domestic design, as its fabrication process was carried out single-handedly—and therefore controlled exclusively—by the rug maker, from collecting, washing, and carding (or combing) the fleece to spinning it into wool yarn, dyeing the yarn, weaving the fabric, and finally embroidering the patterns. This sophisticated early example of an embroidered wool bed rug was made in Connecticut, the source of most extant bed rugs. In the roughly symmetrical, graphically dramatic floral patterns, tulips and carnations have been combined with broad stylized leaves in an imaginary composition featuring two tones of yellow accented by two tones of green, set against a black background with a deep blue border. The shape of this early bed rug, however, varies from later ones, which typically consist of a square with the bottom two corners rounded.

Two interesting clues pertaining to the bed rug’s history can be found within the design itself; above the floral centerpiece appears the year of its fabrication, while below there is a set of initials, “B/EP.” It is important to note that Phoebe Billings (1690-1775), née Denison, was married to Ebenezer Billings, hence the initials “B” for Billings at top, followed by their first initials, “E” and “P.” The widespread tradition in eighteenth-century New England society, according to which young brides produced bedcovers with the couple’s initials, would suggest that Phoebe and Ebenezer were married in 1741. What is curious in this instance, however, is that according to surviving records, the couple was married in 1706; in fact, in 1741 Phoebe was 51 years old, had already been married to Ebenezer for 35 years and given birth to ten children. Therefore, in the pre-Victorian era, when specific symbolic gifts for each major wedding anniversary were not yet established, the making of this rug was likely meant to commemorate the couple’s 35th anniversary and celebrate a long and fruitful life in unison.

-- Kelley Tialiou, Curatorial Assistant

Infinite Connections

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:36:00 -0500

This spring, twelve Phillips Academy students in Elaine Crivelli’s class "Art 300 Visual Culture: Discovering the Addison's Collection" worked together over a period of six weeks to curate an exhibition of twentieth-century art from the Addison Gallery of American Art’s permanent collection. The end result is a handsome show titled Infinite Connections. The title speaks to the main theme of the show which explores artists’ use of line, color, shape, and form to create their own vision of the world. Viewers are encouraged to make their own personal connections between the artworks in the exhibition just as the artists used the basic foundations of art to explore their own connections with the visual style of abstraction in painting, drawing, and photography.

Laying out the exhibition

At the beginning of the semester, students met with Addison curators Susan Faxon and Allison Kemmerer, who provided the group with a list of 60 artworks in the collection and shared an overview of the types of abstract styles many of the artists employ in their work. Students were then divided into two groups and charged with the task of identifying potential themes that the works share. After much discussion, and sometimes through lively debates, they whittled the list down to 19 works. They began to see the visual (and ultimately infinite) connections between the artworks, and an order for displaying them began to emerge. To deepen their understanding of the artworks and the artists, each student conducted extensive research on two artists from their final list. They then presented their findings, with the class sharing information about the artists collectively.

Addison preparators Brian Coleman and Jason Roy spent time with the class arranging the artwork on the walls of the Museum Learning Center. Students also met with Addison education staff Jamie Kaplowitz and Katherine Ziskin to learn more about the museum’s programs for Phillips Academy, and toured storage with David Perry of Addison security to find out about the complex systems that go into operating the building.

Gallery talk

Opening activity

On Tuesday, June 4, the class hosted a reception for Infinite Connections where students presented a gallery talk describing the process of curating the exhibition, and shared their knowledge about the artworks and the artists. Students conducted an activity with the audience using string, which cleverly illustrated the basic premise of the exhibition, that like the artists, viewers of the exhibition can experience the artworks on their own terms by making infinite connections between line, shape, color and form, the basic foundations of abstract art.

Infinite Connections will be on view in the Museum Learning Center through July 31.

-- Rebecca Hayes, Curator of Education

Student Reflections on the Collection: Home by the Sea, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 7 May 2013 08:47:00 -0500

This academic year, the Addison education department has been fortunate to host three Phillips Academy students as they complete their Work Duty assignments. This past term, we asked the students to choose a work of art from the Addison’s permanent collection and to reflect on its personal and academic significance to the student. This is Part 2 of senior Lauren Kim's reflection on Thomas Worthington Whittredge's Home by the Sea. Part 1 was posted last week.

Just beyond the homestead in the painting, there’s a bank of trees, which opens up to wide, free-spirited plains. The expansive land is similar to a blank canvas in the way that both spaces are open for creation or imagination to fill them—I feel a connection to these open spaces because they represent the expansion of my own horizons—the life that I’ve already experienced and also what’s to come. The homestead in the foreground comes off as more cozy and tight-knit than the distant land and water. Meanwhile, the land and water are free, boundless, and they hint at the idea of what lies outside the framed perspective of the canvas and the familiarity of home. I feel that the small farm identifies with my house, a place whose bounds I’ve grown up within, and the expansive pasture is a natural representation of experiencing the world for the first time: traveling to different countries, maturing intellectually and personality-wise, learning through personal struggle and victories. Whittredge is able to connect the different tiers of environment seamlessly by painting intricate, careful, and specific strokes and using a palette of soft, natural colors. The plains, the sea, and the sky fade from one to the next in a way that emanates a calming and comforting harmony.

Thomas Worthington Whittredge, Home by the Sea, 1872

The atmosphere of the painting is uncluttered and expansive, but instead of leaving the land completely cleared, Whittredge includes fieldworkers and ships. Although they are a small part of the painting, I find it interesting that he chose to include them. The focus could have been just entirely on the shifting of different aspects of nature (the water, the land, the sky) from one into another, but with the people, I thought about what part they play in the painting. I wondered what kind of backstories the workers on the field or on the ships had. Just spending time looking and reacting to it through my thoughts, I also thought about the correlation between the people and the landscape of the piece. I asked myself “how does the location of the people affect themselves or their roles?” Perhaps the ships and the people in the field represent one’s venturing outside familiar grounds: a departure.

People often grow up in a home like my own, but eventually they have to venture out into the world to discover new experiences and expose themselves to different outlooks on life in order to grow. These life opportunities let us open ourselves to diversity of all kinds—whether religious, cultural, or socioeconomic. If I never left home, I wouldn’t be able to fully realize who I could be—I would be held back by a constant feeling of closeness and familiarity. I found this painting in the Addison Gallery, on a campus that is so incredibly far from my home and everything I’ve come to associate with it. Now, I am someone completely different. I’m not the shy, youngest cousin who feels intimidated by her twenty-something cousins at family gatherings, or the daughter who needs my mom to pick me up from the ballet lessons and art classes that I attended against my will. I’ve changed, and I’m no longer restricted to the world of my home.

When I arrived at Andover as a 14 year-old, wide-eyed freshman, my past experiences leading up to that moment had been within the bounds of all things related to home. Now that I’ve been at Andover for almost four years, I’ve been able to develop this deeper sense of home, not limited by physical boundaries, and the underlying meanings a simple word like that could have for an individual. I think that in many ways, Andover has become a new home for me. Through countless meals in the cafeteria around the grey table with friends who I see and spend time with everyday, early mornings during Winter term shoveling paths outside Johnson Hall, and the enriched discussions that saturate the atmosphere in Bullfinch Hall as fully as my mind. So many aspects of Andover will be cherished after I leave, both the bad and the good times. Through reflecting on this painting, I’ve realized that you can’t experience something twice, or that sometimes you don’t truly know how significant something is to you until you don’t have it anymore. Of course, I haven’t lost my home; when I go back to Bannockburn during school breaks, everything often feels the same as the last time I was there, and yes, my parents, my friends, my room are still there. However, being away at Andover and stretching and growing through the challenging, fast-paced atmosphere at Phillips Academy has highlighted the true invaluable and irreplaceable quality of home.

My home will always give me a warming comfort through my pure memories of my childhood spent there. When I spend time looking at Whittredge’s piece, I can just for a time forget about the uncertainties of my upcoming transition to college (or even my future at large)—the black canvas that lies before me—and remember my home. I feel that the painting depicts a beautiful scene of my life—how far I’ve come and how much further I will go. Home by the Sea reminds me of the future ahead of me. Symbolically like the open, clear sea in the painting—the same waters that have led countless explorers and expeditions to new, unknown destinations—I have my life ahead of me. Time is coming for me to find myself and establish my identity as a person and whichever roles I will take on.

--Lauren Kim, Phillips Academy Class of 2013

Student Reflections on the Collection: Home by the Sea, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:59:00 -0500

Thomas Worthington Whittredge, Home by the Sea, 1872

In the foreground, a woman tends to her animals on the setting of a small homestead. The woman is calm, going through the pleasant routine of feeding the animals. The cozy, homey scene with the woman and her animals is an elegant touch of detail in Home by the Sea. The bright color of the woman’s clothing, the small flowers that adorn the surrounding bushes, the birds on the roof and around the fenced area bring brightness to the mostly green, golden yellow, and brown color palette of the farmhouse setting. Even though this woman and I have no relation, as I thought more about what the farmhouse and the woman’s presence may represent, I gravitated toward the idea of home because of the quaint and comfortable feel of the woman’s scene. I automatically recognized that this woman belonged to this scene: her home shaped her, as she had also shaped the home. For me, instead of being confined to describing just a house, the term home is a collection of physical, mental, and emotional memories from the place and the people that have shaped my foundation as a being. I interpreted the woman in the painting to have been the homemaker of this small farm. Being outside, tending to the animals suggests that she contributes to the household and may be the maternal figure of this family. Just like me, this woman has her own home—a place to call her own, a place as familiar as the back of her hand.

The author's home in Bannockburn, Illinois

During the Fall term of Senior year—a period of time that’s notorious for being the toughest part of a Phillips Academy career, filled with vast mountains of homework, college applications to be written, and non-academic responsibilities to be taken care of—I often reminisce about my home, and nostalgia settles in as I remember easier times: the good ol’ days. I can talk for hours on end about the memories I’ve collected as a kid born and raised in Bannockburn, a small village of the North Shore region of Chicago. Although my house looks like just another plain brick house in Midwestern suburbia, to me, my house feels like no other place in this world, and I grew up in the company of a family that’s one of a kind. From the kitchen that was ruled by my mother’s culinary prowess to the high ceilings in the living room that we added on during the first grade. In my mind, there are specific experiences and events pocketed in each aspect of my house, whether inside or out. The dining room reminds me of family Thanksgiving dinners that, in addition to the traditional American holiday menu, always featured a pot of rice and a bowl of kimchi. The tennis court that had a basketball hoop in our backyard reminds me of the glowing evenings when my dad would come home from work and use the short time of sunlight left to teach my sister how to play basketball, while I stood aside, watching them in admiration. I would walk around the tennis court, while I observed my sister trying to copy my dad’s shots and heard my dad’s strong but warm voice instructing her. Looking back on evenings like these, I laugh a little, remembering being grumpy because I was hungry and eagerly waiting for my mom to call us in for dinner. As these moments play in my head, I realize how far I am from these memories of home and how these special capsules of time are now only behind me; they are my past. I can remember the special moments, but I will never experience them in the exact same way.

A native of Springfield, Ohio, Whittredge was a self-taught painter. His journey of self-discovery and global exploration created an admiration for his home. Originally a house painter, Whittredge traveled to Europe in 1849 with a desire to become a better painter and to learn the European painting traditions. He combined his passion for art with his longing to experience different cultures. Whittredge was not alone. He was part of a movement of American painters who traveled and studied throughout Europe for cultural immersion during the 18th and 19th centuries. Whittredge’s extensive travels also include three trips to the American West in 1866, 1870, and 1871. As a result of the combination of international influence and his personal journey, he established and developed his special identity as a landscape painter, becoming known for painting pastoral scenes with wide, open spaces and natural light. After Whittredge went out into the world and soaked himself in other cultures that helped further shape his identity as a painter and an individual, he created Home by the Sea, the symbolism of which reminds me of his journey and a reminiscence of home.

“I think I can say that I was not the first or by any means the only painter of our country who has returned from a long visit abroad and not encountered the same difficulties in tackling home subjects.” Whittredge knew that his experiences and expanded knowledge from Europe changed him and his identity as a painter. Perhaps he felt a difficulty in painting home subjects because he felt that his depiction would be tainted by European influence instead of staying true to his original view of home prior to his travels. The different scenes within Whittredge’s painting reflect his mindfulness of the extended idea of home and how thoughts similar to the ones that run through my mind right now could have confronted him when he was painting.

For more on Whittredge and his work, see Faxon, Susan C., Avis Berman, and Jock Reynolds. Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years : A Selective Catalogue. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1996; and Point Of View: Landscapes From The Addison Collection. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1992.

Part 2 of this essay will appear next week.

Student Reflections on the Collection: RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 7 Feb 2013 09:59:00 -0500

This academic year, the Addison education department has been fortunate to host three Phillips Academy students as they complete their Work Duty assignments. This past term, we asked the students to choose a work of art from the Addison’s permanent collection and to reflect on its personal and academic significance to the student. Each student interpreted this assignment differently and we are excited to present the first essay in the series by Lucy Frey, Class of 2013.

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation”
– Robert Francis Kennedy

Last fall I walked through the upstairs gallery at the Addison. Photographs from Paul Fusco’s RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered lined the walls. The images pulled me in and entranced me as I dizzied myself walking around the room multiple times. The emotions that it provoked were unforgettable. In the cool, yet muggy air of the gallery I can still hear the cheering of the crowds and his voice echoing, “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” Just a year later I am reunited with one of the pieces. It is just one photo hanging on the wall in a different gallery and a different exhibition, almost unfamiliar to me at first. As I step towards the piece, I gasp quietly, I feel my heart beat quicken in excitement, like I have found missing treasure. The single photo is one piece of the puzzle, one cart on a train passing by, and one picture from a collection, but it puts me back in the upstairs gallery, to the moment when I fell in love with the hazy images of a time decades before I was born.

Paul Fusco, Untitled from RFK Funeral Train Undiscovered

Flocks of people were drawn to Bobby, even in his death. He inspired all of America, black men and women, white men and women, soldiers, business men, Latinos, adolescents, and people of all religions. They were the people that made up this country and he believed in them as much as they believed in him. A river of working class people passed his coffin at his wake and millions lined the train tracks on June 8, 1968, the day of his casket’s ride from New York to Washington. They stood, they knelt, they saluted one of the greatest politicians of all time. They wept, they screamed out, and they sat in silence as he graced their presence for the last time. Even years after his political life and public death Robert Kennedy inspires the youth of today: reading about him in history textbooks or learning of his legacy through television programs; pictures of him, his brothers, and other family members are everywhere. The Kennedy family members are political royalty, celebrities, and role models for America. But it is what he did that affects people still. The words he spoke throughout his lifetime were strong and passionate, just as the funeral train montage. His sweet words of advice inspire me to be patient and kind, but also inspire me to think about the world in a larger scale and not just what affects me personally.

Seeing the singular photo reminds me of when I saw the exhibit for the first time. As I walked through the gallery, these photos were aligned across the walls. I walked along the perimeter and I saw a snapshot of each moment, feeling as if I was on the train myself, looking out on the millions of people who RFK supported and loved. The blur of the photograph made me feel like I was on a moving train moving through time, and at each picture I picked up one or two things, but never everything. Facial expressions, the latest fashions, and different types of people, but what was constant were the appearance of hands. Clothes may have changed, from women’s dress to a man’s. Landscapes may change from country to city. And expressions may change person to person, but the hands always seemed to tell the true story, through expression and movement.

A cartoon image from elementary school pops into my head. The image of different hands coming together, interlocking fingers with one another, lining up around the world holding hands, people of all different races, standing together, smiling, working with one another to make the world a better place. My eyes wander back to the photographs, to the people standing together, holding hands, and together honoring a fallen brother, politician, and friend. At this point I look down at my own hands, small and dainty, slightly callused, reminiscent of work over the summer, and tough from taking notes and writing in school. They are my hands and they tell my own story. Although they are personal and mine, as I look back at the photograph I see the hands of others and I wonder how my own hands could fit in with those. I begin to notice people in a new and different tone, staring intensely at the creases on the palms, the dirt under the fingernails, or the curling of the fingers. I am peering into a private moment. A nun praying, a man reaching out, a woman wiping her tears or a row of children, stick straight, hands by their sides while their father salutes to passing train. Hands hold signs, capturing the image of thoughts and prayers in the hearts of the people, “God Bless the Kennedys,” “God Bless Bobby,” “We will miss you,” “Who will be the next one,” “Pray for us Bobby,” “We have lost our last hope.”

The hands tell the story of the American people, the family that Bobby represented and fought for. The hands come together, all different colors, black, white, tan, and of all different classes smooth, rough, or soiled, and the hands speak to us through the pictures, through the glass, and into the gallery. We see a story of confidence, recognition, and devotion, a story that is unforgettable just as his life was, and a story that will never be forgotten. And from the wise words of RFK himself we learn, “Tragedy is a toll for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.”

--Lucy Frey, Phillips Academy Class of 2013

Collaborative Community Programming at the Addison

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:03:00 -0500

The Addison Gallery of American Art is fortunate to have a number of creative and inspirational community partners. The Merrimack Valley is chock-full of arts and programming, and the education department has recently partnered with three nearby institutions to create unique programming for our audiences.

Our first scheduled collaborative program this winter is presented with the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College, where the Bridgeman/Packer Dance Company will be presenting their piece, VOYEUR, on Friday, February 22 at 7:30 pm. VOYEUR is a combination of live and virtual aspects and is inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. Noting Bridgeman/Packer’s inspiration and the Addison’s fine collection of paintings by Hopper, the museum will be hosting Community Conversation: Hopper Realism, and Quiet Moments in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center at 6:00 pm on Thursday, February 7. For this program, we will present the Addison’s Hopper paintings Manhattan Bridge Loop; Freight Cars, Gloucester Cars; and Railroad Train; along with artworks by Hopper’s contemporaries. After providing some background information, the audience will be asked to share thoughts, ideas, and observations with the group. Please note: There is currently a waiting list for this program. To sign up for the wait list please e-mail kziskin@andover.edu. Tickets to VOYEUR may be purchased online.

Also this season, we are proud to partner with the Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) in Lowell in recognition of Red, the Tony Award-winning play about painter Mark Rothko by John Logan. In this fiery and fiercely funny drama, a lucrative commission challenges Rothko’s aesthetic, and he and his young assistant must work feverishly to blend art and commerce. In honor of Red, the Addison’s Eye on the Collection and Stone, Wood, Metal, Mesh: Prints and Printmaking exhibitions this season include works of art by the artists referenced in the play, including Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and others. Red runs at the MRT February 14 through March 10; tickets may be purchased at tickets.mrt.org. Friends of the Addison are eligible for a $5 discount on adult tickets to Red. To join the Friends of the Addison, please visit our website.

Finally, we are pleased to present a program with long-term collaborators, Andover’s Memorial Hall Library. In conjunction with their Women’s Month programming in March, the Addison will host Community Conversation: Women in Photography in the Museum Learning Center on March 26 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. The Addison’s first photography acquisition was a work by Margaret Bourke-White. Together, audience participants and I will explore photographs made by women photographers from the Addison’s permanent collection and discuss why many of them were pioneers in the field. Space is limited, please register online.

We look forward to an enlightening series of programs with our collaborators this season.

--Kait Ziskin, Education Fellow for School and Community Collaboration

The Museum Shop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 6 Dec 2012 15:15:00 -0500

With the holidays just around the corner, we thought we’d focus some attention on our Museum Shop, a perfect place to find unique and beautiful gifts.

Though the Addison has been around for more than 80 years, the Museum Shop was a part of the Addison’s recent renovation and expansion project, and has been open just since September 2010. The Museum Shop carries primarily works by American artisans and craftspeople in keeping with the Addison’s mission of collecting American art. When choosing what to sell in the Shop, we look for high-quality items that are not found in other shops in the area, finding new things at craft shows and working with vendors who can create one-of-a-kind items specifically for the Shop. Since the Shop’s opening, the most popular items have been jewelry and scarves, as well as Addison mugs, note cards, and postcards.

Also available in the Shop are many custom-made items inspired by works from the Addison’s collection, including iPhone covers, notepads, and limited-edition bags made from the vinyl exhibition banners which once hung from the Addison’s portico. And in addition to the ever-popular jewelry and scarves, we are carrying a selection of housewares and holiday ornaments from artisans from New England and around the country. For book lovers, we offer catalogues and publications relating to our collection as well as our exhibitions, including the catalogue for the spectacular American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning and Their Circle 1927–1942, on view at the Addison through December 30.

We’re always looking for ideas from our fans, visitors, and vendors for new items and artisans that might be a good fit for the Museum Shop. If you have suggestions, please contact us at addison@andover.edu. We hope you’ll stop by soon! And remember, Friends of the Addison and Phillips Academy faculty, staff, and students receive a 10 percent discount on shop merchandise.

Monumental banners across Phillips Academy campus highlight exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 6 Nov 2012 13:36:00 -0500

Six members of the Innu community, along with artists Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman, visited Phillips Academy during the week of October 8, 2012, where they met with a variety Phillips Academy classes with subjects ranging from English to Biology to and Art, and with classes from schools in the local communities. The Innu community members also participated in a series of evening programs, including film screenings and readings. Their visit came as part of the exhibition Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana/Pictures Woke the People Up: An Innu Project with Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman. Their weeklong residency culminated in a public reception at the Addison Gallery of American Art on Saturday, October 13 and included a student led tour of the banner sites on campus.

The project was inspired by Ewald’s 1969 voyage to Sheshatshiu, Labrador, where she first met members of the Innu community, who were adapting to life on a reserve after being forcibly settled several years earlier. The eighteen-year-old Ewald taught the Innu children to document their experiences through photography.

In 2007, concerned by the persistent challenges facing the Innu, Ewald returned to Labrador with fellow photographer Gottesman. They reconnected with many of her former protégées and embarked on a new photographic project with three Innu high school students to create an updated portrait of the community originally depicted in the 1969 photographs. Later, the artists worked with the entire community to create a series of large-scale banners based on the 1969 and 2007 photographs and installed them throughout their community.

The installation of 10 banners at Phillips Academy aims to echo the installation in Labrador and to provoke conversation here about how communities respond to change and challenges, and how they define their identities both internally and to the world at large.

The exhibition can be seen at the Addison Gallery until January 13, 2013. Generous support for Pekupatikut Innuat Akunikana / Pictures Woke the People Up: An Innu Project with Wendy Ewald and Eric Gottesman has been provided by the Abbot Academy Association, which was founded in 1973 to foster and promote the legacy and spirit of Abbot Academy in the campus and in the programs of Phillips Academy, and by the Poss Family Foundation.

Posted by:
Rebecca Hayes
Curator of Education

Greetings from the Addison Gallery's new Curator of Education

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:38:00 -0500

Greetings from the Addison Gallery of American Art’s new Curator of Education Rebecca Hayes

It’s wonderful to be back at the Addison Gallery of American Art after 16 years! After starting my career in museum education at the Addison in 1995, I went on to work at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the American Folk Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York. I’m thrilled to return to my native Merrimack Valley and to a museum that has been deeply committed to education since its founding 80 years ago.

The Addison’s incredible collection and innovative exhibitions make the museum a unique part of Phillips Academy, the local community, and the larger world. Our mission as a teaching museum and commitment to sharing the collection with as broad an audience as possible is what inspired my career in museum education. It has been a rewarding experience for me to reconnect with former colleagues and friends in the community, and heartening to see that our local partnerships from 16 years ago continue to flourish as new ones develop. I am looking forward to an exciting year of programs and collaborations with the Phillips Academy community and educators, students, and members of our local community organizations.

The opportunity to work at the Addison is particularly exciting to me because of the museum’s commitment to sustained collaborations with our partner schools. For example, this past year the Addison Gallery collaborated with first grade teacher Mary Guererro and her students at the Henry K. Oliver School in Lawrence to conduct a yearlong investigation exploring the question “What can art be?” Students reflected on what type of objects and mediums can be considered art based on both their aesthetic and functional qualities. Students visited the Addison to examine and discuss a variety of artworks such as an Alexander Calder mobile, Hudson River School paintings, the seascapes of John Marin, drawings and writings by Elizabeth Enders, and the sculptures by Dale Chihuly on the Addison’s green roof.

Students also created artwork twining colorful yarn around sticks collected in their local landscape (attached to written memories), painted rocks with fantastic shades of color, and designed their own elaborate mobiles. Each week during the months of May and June, students traveled to a new location in their community to curate and install their artwork in a temporary exhibition. Students used their day books to create detailed maps for each of their journeys from the school to exhibition sites and wrote about curating their artwork in each new location. Exhibition sites included the Lawrence Public Library, the steps of the Lawrence Heritage State Park, the basketball court across from the Oliver School, and the grounds at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA where students explored the whimsical sculptures of artist Gary Webb. The project culminated with a book detailing students’ artwork and writing and created collaboratively by Mary Guerrero and the Addison’s Kait Ziskin, Education Fellow for School and Community Collaborations.

Posted by:
Rebecca Hayes
Curator of Education

Visual Culture: Discovering the Addison

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:08:00 -0500

“How are expectations thrust upon you? Do you feel the urge to compete with and impress your peers, parents, and society as a whole? Or do you reject the norms, following what you believe is right even though you face the consequences of exclusion and scrutiny?”

These questions are asked by the exhibition Pressure Points, curated by the Phillips Academy Art 300 Class, Visual Culture: Discovering the Addison, co-taught by art department faculty and museum staff. Students enrolled in the spring Art 300 course explore the development and nature of the Addison’s collection and exhibitions, meet with the museum’s curators, educators, and preparators, and read and write about cultural institutions and artists, as they come to understand the power of selecting, arranging, and interpreting artworks. Through Art 300, students become aware of and involved in many facets of museum work that are not usually visible to the public.

Starting from a list of pre-selected works from the Addison collection, students researched, wrote, and applied information and ideas gained from conversations with the curators and from readings and in-class discussions to curate an exhibition in the Museum Learning Center.

Current Addison exhibitions Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography and In Character: Artists’ Role Play in Photography and Video explore the creation and projection of personas, characters, and identity in art and the ways in which our identities are influenced by gender, family, cultural, or societal roles. Complementing these themes, the Art 300 exhibition Pressure Points asks viewers to consider the pressures created by societal, familial, aesthetic, and gender expectations, and the ways in which striving for these ideals impacts one’s ability to find oneself and form an identity.

Pressure Points will be on view in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center from May 31 through July 31, 2012.

All are invited to a gallery talk followed by an opening reception on May 30, from 6:00-7:30pm.

Pressure Points was curated by the Phillips Academy Art 300 Class, Visual Culture: Discovering the Addison: Terrence Arjoon, Lucy Frey, Gregory Hosono, Helen Leahy, Emily Samson, Mary Samson, Kristen Overly, Mikaela Rabb, and Zoe Roschach.

- Posted by:
Jamie Kaplowitz, Education Associate and Museum Learning Specialist

Community Collaborations

noreply@blogger.com (Kait) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:39:00 -0500

The Addison Education department has a deep commitment to the “reading” of artworks. At the basis of much of what we do with classes is the belief that images, just like written texts, tell a story and communicate an idea. The department has been delving further into that idea in preparation and research for the spring exhibitions. Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography, In Character: Artists’ Role Play in Photography And Video, and Life Lines: Elizabeth Enders all deal with aspects of literature and the written word. Day’s role as a publisher and noted bibliophile, as well as the cultural and literary references that bubble up in In Character only further solidify the theme of images as visual text, used to communicate ideas and philosophies. Enders’ artwork addresses more abstract themes that relate to the written word through mark-making and gestural lines. Therefore, it’s only natural, or so we think, that the Addison Gallery of American Art has teamed up with the Memorial Hall Library for two collaborations.

March marks Memorial Hall Library’s Genealogy month. As part of Genealogy month programming, on March 13^th, residents of Andover joined together in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center to discuss some portraits that help unravel the mystery of the Addison Gallery’s namesakes as well as critically analyze their own family portraits. Participants were asked to bring family portraits and photographs while the Addison contributed portraits of the Addison family along with a range of family portraits from the permanent collection. The evening began with sharing from the education department on how curators and scholars have “read” the Addison’s portraiture to find out more about the Addison family and the connection between the painted ancestors and the woman for whom the gallery was named. After learning how scholars read portraits to define characteristics and people, the group worked together to investigate traits and characteristics of sitters in the other family portraits. Finally participants shared and spoke about the photographs and portraits they brought along using some of the techniques practiced with the educator.

The Addison education department is also hosting an event in collaboration with the Memorial Hall Library’s AndoverReads program. Inspired by Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, the Addison will be inviting community members to investigate artworks in the permanent collection that incorporate interesting uses of color. The narrator in The Book Thief often alludes to color as a way to describe an emotion, feeling, or to describe people and landscapes. Join us on April 25^th for a participatory discussion in the Museum Learning Center. For more information or to RSVP (space is limited) please refer to the Memorial Hall Library event calendar.

A New Year Celebrated with Music

noreply@blogger.com (Kait) — Tue, 7 Feb 2012 09:44:00 -0500

Happy New Year from the Addison education team. A new year means new programs, new exhibitions, and new parties. The year kicked off with an exciting event organized by and for Phillips Academy students. As the museum bid farewell to the fall exhibitions, The Courant (Phillips Academy’s literary magazine) hosted a semi-formal issue launch featuring writers and performers from the student community and the galleries were filled with the experimental sounds of Tristan Perich and Lesley Flanigan.

Apsara Iyer, a Phillips Academy senior, came to the Addison education team in the fall with the intention to collaborate on a social and cultural event specifically planned for students and co-hosted by the The Courant. Coinciding with the publishing of this season’s Courant, and fashioned after book and magazine launches of years gone by, the backdrop of elaborate food and dress would provide just the right amount of sparkle and pizzazz to make the Fete Du Courant an extra special party and provide yet another way for students to interact with the museum beyond their classes.

Held on January 13^th, the evening began with a series of readings from Courant contributors followed by questions from the audience in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center. Out in the galleries, DJs flooded the museum with a wide variety of music to set the tone of the party and students posed in the library “photobooth” displaying their copies of the new issue (which itself was appropriately adorned with a bow-tie). To cap off a wonderful evening full of arts of all kind, three students performed acoustic guitar sets in the brand new Open Windows exhibition. The education department looks forward to more student-organized events that connect with and celebrate the museum’s exhibitions and mission.

Music seems to be a theme in the galleries this month. On January 25^th, the same gallery that hosted three Phillips Academy students again became a music venue for the works of Tristan Perich and Lesley Flanigan. Perich, a former Edward E. Elson Artist-in-Residence and PA student from the class of 2000, presented his composition Dual Synthesis for harpsichord (performed by Oberlin College student Daniel Walden) and 4-channel 1-bit electronics. Flanigan was joined by four PA students for Amplifications, a haunting five-part harmony augmented by the handmade wooden speakers Flanigan uses to create feedback and looping. Video from both performances is forthcoming, please check back!

It has been wonderful warming up the museum with music these past few weeks as New England finally gets a bit of the winter chill it is so well known for. The education department looks forward to filling up the new exhibitions with students and teachers in the coming weeks and months to explore the winter exhibitions John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury, Land, Sea, and Sky: Contemporary Art in Maine, The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues and a salon-style hanging of works from the permanent collection. Hope to see you in the galleries soon!

Posted by: Katherine Ziskin, Education Fellow for School & Community Collaborations

Explorations of The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues to Continue Through the Winter Season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 4 Jan 2012 13:21:00 -0500

Groups from on and off campus, including students, teachers, and many public visitors, have integrated the Addison’s exhibition The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues into explorations, conversations, projects, and curricula throughout the fall, and we’re excited to announce that these collaborations will continue as the exhibition will remain on view through April 15, 2012!

Just as The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues explores the varying perspectives, both historical and contemporary, that compose the evolving narrative of this seminal event, the connections made by various groups compose a larger picture about the possible impact of these explorations on curriculum and historical thinking.

Phillips Academy US History classes explored images by such artists as Alexander Gardner and Winslow Homer as primary source documents and researched themes illuminated in the exhibition. Digging deep into topics such as race relations to the impact of technology on the making of Civil War images, students led their own tours of the exhibition for their peers. (Image credit: Alexander Gardner, Abraham Lincoln in 1863, albumen print, gift of Peter Schrager (PA 1945), Addison Gallery of American Art)

Phillips Academy English classes explored questions of which historical events are commemorated, how, and from whose perspective. Journalism classes connected the roots of photojournalism present in the Civil War photographs and newspapers with the current state of media images and ethics. A philosophy and religious studies class used the work of contemporary artists Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon to spark conversations about oppression and resistance. (Image credit: Kara Walker, Exodus of Confederates from Atlanta, from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005, offset lithograph with screenprint, purchased as the gift of Katherine and Stephen C. Sherrill (PA 1971), Addison Gallery of American Art)

Middle and high school history classes from public schools in the Merrimack Valley and Boston have joined us to explore The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues and the related Addison fall exhibition, RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered: Photographs by Paul Fusco to discuss what images can reveal about United States history. One high school’s literature, visual art, and history classes visited concurrently and discussed the subjectivity of recorded history and how we construct our interpretations of these documentations, thereby constructing our own understandings of history.

Teachers and adult groups have also explored and contextualized this exhibition, including a public gallery talk led by Assistant Curator Jaime DeSimone and Phillips Academy Instructor in History and Social Science Christopher Jones. Teachers from the local community and beyond participated in workshops in which they were asked to draw inspiration from the fall exhibitions in designing a commemoration to honor a local, national, or historic event while considering the impact and implications of asking students to participate in history.

We look forward to continuing these conversations and starting many more as The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues continues and as the new winter exhibitions open in late January.

Posted by:
Jamie Kaplowitz,
Education Associate and Museum Learning Specialist

Getting Ready for January

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:21:00 -0500

January is going to be a busy month here at the Addison. Not only are we closing five shows and opening three new shows here, but we’re closing and opening two other shows on the road. To prepare for this flurry of art movement, I’ve been spending the last few weeks working with shippers and contacting art lenders to arrange for their objects to be picked up or returned to them.

The shows closing at the Addison are fairly straight-forward. Christopher Cook’s artwork will be returned to him, and Lorna Bieber’s work will be returned to her. The other shows closing are culled from our permanent collection and the artwork will be returned to our storage areas.

Alexi Worth (b. 1964)

Desktop, 2011

acrylic on nylon mesh

27 x 36 in. (68.6 x 91.4 cm)

Courtesy DC Moore Gallery

The three shows opening at the Addison are another story. Open Windows and Land, Sea, Sky are made up of artwork lent by multiple lenders. This is not a matter of asking each lender to “send” their objects to us by a certain date. The Addison contracts with specialized art shippers to pick up the objects at each individual lender, pack them, if necessary, and bring them here to the Addison. In some cases, the shipper can gather the objects at their warehouse before trucking them here. Sometimes the objects need to come directly here from the lender. Some things can be wrapped in bubble wrap and cardboard, some require crates. It depends on the lender’s wishes and the needs of each object. And, of course, each lender is available only at certain times for their pick up so trying to schedule multiple pick ups using the same truck can be maddening. The John Marin show is also made up of different lenders, but our co-organizer, the Portland Museum of Art, is thankfully handling the logistics of shipping that exhibition to us.

These shows are easy to gather compared to our American Vanguards show which opens at the Neuberger Museum of Art late in the month. This exhibition has artwork from no less than forty-one different lenders scattered across the country. American Vanguards opens January 29th, the same day our Sheila Hicks show closes at the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, where the artwork will be dispersed back to its twenty-five lenders, also widely dispersed.

Doing the math, I realized I’ve had to schedule over ninety different pickups and drops off with our art shippers for January and early February. That’s a lot of e-mails and phone calls that result in a lot of truck mileage! But the results are worth it when a visitor comes to see an exhibition of a group of objects that have never been together before. We encourage you to come see what we've gathered here next month!

Posted by:

James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives

Gallery Conversation, Nov 15 - The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues, with Christopher L. Jones

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:29:00 -0500

A discussion of current Addison exhibition "In The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues", with Christopher L. Jones, Phillips Academy Instructor in History and Social Science, and Jaime DeSimone, Addison Assistant Curator. The Gallery Conversation, free and open to the public, begins in the Museum Learning Center at 6:30pm on Tuesday, November 15. For more information please call Jaime DeSimone at (978) 749-4038, or email addison@andover.edu.

Below: Winslow Homer, The Army of the Potomac - A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty, 1862, wood engraving on wove paper, purchased as the gift of Warren P. Snyder (PA 1936)

Between 1861 and 1865, Americans engaged in wrenching warfare, pitted against each other on their own soil. This lengthy conflict shaped the country that we are today. Now one hundred and fifty years later, The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues offers a new perspective on this divisive event. Featuring historical and contemporary paintings, prints, photographs, and video drawn from the Addison's collection, this exhibition explores different points of view regarding this ongoing and evolving narrative. From Alexander Gardner’s and Winslow Homer’s eyewitness accounts to works by living artists such as Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker, The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues reexamines the realities and fictions of this war, its haunting memories, and its lasting effect on American culture.

Below: Kara Walker, "National Archives Microfilm Publication M999 Roll 34: Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands: Six Miles from Springfield on the Franklin Road," 2009, video, purchased as the gift of Stephen C. Sherrill (PA 1971)

Addison Education Program Back in Full Swing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 7 Nov 2011 10:51:00 -0500

The Addison education department has hit the ground running this fall! Almost as soon as the museum opened, classes from Phillips Academy, Andover, and Lawrence have been zipping in and out, visiting all six of the fall exhibitions.

The entire eighth grade class from the Wetherbee School in Lawrence, MA made their first of two visits, focusing on museum practice. Teachers Lisa Stott, Liz McCleary, and Mike Walsh are leading their students on a collections project journey inspired by Keri Smith’s How to Be An Explorer of the World. Their Addison visit was part of their investigation into how and why collections happen, and what they can tell us about a people, community, or group.

Students explored the current exhibitions with Addison educators Julie Bernson, Jamie Kaplowitz, and Katherine Ziskin considering the collecting and display practices of the museum. After focusing on the strategies behind selecting and sequencing, the Wetherbee eighth graders wrote their own wall text for objects in the exhibitions, often working to tell alternative stories to those told by the curators. Wetherbee students will be visiting again for a curating workshop in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center before they begin to design and install an exhibition from their collections in the Wetherbee School’s Media Center.

The Addison Education Department is collaborating on another project inspired by the museum’s collections and exhibitions and by Keri Smith’s book! Andover’s High Plain Elementary art teacher Bette Jean Krieger and Katherine Ziskin, Addison Education Fellow, have embarked on a project with the entire High Plain fourth grade. The first leg of the project took place in October with a true “field trip” to the A.V.I.S. trail behind the school. Connecting with the fourth grade curriculum on regions of the United States including climate, geography, and natural resources, Ms. Krieger and Ms. Ziskin created a project based on exploring the “field” of the student’s own backyard. Students hiked the A.V.I.S. trail, collecting materials, photographing observations, mapping the terrain, and writing about the landscape that they encountered.

Next, High Plain fourth graders will visit the Addison’s current exhibitions to investigate how artists across time have represented the land as the students prepare to create an exhibition about the Andover landscape using their interpretations of their field notes and photographs.

As the students are pouring in, so, too, are teachers who are attending t the Fall Teacher Workshop, How do Images inform Memory?, on November 16, 4:00pm-6:30pm. To request the Fall Teacher Guide or more information on the Addison’s education programs, please contact Kait Ziskin.

- Katherine Ziskin, Education Fellow for School & Community Collaborations

The Ships Are Back

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:16:00 -0500

The first objects we removed from the museum to make way for our renovations in 2008 were the model ships that graced our lower hallway. Finally, after over three years of being safely packed away in storage, the ships are back on view.

The ships actually returned to the museum from off-site storage over the summer with the bulk of our collections. They've been tucked away in our on-site vaults. Their large glass display cases, however, returned just recently. We held off bringing the cases back until now so that we had unobstructed access in our lower hallway, not only to move the larger crates that contained our returning collections, but also for the equipment contractors had to bring through during the roof replacement project.

Once the cases were unwrapped, we had to thoroughly clean them inside and out before the ships could be installed. I had the "pleasure" of climbing inside a couple of the cases to wipe down the glass and remove dust and debris from the bases (see right). It was claustrophobic, but worth the trouble. The ships themselves travelled fairly well despite the fragility of their tiny parts and the brittleness of their aging rigging. We dusted the ships off with small, soft brushes, repositioned some of the loose hatches and lifeboats that had shifted during travel. And then, very carefully, we smoothly slid each ship back into its case. This required multiple sets of eyes to make sure no appendages caught on the cases' narrow openings. It was not quite as difficult as, say, putting ships into bottles, but challenging nonetheless.

So the ships are finally home. I truly understand how popular these are with our visitors now. The lower hallway could not be closed off so the public was free to roam while we were installing the ships in their cases. People stopped and watched, fascinated by our work and the intricate details of the models. One visitor said, "Thank goodness the ships are back!" Our thoughts exactly!

Posted by:

James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives

80th Birthday and Reopening Public Reception a Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:36:00 -0500

A big THANK YOU to all who were able to attend our 80th birthday and reopening celebration this past Friday, October 14th. A special thanks to Phillips Academy vocal ensemble the Yorkies, who serenaded us with their rendition of "Happy Birthday."

There were well over 600 excited people at the reception, during which we celebrated the reopening, the opening of six exhibitions, and toasted the Addison's 80th with champagne and cupcakes. Among the guests were some of the artists whose work is currently on view, including Christopher C. Cook, who can be seen here (at far left) introducing his work to a new generation.

Also among the guests was Lorna Bieber, whose Fractured Narratives exhibition can be seen in the background as she (center) chats with Julie Bernson, Director of Education for the Addison (at left) and guest.

Opening Reception and Eightieth Birthday Celebrations October 14

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:00 -0500

On October 8, we once again welcomed the public after an extended summer closure for the restoration of our historic glass roof. In celebration of the reopening and of the museum’s 80^th birthday, the Addison is inviting the public to attend a festive evening, free of charge, on Friday, October 14, 6:30–8:30 pm. For additional information, please call 978-749-4015.

Addison supporters are invited to join museum Director Brian Allen in a champagne toast to the Addison’s eightieth birthday at 5:30pm on Friday, October 14, just before the opening. For reservations or to join Friends of the Addison, please call Caroline Pisani at 978.749.4128.

October 14 also sees the opening of three new exhibitions - for images, please visit the Exhibitions page of our website.

80 @ 80 - In honor of the Addison's 80th birthday, this exhibition presents objects by about eighty artists and celebrates the range and depth of the museum's permanent collection. These artists range from well-loved favorites by artists such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and John Singer Sargent whose work first graces the Addison’s walls upon its 1931 opening, to twentieth-century treasures by Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Stella, and Robert Mangold, to exciting recent acquisitions of works by colonial silversmith Jacob Hurd and contemporary artists Jennifer Bartlett and Mark Bradford, to name a few.

The Civil War: Unfolding Dialogues – Featuring historical and contemporary paintings, prints, photographs and video drawn from the Addison’s collection, this exhibition explores the ways that artists across time have understood and contributed to the ongoing and evolving narrative of the Civil War. From Alexander Gardner’s and Winslow Homer’s eyewitness accounts to works by living artists such as Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker, Unfolding Dialogues reexamines the realities and fictions of this war, its haunting memories, and its lasting effect on American culture.

RFK Funeral Train Rediscovered: Photographs by Paul Fusco – Following his assassination, the body of Robert F. Kennedy was carried by train from his memorial service in New York City to Washington, D.C. for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the railway tracks to pay their final respects. Photographer Paul Fusco, on assignment for Look Magazine, took some 2,000 photographs from inside the train. Heralded as one of the most powerful and affecting bodies of work in photographic reportage, Fusco’s RFK series is an incomparable document of this tragic moment in United States history.

Add these to current exhibitions Clearstory Squares and Unitych Variations: Paintings by Christopher C. Cook –Clearstory Squares and Fractured Narratives: Works by Lorna Bieber, and you'll find there is a lot to celebrate at the Addison! Please join us this Friday - we look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Shipping Hicks, Again

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:01:00 -0500

Our travelling exhibition, Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, has opened at its third and final venue at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, NC. I wrote a post a while back about the challenges of traveling a show of this type. I was still trying to figure out how we were going to get this show to the places it was going. Now, as we near the end of the show’s run, I think I have managed to answer many of the questions I was asking at the end of that post.

Trucking the crates between venues required two tractor trailers: easily the largest show volume-wise the Addison has ever traveled. We were required to have a courier on one of the trucks, and I rode with the show from Philadelphia to Charlotte. Loading the trucks at the end of the show’s second venue at the ICA, Philadelphia was interesting, as their loading dock could not accommodate tractor trailers. We had no choice but to load in the sidewalk outside their front doors. Needless to say, getting some of the show’s massive crates down the sidewalk and up into the truck’s lift gate was indeed a challenge (see upper left). We left Philadelphia late afternoon and pulled into the Mint’s loading dock early the following morning. Sadly, I didn’t get much shut-eye despite the truck’s surprisingly ample sleeping quarters.

I’ve also travelled to each venue to oversee installation at the beginning and packing at the end. Installations were adventures, as each crew at each museum had to figure out the best way to display the objects in their unique settings. Just trying to figure out how to hang things from their ceilings required considerable planning, thought, and effort each time, while Sheila herself added her advice as to how things should look.

The Mint’s installation is certainly different from the other two. I’m always amazed how each museum interprets the same show for a unique experience. But it is beautiful, thanks to the Mint’s gorgeous new galleries, and, of course, the art itself. Sheila Hicks: 50 Years is up until January 29th when I return again to pack it up one last time and return the objects to their lenders. I encourage you to see it while you can!

Posted by:

James M. Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives