Hood Quarterly, summer 2014
Michael Taylor, Director
In the spring issue of the Hood Quarterly, we highlighted various ways that Dartmouth faculty utilize the Hood's vast collections to engage their students in experiential learning from original works of art. The Hood staff's dedication to creating an ideal learning environment reaches into the community as well. This summer, I am delighted to share with you a special focus on teaching and learning with our K–12 audiences, who, as you will see on a map in the news section of this issue, travel from near and far to take advantage of the museum's collections and our unique approach to teaching with them. I invite you to read these pages and think about the important outcomes for students of all ages and backgrounds, including developing visual literacy and competencies for the twenty-first-century global citizen.
All visitors to the Hood Museum of Art this summer will be treated to a number of new exhibitions and installations and an opportunity for one last visit to the popular In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, which closes on July 6. After a thoughtful and moving opening ceremony in conjunction with the Dartmouth Powwow, Allan Houser: A Centennial Exhibition remains on view throughout the year, and summer is the perfect time to visit the five sculptures by the artist that we've located in front of the museum on Wheelock Street and in the Maffei Arts Plaza by the Lebanon Street entrance. We also invite you to take a walk around campus this summer to visit other important public artworks, including those by Mark di Suvero, Peter Irniq, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Nonas, Beverly Pepper, and the recently installed sculpture by Clement Meadmore.
Also on view this summer is The Art of Weapons, the first public installation of the Hood's fine collection of African arms and armaments, as well as a redesign of the museum's Kim Gallery to include contemporary artist Daniel Heyman's monumental work When Photographers Are Blinded, Eagles' Wings Are Clipped (2009–10), which has been placed in unique dialogue with the iconic Assyrian reliefs in that space. Finally, we present, for a few weeks only, Burning as It Were a Lamp, the most recent work by Enrique Martínez Celaya, a Miami-based Cuban-American artist and summer Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth. We hope that you will visit all of these exhibits and participate in the many free public programs we are offering this summer, which include lectures, artist panel discussions and gallery talks, hands-on workshops, and films. We are also launching some new programs—a book group, meditation classes, a performance by Opera North, and a trivia contest—that we hope you will enjoy.
The "Alumni Voices" feature in this issue of the Hood Quarterly is by recent Dartmouth graduate Crishuana Williams, Class of 2012, who has been researching and writing a history of Florian Jenkins's 1972 commission by Dartmouth College to paint The Life of Malcolm X, a mural in the Afro-American Society's Cutter-Shabazz House. A longer version of Williams's contribution will be published in a multi-authored brochure about the mural this fall in conjunction with the major exhibition Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties.
The exhibitions and programs that we present reflect the Hood's profound commitment to engaging all of our visitors with the joy of discovery and inspiration that comes from looking, learning, and interacting with exciting works of art. I look forward to seeing you at the museum this summer and hope that your visit will be an enjoyable one.
In This Issue:
- A Sneak Peek at a Special Summer Exhibition
- New Installation in Kim Gallery
- Art and a Sense of Place
- Alumni Voices: Crishuana Williams '12
- Recent Acquisitions: Vietnam Photographs
- Recent Acquisitions: Owusu-Ankomah, Starkid, 2007
- Recent Acquisitions: Chuck Close, Self-Portrait Screenprint 2012, 2012
- Experiential Learning through the Visual Arts: Developing Essential Knowledge for Life
- Community of Learners: Summer 2014
- In Memoriam: Philip H. Greene