Exhibition | Simon Watson: Portrait of a House
From Dublin’s Kevin Kavanagh gallery and Dürer Editions:
Simon Watson: Portrait of a House
Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin, 14–30 October 2021
In Portrait of a House, Watson explores an eighteenth-century Georgian house on Dublin’s storied Henrietta Street. The house (Number Twelve) has a history of transformation, from the grand city home of wealthy merchants to the inner-city tenement dwelling for the poverty stricken. In a gentle Proustian fashion, the house reveals a quiet melancholy and the slow passing of time. The photographs were made over several years. The work is intended to be a poetic and intimate portrait.
For over 30 years Simon Watson has exhibited his photographs in Europe and the U.S. including solo shows at the late Richard Anderson Gallery in New York and the Auschwitz Museum in Poland. More recently he has shown his paintings at the Galerie Rideau de Fer in France. His work is included in museums and in public and private collections worldwide. Watson has been a regular contributor to The New York Times T Magazine, W Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. His recent book The Lives of Others was published by Rizzoli in 2020.
Simon Watson, Portrait of a House (Dürer Editions, 2021 ), 64 pages, ISBN: 978-1838314309 , first edition of 1000 copies, €45; special edition of 50, €350; limited edition of 10, €750; collector edition of 5, €1850.
New Book | The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street
From Four Courts Press:
Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and Its First Residents, 1720–80 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2021), 312 pages, ISBN: 978-1846828478, €30 / $40.
Once Dublin’s most exclusive residential street, Henrietta Street was, throughout the eighteenth century, home to the country’s foremost figures from church, military, and state. Here, in this elegant setting on the north side of the city, peers rubbed shoulders with property tycoons, clerics consorted with social climbers, and celebrated military men mixed with the leading lights of the capital’s beau monde, establishing one the principle arenas of elite power in Georgian Ireland. Looking behind the red-brick facades of the once-grand Georgian town houses, this richly illustrated volume—commissioned by Dublin City Council Heritage Office in conjunction with the 14 Henrietta Street museum—focuses on the people who originally populated these spaces, delineating the rich social and architectural history of Henrietta Street during the first fifty years of its existence. By weaving the fascinating and often colourful histories of the original residents around the framework of the buildings, in repopulating the houses with their original occupants, and by offering a window into the lives carried on within, this book presents a captivating portrait of Dublin’s premier Georgian street, when it was the best address in town.
Melanie Hayes is an architectural historian, specialising in Ireland’s eighteenth-century architectural and social history. She was an academic researcher during the development of the 14 Henrietta Street museum by Dublin City Council, and continues to be involved with the museum. Melanie currently works as a research fellow on an Irish Research Council laureate project, CRAFTVALUE, at Trinity College Dublin, exploring a new skills-based perspective on the architecture of Britain and Ireland from 1680 to 1780.
New Book | 14 Henrietta Street: Georgian Beginnings, 1750–1800
From the 14 Henrietta Street museum:
Melanie Hayes, 14 Henrietta Street: Georgian Beginnings, 1750–1800 (Dublin: Dublin City Council Culture Company, 2021), ISBN: 978-0995744660, €18.
In 1800 Henrietta Street was one of the most elegant and elite addresses in all of Georgian Dublin, home to some of the most powerful members of the Anglo-Irish ruling class. 14 Henrietta Street: Georgian Beginnings explores the early history of the house, its first residents—the Molesworths, Bowes, and O’Brien families—and the lives lived behind the red brick facade. This book is one of three new publications commissioned by the 14 Henrietta Street museum that uncover the lives of the people who lived at the house and the surrounding areas.
Melanie Hayes is an architectural and cultural historian, specialising in Ireland’s eighteenth-century architectural and social history. Melanie was part of the historian research team at 14 Henrietta Street, and continues to be involved as a historian for the museum. Dr Hayes currently works as a post-doctoral research fellow, on an Irish Research Council advanced laureate project, CRAFTVALUE, at Trinity College Dublin.
Exhibition | On Stage! Costume Designs
From the press release for the exhibition:
On Stage! Costume Designs from the Edmond de Rothschild Collection
Louvre, Paris, 28 October 2021 – 31 January 2022
Curated by Jérôme de La Gorce, Mickaël Bouffard, and Victoria Fernández Masaguer
The Edmond de Rothschild Collection boasts 1,644 sumptuous costume designs for balls, ballets, masquerades, and operas given in France from the reign of François I to that of Louis XIV. Acquired in the late 19th century by Baron de Rothschild, they constitute an extraordinary resource for understanding the world of spectacle during the Ancien Régime. The exhibition showcases a hundred of the finest pieces from this unique corpus.
Cette exposition réunit une sélection d’une centaine de feuilles provenant de l’un des plus importants fonds de dessins d’habits de spectacle, celui des volumes de Costumes de fêtes, de ballets et de théâtre au temps de Louis XIV offerts par le baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934) au musée du Louvre. Leur richesse permet de dévoiler la diversité d’invention des artistes qui habillèrent les divertissements montés à la Cour de France et de Lorraine du milieu du XVIe siècle à l’aube du XVIIIe siècle : le Primatice, Jacques Bellange, Daniel Rabel, Henri Gissey et Jean Berain notamment. Les véritables ouvrages textiles ayant disparu pour la plupart, ces dessins sont des sources inestimables pour l’histoire du costume, de la danse, de la musique et des spectacles en France durant cette période.
Divisée en quatre sections, cette exposition consacre une première salle à l’atelier du dessinateur de costumes qui entend explorer la transmission de modèles entre les différentes générations d’artistes et les spécificités techniques propres à ce type de dessin. Le parcours propose ensuite de suivre les principaux genres spectaculaires représentés dans ces recueils, qui correspondent aux intérêts de l’un des plus grands collectionneurs de dessins de fêtes et divertissements de la fin du XVIIe et du début du XVIIIe siècle, Claude Pioche, sieur Du Rondray (1660/1665–1733), à qui une partie des feuilles assemblées dans ces volumes aurait appartenu :
Les divertissements équestres : les costumes des cavaliers et des chevaux deviennent l’un des attraits majeurs de ces compétitions destinées tant à prouver la valeur que la galanterie des concurrents dans la lice. Par leur magnificence et l’émerveillement qu’ils suscitent, ils contribuent à l’affirmation du pouvoir.
Les bals, ballets et mascarades : dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle, un caractère à la fois bizarre et poétique guide les artistes qui produisent des « habits de masques » pour les bals et mascarades. Au temps de Louis XIII, le sérieux et le grotesque se mêlent aux influences mythologiques, exotiques et bucoliques, codes que le ballet de Cour et la comédie-ballet se réapproprient au cours du XVIIe siècle.
Les tragédies en musique : ce nouveau genre musical français réunit une multitude de chanteurs, danseurs, musiciens et acrobates qu’il est nécessaire d’habiller harmonieusement. C’est le défi que relève le créateur des Menus Plaisirs Jean Berain, en faisant preuve d’une invention sans pareil dans la variation des coupes, des couleurs et des ornements.
Grâce à une campagne de restauration conduite par l’atelier de restauration du département des Arts graphiques du musée du Louvre, l’ensemble du corpus de dessins de costumes, soit 1644 feuilles, a été restauré et remonté dans des papiers de conservation neutre.
Commissaires de l’exposition
• Mickaël Bouffard, chargé de recherche, Centre d’Étude de la Langue et des Littératures Françaises (CELLF)
• Jérôme de La Gorce, directeur de recherche émérite, CNRS
• Victoria Fernández Masaguer, chargée d’études documentaires, département des Arts graphiques, musée du Louvre
Jérôme de La Gorce, Mickaël Bouffard, et Victoria Fernández Masaguer, En scène! Dessins de costumes de la collection Edmond de Rothschild (Paris: Louvre éditions / Lienart, 2021), 232 pages, ISBN: 978-2359063240, 29€.
Exhibition | The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming
Trunk, made perhaps in Boston or London, 1670; wood, seal skin, iron (Salem: Peabody Essex Museum, Gift of George Rea Curwen, 1898, 3970; photograph by Kathy Tarantola ). The trunk belonged to Jonathan Corwin (1640–1718), one of the magistrates involved in the 1692 trials; Corwin resided at the building in Salem now known as the Witch House (the only surviving structure with direct ties to the trials).
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From the press release (24 August 2021) for the exhibition:
The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, 18 September 2021 — 20 March 2022
Curated by Lydia Gordon, Dan Lipcan, and Paula Richter
This fall, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents a new exhibition about the tragic events and lasting legacy of the 1692 witch trials. The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming dives into the circumstances that fueled the crisis while recognizing the individuals who rose to defend those unjustly accused. The exhibition features authentic 17th-century court documents and objects as well as two compelling contemporary responses made by artists with direct ancestral links to the trials. Fashion by Alexander McQueen and photography by Frances F. Denny revive the impact of Salem’s historical trauma and provide a new perspective on a centuries-old story.
“More than 300 years after the Salem witch trials, the personal tragedies and grave injustices that occurred still provoke reflection as we continue to reckon with the experiences of those involved,” said Dan Lipcan, the Ann C. Pingree Director of PEM’s Phillips Library and one of the exhibition co-curators. “Thanks to these artists’ mining of Salem’s painful history, we are able to put these events into context with our lives today and imagine how we might courageously mold our communities moving forward while continually advocating for justice and tolerance.”
PEM holds the world’s largest collection of Salem witch trials materials, including more than 500 original documents on deposit from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Selections of these documents along with furnishings and personal objects help tell the tragic and true story of those accused, including a trunk that once belonged to Jonathan Corwin, the magistrate who resided at the 17th-century building in Salem that is today known as the Witch House.
The exhibition opens with the power dynamics, fear and community tensions that plagued Salem in the summer of 1692. The extraordinary crisis involved more than 400 people and led to the deaths of 25 innocent people between June 1692 and March 1693. The panic grew from a society threatened by war and a malfunctioning judicial system in a geographical and cultural setting rife with religious conflict and intolerance.
The fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s Fall/Winter 2007 collection, In Memory of Elizabeth How, 1692, was based on his Salem research into his ancestor Elizabeth How, one of the first women to be condemned and hanged as a witch in July 1692. More than three centuries after How’s death, McQueen and Sarah Burton, now the creative director for the House of McQueen, visited Salem. Selections from the resulting intensely personal and autobiographical collection will be on view, including the form-fitting velvet press sample runway dress from PEM’s collection, with a starburst hand-sewn in iridescent gunmetal-gray bugle beads that radiates down the neckline and across the chest and shoulders. Set in context, nearby authentic documents help tell How’s story, from the initial complaint filed May 28, 1692 to the warrant for her arrest, her examination in court, testimony, indictment, pardon, and final restitution to her family in 1712.
“Alexander McQueen’s theatrical fashion show, featuring his powerful designs, reclaimed How’s power and memory from the false accusation that led to her unjust execution,” said exhibition co-curator, Paula Richter. “His visit to key sites in Salem and research into his ancestestry left a lasting impact on him. The resulting designs include symbols of witchcraft, paganism, magic and religious persecution.”
Frances F. Denny, Karen, (Brooklyn, New York), 2016, from Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America series, archival pigment print, 26 × 20 inches (Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY).
From a woman in hospital scrubs to a local Salem shop owner, photographer Frances F. Denny’s series Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America reclaims the meaning of the word ‘witch’ from its historical use as a tool to silence and control women. As a descendent of both accusers and the accused, Denny set out on a journey to discover modern-day witches. She encountered healers, artists and tarot readers, a vast spectrum of identities and spiritual practices. The exhibition features 13 portraits and accompanying personal essays, each revealing a fascinating glimpse into the contemporary spiritual movement.
“Frances Denny’s portraits not only claim agency for those who identify as witches, but they also diversify our perception of what a witch is,” said Lydia Gordon, PEM’s Associate Curator and exhibition co-curator. “What do witches even look like? These powerful portraits do not festishize, but rather reveal multidimensional, self-possessed individuals. They invite careful study and consideration and remind us that identity is most truthful when it is self defined.”
The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming is organized by the Peabody Essex Museum. Carolyn and Peter S. Lynch and The Lynch Foundation, Jennifer and Andrew Borggaard, James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes, Kate and Ford O’Neil, and Henry and Callie Brauer provided generous support. We also recognize the generosity of the East India Marine Associates of the Peabody Essex Museum.
Part of the Salem Witch Memorial, designed by Maggie Smith and James Cutler, dedicated 5 August 1992 (Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM).
Call for Papers | Exploring the Mental World of the Country House
From the Call for Papers:
Exploring the Mental World of the Country House
20th Annual Historic Houses International Conference
Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates, Maynooth University, 9–11 May 2022
Proposals due by 19 November 2021
Country houses are masterpieces of material culture, they are triumphs of architecture, fine and decorative art, and landscape design, but they are also about the history and transmission of ideas.
In varying degrees their occupants (above and below stairs, indoors and outdoors) thought, conversed, read, and responded to their milieu through books, newspapers, as well as other media and forms of knowledge. In recent years country house libraries and archives have steadily revealed more evidence for how people in country houses fashioned themselves and their views of the world. In 2022 the Twentieth Annual Historic Houses Conference will examine the intellectual background to the country house. What is the meaning of all those volumes in bookcases, did they do more than just decorate a room? How were they acquired, read, and put to use?
By what means did elite society exchange ideas, absorb new trends, and engage in wider debate, especially when at home in the country? To what degree was this knowledge valued and displayed in terms of stylish library design, and how did houses preserve, or neglect, their books and other records? How did members of a household entertain or better themselves, what was popular to read with whom —men, women and children? The classics, natural history, literature, genealogy, fiction, and other subjects feature in many country house libraries, and very often a battered, plain copy of a publication will reveal more than the most pristine edition in a lavish ornamental binding. In what ways did books furnish minds as well as interiors?
Beyond the demesne walls how has the world of the country house been perceived and understood in fiction, poetry, drama and, more recently, film? How have these treatments shaped a wider understanding of the country house as a cultural and literary phenomenon? Exploring the Mental World of the Country House will examine these and other related questions, and mark the twentieth anniversary of the Centre; the conference is likely to be a mix of real and online proceedings. Papers on any of the above topics relating to country houses in Ireland, the UK, Europe, or further afield will be considered. Abstracts of no more than 400 words should be sent to Professor Terence Dooley and Professor Christopher Ridgway before 19 November 2021 at the following addresses: terence.a.dooley@mu.ie and cridgway@castlehoward.co.uk.
Online Course | British Furniture Making, 1660–1914
State Bed from Hampton Court Castle, ca. 1698 (New York: The Metropolitian Museum of Art, 68.217.1a), as installed in The Met’s newly renovated British Galleries. Photo by Coscia Joseph. As noted in the museum’s online entry: “In the style of Daniel Marot, this bed was made for Thomas, Baron Coningsby (1656–1729), for Hampton Court, Herefordshire, where it remained until 1925. The curtains, counterpane, headcloth, and some of the trims are modern copies of the originals.”
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From ArtHist.net:
Skill, Style, and Innovation:
British Furniture Making from the Restoration to the Arts and Crafts Movement
Online, The Furniture History Society, Wednesdays, 3 November — 1 December 2021
The Furniture History Society, UK, is organising a short course on British furniture makers from 3rd November to 1st December as part of its outreach and educational programme, for British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (BIFMO). Each week three speakers will consider the history of furniture makers and making in Britain. Beginning with the Baroque period, the course will move chronologically through the centuries to conclude in December with the Arts and Crafts movement. In addition to dealing with the output of specific furniture makers, this course aims to provide an integrated account of the furniture trade in the context of the cultural, technical, and industrial developments that occurred in Britain during these three and a half centuries, while also acknowledging other significant factors such as the role of the patron and the involvement of artists and designers. The talks bring to life the careers and work of some of the most important makers of their time—including Gerrit Jensen in the late seventeenth century; Giles Grendey, William Vile, Thomas Chippendale, and John Linnell in the eighteenth century; Thomas Hope, J. C. Crace, and Charles Robert Ashbee in the nineteenth century; as well as less well-known makers, firms of furniture makers, designers, and architects.
Tickets can be purchased for individual weeks or for the entire course at a saving. To purchase tickets, please go to the EventBrite page. This course will be recorded, and the link to the recording will be sent to ticket holders after the event, though please note that Max Donnelly will not be recorded. We are grateful to the Paul Mellon Centre and the Foyle Foundation for their support.
The course runs from 4.00 to 7.30pm (GMT) every Wednesday as follows:
Week 1 | November 3 — British Baroque Furniture, 1660–1715
• Wolf Burchard (Associate Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art), British Baroque Furniture and Furniture Makers
• Amy Lim (Oxford University), The Baroque Interior: Furnishing the Great London and Country Houses
• John Cross (Furniture historian and maker, specialist on the Jamaican furniture trade), The London Trade, ca. 1660–1720
Week 2 | November 10 — The Early Eighteenth Century and the Furniture Trade, 1715–1760
• Adriana Turpin (FHS Project Manager for BIFMO, International Department, IESA), Furniture for the London Merchants
• Jeremy Howard (Buckingham University), Fantasy and Exuberance: English Rococo Furniture Makers as Craftsmen and Designers
• Norbert Gutowski (Independent furniture maker and restorer, former Subject Leader at West Dean College of Arts and Conservation, Sussex), Eighteenth-Century Furniture Techniques
Week 3 | November 17 — Architects, Furniture, and Patrons, 1760–1815
• Megan Aldrich (Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford), The Furniture Maker and the Architect in the Palladian and Neoclassical Periods
• Lucy Wood (Independent furniture historian, formerly curator at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool and the Department of Furniture, Textiles, and Fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum), London Furniture Makers in the Time of Chippendale
• Rufus Bird (Former Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art, Royal Collections), ‘As Refined and Classical as Possible’: George IV and Other Patrons of British Furniture Makers in the Regency Period, 1800–1830
Week 4 | November 24 — The Development of Furniture Firms, Historicism, and Reform, 1815–1860
• Max Bryant (University of Cambridge), Beyond Hope: Architects and Furniture in the Age of Historicism and Reform
• Ann Davies (MA Courtauld Institute of Art), Furniture for the Great Exhibition 1851
• Max Donnelly (Curator of Nineteenth-Century Furniture in the Department of Furniture, Textiles, and Fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum), Furniture at the London International Exhibition, 1862 — not included in the recording
Week 5 | December 1 — From Manufacture to the Arts and Crafts, 1860–1914
• Clive Edwards (Emeritus Professor of Design History, Loughborough University), Continuity and Change in Nineteenth-Century Furniture Production
• Matthew Winterbottom (Curator of Nineteenth-Century Decorative Arts, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), At Home in Antiquity: Furniture Designed by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
• Annette Carruthers (Former Curator, Decorative Arts, Leicester and Cheltenham Museums), Arts and Crafts Furniture Makers and Designers
Exhibition | Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh
Pedro de Mena, Bust of Saint Acisclus, ca. 1680, polychrome and gilded wood
(New York: Hispanic Society Museum & Library)
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Now on view at HSM&L:
Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh
The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, New York, 15 October 2021 — 9 January 2022
Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh offers a rare glimpse of a major art form from the early modern Hispanic World: polychrome sculpture. Building on the legacy which Archer M. Huntington left the museum, the institution has added to its holdings of this material so that today the HSM&L boasts the finest collection of these works outside Spain. Until recently, this vivid sculpture went largely unnoticed, but now it elicits enthusiastic responses. Even so, this exhibition is the first event in New York to feature this art form in the last two decades. The over twenty wood and terracotta sculptures exhibited not only attest to the high level of artistic production, but they also highlight the role of women artists and show how the stylistic conventions of Spain were adapted in the New World.
Luisa Roldán, The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, 1692–1706, painted terracotta (New York: Hispanic Society Museum & Library).
Gilded Figures begins with late Gothic and early Renaissance works by the finest sculptors from Castile. Among these, a superb monumental relief of the Resurrection attributed to Gil de Siloe reveals the dazzling talent of those artists. How decisively Italian models shaped the work of following generations appears in the sixteenth-century reliquary busts by Juan de Juni. The Baroque period witnessed an impressive flowering in which figures like Pedro de Mena achieved effects of stunning naturalism as seen in his St. Acisclus. The exhibition also draws attention to the role of women artists with works by Luisa Roldán and Andrea de Mena, the first of whom achieved spectacular success in her lifetime rising to the position of Royal Sculptor (escultora de cámara).
The last section of the exhibition focuses on sculpture from Latin America, with works characterized by an impressive range of scale and emotion. A monumental sixteenth-century relief of Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moorslayer) from Mexico reveals how Spanish models were transplanted and adapted to the needs of the Catholic church as it embarked on a campaign to convert the indigenous people. In addition to Mexico, Ecuador witnessed a flourishing of polychromed sculpture in which sculptors in Quito produced masterpieces. Painted with a vivid attention to detail, statues like the Virgin of Quito or St. Michael show the powerful effects these talented artists achieved. The exhibition concludes with perhaps the most dramatic display from this school: Caspicara’s Four Fates of Man. In these figures, the sculptor depicts a range of emotions with consummate skill and a delicate touch as part of a theological lesson to inspire people to persevere in their faith.
P R O G R A M M I N G
Wednesday, November 17, 6.00pm
Orland Hernandez-Ying (Curatorial Research Fellow), Gilded Figures: 18th-Century Sculpture in the Real Audience de Quito
A presentation of the iconographic innovations of three particular sculptures from Ecuador covering issues of the indigenous predilection for angelic representations in art and santo-making techniques (carving, painting, gilding, encarnados, etc.) and the ordenanzas. The examples demonstrate how the extraordinary aesthetic quality of pious sculpture in the Real Audience de Quito was admired overseas during the colonial period with works shipped to other American colonies as well as to Spain. Reservations are required; please contact events@hispanicscoiety.org, indicating the number of guests and the name of the event.
Saturday, November 20 and Saturday, December 4, 3.00pm
Gilded Figures: Somatic Walk
Join Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Hispanic Society Artist Research Fellow, who will guide visitors through an embodied exploration of emotions germinated from the sculptures in the exhibition, as well as those arising during our current times. We will investigate individually and as a group how the awareness and articulation of emotions can lead to the process of healing and balance. Reservations are required; please contact events@hispanicscoiety.org, indicating the number of guests and the name of the event.
Tuesday, December 14, 6.00pm
Gilded Figures: Roundtable Discussion
• Jerrilynn Dodds (Harlequin Adair Dammann Chair in History of Art, Sarah Lawrence College)
• Hélène Fontoira Marzin (Head of Conservation, Hispanic Society Museum & Library)
• Edward J. Sullivan (Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the History of Art, Institute of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, New York University)
• Amanda Wunder (Associate Professor, City University of New York, Lehman College, Department of History; and CUNY Graduate Center for Art History, History, and Global Early Modern Studies)
• Moderated by Patrick Lenaghan (Curator of Prints, Photographs, and Sculptures, Hispanic Society Museum & Library)
Join us for this lively, informal conversation about the unique field of polychrome sculpture. ‘Outside’ perspectives and reactions will illicit new understanding of these painted sculptures made of wood and clay. Reservations are required; please contact events@hispanicscoiety.org, indicating the number of guests and the name of the event.
Addressing Equity and Community Building in Museum Contexts
From the press release (20 October 2021), via Art Daily:
Cover Image: Titus Kaphar (b. 1976), Darker Than Cotton, 2017, oil on canvas, 63 x 36 inches (Jackson: Mississippi Museum of Art, Gift of The Gallery Guild, Inc., 2018.008 / ©Titus Kaphar).
The Center for Art & Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, in Jackson, MS, today announced the release of two publications in service to the art museum sector thanks to generous support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Established in 2018, CAPE’s mission is to use original artworks, exhibitions, programs, and engagements with artists to foster mutual understanding and inspire new narratives about contemporary Mississippi. The publications, CAPE Toolkit and Compassion, Art, People, and Equity: The Story of the Center for Art and Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, are intended to serve as road maps for other art museums grappling not only with how to enact pledges to demonstrate diversity, equity, access, and inclusion during national awakenings regarding antiracism and social justice but also how to authentically serve their communities.
CAPE Toolkit by CAPE Managing Director Monique Davis is a digital publication that offers a model intended to guide institutional transformation by investigating equity, transparency, and truth in a community. It is available on the Museum’s website.
“CAPE’s goal is to align actions with methods,” said Davis. “To develop programs that would meaningfully connect with the community, we first opened ourselves to the adjustments we knew we would have to make in our own institution. In harmony with our community’s expectations and keyed to its values, our goals are simple in articulation and very complicated in execution. We do not simply say what or with whom we stand. Rather, we discover and embody truth.”
Compassion, Art, People, and Equity: The Story of the Center for Art and Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art by art critic and writer Seph Rodney, PhD, describes CAPE’s establishment, its partners and participants, and its signature programs as a blueprint for promoting change internally and externally. The 21-page softcover is available on the Museum’s website.
Rodney explained, “CAPE’s purpose is inhabited by the feelings, wishes, and concerns of the community. The weaving of narratives around and through works of art begins when we can see the work and wrestle with its meanings. CAPE programs address a variety of sensitive subjects: labor, social status, justice, identity, visibility, accessibility, age, race, gender, sexuality, education (formal and otherwise), socioeconomic class, personal belief, myths, territory, land, power, and care of the soul. At the intersection of art and life, there is the potential for transformation, for healing.”
Betsy Bradley, director of MMA, said, “Our partnership with Tougaloo College in 2017 that activated conversations around art and civil rights, confirmed the need for honest dialogue in and about Mississippi. We knew that the conversations had to extend from the curatorial department to connect with our visitors and more broadly. Thus began CAPE, dedicated to the exploration of ideas about race and equity as inspired by looking closely at artworks together. We recognized that our staff, all expertly trained, and trustees would benefit from learning responsible ways to elicit and manage these difficult conversations. Ultimately, we moved more intimately into the heart of equity at all levels. As our journey continues, we hope these publications inspire colleagues embarking on their own.”
MMA staff and trustees training partners included the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process℠ that focused on a system of observation and inquiry by Museum visitors, and the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation (Winter Institute) in Jackson created opportunities for shared understandings in discussions of race and equity issues.
CAPE Toolkit Components
Community Advisory Council (CAC) was established in 2019 and developed a series of engagements for residents of Jackson and adjacent counties.
“CAC members are engaged in the Museum’s on-going planning and operations as collaborators and partners, providing their experience and wisdom,” said Davis. “Our goal is to make the Museum not only a safe space but a brave space for exchange.”
The Innovation Lab was a physical space in the Museum where visitors were invited to respond to and participate in the curatorial process and discuss their experiences as visitors. The goal was multifold:
• to consider and challenge traditional modes of presenting information;
• to invite visitors to become co-curators to inform new modes of presentation;
• to investigate how people experience artworks in relationship to one another and what MMA’s role is in facilitating these interactions;
• to reflect on the process of identifying and incorporating new insights and directions into future exhibitions.
Re:Frame is an ongoing series of staged dialogues about issues of contemporary significance seen through the lens of the visual arts. Topics have included mass incarceration and the Mississippi State Penitentiary’s Parchman Farm, minority farm ownership, economic injustice, disenfranchisement, and the significance in contemporary life of the cotton industry’s fraught history. In consultation with the Winter Institute, Re:Frame dialogues have included collaborations with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Minority Farmers Alliance, and a wide range of local voices including artists, former Parchman inmates, farmers, chefs, musicians, and podcasters.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant also supported the creation of two types of engagements with artists: the In-State Residency program and the National Artist-In-Residency program. Both programs were developed to engage artists and communities in a collaborative exploration of Mississippi places and their histories. Their objectives are to co-produce art that fosters deeper understanding and honors personal truths. In-State artists included Mark Geil, daniel johnson, and Charles Edward Williams. The national program featured Jeffrey Gibson, Nick Cave, and Shani Peters. Peters’ residency was supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Monique Davis is Managing Director for the Center for Art and Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) where she also serves as the Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer. CAPE is a W.K. Kellogg Foundation- and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded initiative that uses artwork, exhibitions, engagement with artists, and programming as a vehicle to have conversations about race and equity. Davis is responsible for creating brave spaces that expand visitors’ perspectives and reveal our shared humanity. She is deeply committed to the belief that art has the power to transform and inform us. Prior to her tenure at the Museum, Monique served as the Senior Program Manager for Parents for Public Schools of Jackson. Her primary responsibility was teaching parents how to be effective advocates for their children by creating workshops to help parents navigate bureaucratic, and often dehumanizing, systems. Her career has been a winding path that has resulted in her owning and operating a restaurant, advocating for homeless veterans at the federal level, and creating safe spaces for nursing mothers. Her board affiliations include Shift Collective (Chair); Visit Jackson (Treasurer); USDAC (United States Department of Arts and Culture) Cultural Agent for Mississippi; Coleman Center for the Arts (Treasurer); and Alternate ROOTS (member and former Chair). Davis is a CPA and a graduate of Howard University.
Seph Rodney, PhD, was born in Jamaica, and came of age in the Bronx, New York. He joined the staff at Hyperallergic in 2016, became an editor a year and a half later, and is currently the opinions editor and a senior critic writing on visual art and related issues. He has also written for The New York Times, CNN, NBC Universal, and American Craft Magazine and penned catalogue essays for Crystal Bridges and the artists Meleko Mokgosi, Teresita Fernandez, and Joyce J. Scott, among others. He has appeared on television on the AM Joy show with Joy Reid and the Jim Jefferies Show on Comedy Central. His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in May 2019. In 2020, he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize and can be heard weekly on the podcast The American Age. His doctorate in museum studies was earned from Birkbeck College, University of London. He has taught research methodology courses at Parsons School of Design and writing courses at the School of Visual Arts. He has also been a visiting art critic at the Yale School of Art.
Call for Proposals | IDEAL Internship Grants, Decorative Arts Trust
From the press release:
IDEAL Internship Grants from the Decorative Arts Trust
Proposals due by 30 November 2021
The Decorative Arts Trust invites art museums, history museums, and historic sites to submit IDEAL Internship Grant proposals by 30 November 2021. The IDEAL Internship Initiative is part of the Trust’s growing Emerging Scholars Program. Non-profit institutions are eligible for IDEAL Internship Grants of up to $5,000.
IDEAL Internships focus on inclusivity, diversity, equity, access, and leadership. The Trust recognizes the homogeneity of the museum field and will strive to improve access to curatorial careers for students of color as a path toward achieving systemic change. In early 2021, the Trust awarded the inaugural IDEAL Internship Grants to the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University; The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Backstreet Cultural Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Newport Restoration Foundation and the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. More information about IDEAL Internship Grants is available here.
The Decorative Arts Trust is a non-profit organization that promotes and fosters the appreciation and study of the decorative arts through: exchanging information through domestic and international programming; collaborating and partnering with museums and preservation organizations; and underwriting internships, research grants, and scholarships for graduate students and young professionals. Learn more about the Trust here or by contacting thetrust@decorativeartstrust.org.
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