The Blanton Blog

The Blanton's Prespective Series offers insights on Cuban art, cowboys and everthing in between...

2012-01-18T15:43:00.008-06:00

This spring and summer, The Blanton’s “Perspectives” series offers a fantastic lineup of artists, scholars, and curators exploring a range of topics. From nineteenth-century quilting to contemporary Cuban art, there is something for everyone. Among the lecturers is Erica Bsumek, UT associate professor of history. On May 10, Bsumek will present “Looking at Easterners” an examination of the interactions between Native Americans and settlers as conveyed in the paintings from “Go West!” (In a recent article in the Austin American-Statesman, Bsumek discusses the reappearance and appropriation of Najavo designs in today’s fashion and its impact on the Najavo people.) http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/navajo-is-more-than-a-fashion-trend-1996219.html

And just around the corner on February 2, Lester Faigley, Robert Adger Law and Thos. H. Law Professor of Humanities at UT, presents “Visualizing the West in the Global Imagination: From the Garden of Eden to the Oil Derrick.” Check out this sneak peak from Faigley here:

The major subjects of Western art—the unspoiled wilderness, the wars with Native Americans, romanticized depictions of Native Americans, the cattle drives, the frontier towns, the gold rush, sheriffs, outlaws, soldiers, settlers, ranchers, and cowboys—are familiar to us after over a century of Western movies, sixty years of television shows set in the West, and countless depictions in advertising and other popular media. It is hard for us today to imagine how influential photographs and paintings that represented the American West were in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how they shaped the imaginations of people worldwide.

Everyone wanted to see the West. As early as the 1830s, crowds in New York, London, and Paris flocked to see George Catlin’s paintings of Native Americans, followed by decades of exhibitions by other artists and photographers. By the 1880s the popularity of Western art in various formats ranging from paintings and sculpture to images in magazines and dime novels created an appetite to experience the West live. William F. Cody recognized this demand, and from 1883 to 1913, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show delivered cavalry battles with Native Americans, stagecoach robberies, shootouts, wild animals, and rodeo events to large audiences in the Eastern United States and in Europe. Even Queen Victoria requested and received a performance at her Golden Jubilee at Windsor Castle in 1887. In 1893, an estimated fifty touring Wild West troupes entertained millions.

More than entertainment, Western art and performance were a powerful means of cultural persuasion. For example, the military scout of the American West became the model for the Scouting Movement. Robert Baden-Powell’s book Scouting for Boys, published in 1908, led quickly to an obsession with scouting in Great Britain and its empire, in Europe, and in North and South America. Baden-Powell’s notion of a Western outfit became the scout uniform with a cowboy hat, neckerchief, and a flannel shirt. Baden-Powell himself wore a Stetson cavalry hat while serving in the Boer War in South Africa, where he became friends with an American soldier of fortune, Frederick Russell Burnham, who had learned the art of tracking in the Apache Wars. Burnham taught Baden-Powell “woodcraft,” which later became the basis of “scoutcraft.”

The military scout embodied the American frontier spirit of independence, strength, self-reliance, and courage that Baden-Powell believed was lacking in the youth of Britain. Baden-Powell played up these associations by giving himself a frontier-sounding nickname, “the wolf who never sleeps,” and claiming that he was a descendent of Captain John Smith, the hero of the Pocahontas tale. At a time when Great Britain and the other European powers were competing to develop colonies, the language and imagery used to describe the American frontier were transferred to the African continent, even though the Boers were hardly indigenous peoples and there were no wolves in Africa. Such was the power of the legends of the West.

Image: Scouting for Boys, 1908

The Art of Poetry - The Poetry of Art

2012-01-17T10:37:00.016-06:00

Jennifer Garner, The Blanton's Manager of School and Family Programs, explores the connections between art and poetry with Badgerdog Literary Publishing and a group of young writers from Austin ISD

Since childhood I’ve loved nothing more than to be transported to other worlds by reading a good book, short story, or poem, so it was a delight to discover a type of poetry, inspired by art no less, that I had never encountered.

I certainly knew that numerous writers have translated their interpretations of a visual artwork into writing. I just didn’t know, until about ten years ago, that poetry written to describe or to comment on an artwork came from an ancient tradition called ekphrasis. This new discovery for me brought together two things I cherish—reading literature and engaging with art. And it has led me to want to give other people in Austin a chance to experience this connection too.

Not too long ago, I found kindred spirits in my colleagues at Badgerdog Literary Publishing, an Austin-based literary arts non-profit, and for the last few years, we have teamed up to bring kids to the museum to see art and to give them the opportunity to write about it. This year we just couldn’t resist bringing over 500 young writers from Austin ISD, Manor ISD, and the Texas School for the Blind to see the exhibition El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa. Under the direction of Badgerdog instructors, each student in their program had a chance to engage with and respond to works of art by El Anatsui, an artist who is recognized as one of the most original and compelling artists of our time.

Whether you have already seen the exhibition or you plan to visit it in this last week before it closes, I invite you to view works of art through the eyes and hearts of our community’s children.

[For Assorted Seeds]

Assorted Seeds

I dig and I zig-zag.
Seeds grow in a row.
It is a rug in the floor,
big and giant as a person.
I pick it up, and it’s sick
but not weak.

-Zaudiel Diaz, fourth grade
T. A. Brown Elementary School

Sin titulo

Estaba lloviendo y yo quería
ir afuera pero mi mama me
dijo no. De repente algo
salio de la tierra. Yo salí
corriendo para agarra las
semillas. Pero cuando las agarré
yo me transforme en una
flor malo. Me caí en el
piso y mi mama me
miro me recogió y me
planto. Mi mama no sabía
que esa flor era yo.

Untitled

It was raining, and I wanted
to go outside but my mom
said no. Suddenly, something
came out of the ground. I ran
outside to grab the seeds. But
when I grabbed them I turned into
a sick flower. I fell on the floor
and my mom looked at me. She
picked me up and she planted
me. My mom did not know
I was a flower.

-Vicente Perez-Guerrero, fourth grade
T. A. Brown Elementary School

[For Omen]

Egg Hatching

It hatched. It is
running as fast as
a cheetah fights ferocious
predators—alligators,
bats, snakes, raccoons.

It’s a T-Rex running like
a cheetah to hunt and eat food.
He was little but he was big
in his heart. He was
invincible.

-Andres Garcia, fourth grade
T.A. Brown Elementary School

Images:
(Top) El Anatsui, Assorted Seeds II, 1989, wood, Photo courtesy: Museum for African Art / Kelechi Amadi-Obi
(Bottom) El Anatsui, Omen, 1978, ceramic, Photo courtesy: Museum for African Art / Kelechi Amadi-Obi

"Seek the extremes, That's where all the action is."

2012-01-09T08:58:00.010-06:00

Guest blogger and curator Katie Geha examines the radical life of artist Lee Lozano in her Blanton exhibition...

The painter and conceptual artist Lee Lozano loved puns: “As I've been saying for years,” she wrote in her memo pad. “The great puns are metaphor in its purest form.” A pun is a rhetorical device that exploits the flexibility of language, and whether it acts as a metaphor or as a mirror—as Lozano insinuates—it changes agreed-upon meaning through a process of deflection.

A pun reveals the mutability of words. Similarly, Lozano is an artist who constantly averts any one characterization. She was a prolific artist in the 1960s who hung out with artists such as Richard Serra and Yvonne Rainer and she influenced the work of her once-lover, Dan Graham, while declaring, “Give away all your ideas.” She showed conceptual work at Virginia Dwan’s groundbreaking Language III exhibition in 1969 and held a solo exhibition of paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1970. Yet, just as she threw herself into her work, she threw herself out of it. “Seek the extremes, That's where all the action is," she is known for saying. Lozano left New York in 1973 and mostly stopped showing her art.

The four works by Lee Lozano in the Blanton Museum of Art’s collection display Lozano’s varied interests in art making from the 1960s until her departure from the art world. All the works share suggestive verb titles: Ream, Stroke, & General Strike Piece. Two are paintings, one is a study for a painting, and another is an art-life piece that exhibits Lozano’s practice in conceptual and performance art in the early 1970s. While Lozano the artist is difficult to discern, here too are works that deflect any one reading. If we were to take these four works as case studies, we would find a constantly moving network of ideas from paint to drawing to words as directives; a small collection of the best output by an artist who refused to be any one thing.

Images: Portrait of Lozano & her 1964 work, Ream

Calling all bookworms! 2012 Blanton Book Club list is announced!

2011-12-29T09:21:00.014-06:00

Do you love art and books? Is your new year’s resolution to read and learn more? Then The Blanton Book Club is just the thing for you! This well-loved group meets in the galleries once a month for docent-led discussions as part of our Third Thursday evening events. Books are selected in conjunction with works on view. Admission is always free.

This year, join us for lively discussions of the following publications:

January 19: Night by Elie Wiesel

Selected as part of Light / The Holocaust and Humanity Project, Ballet Austin’s Holocaust education partnership promoting the protection of human rights against bigotry and hate through arts, education, and public dialogue, Night offers a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel’s survival as a teenager in Nazi death camps. More than a litany of daily terrors, the book eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

February 16: The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday

Selected in conjunction with the exhibition Go West! Representations of the American Frontier, The Way to Rainy Mountain traces the journey of Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday's Kiowa ancestors from their ancient beginnings in the Montana area to their final war and surrender to the United States Cavalry at Fort Sill and subsequent resettlement near Rainy Mountain, Oklahoma. According to Momaday, "the stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself."

March 15: Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Selected to accompany the exhibition American Scenery: Different Views in Hudson River School Painting, Nature, written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, put forth the transcendentalist belief that divinity suffuses nature and that we can only understand reality through studying nature. This essay established a new way of looking at the Americas and its raw, natural environment and many scholars identify Emerson as one of the first writers to develop a uniquely American literary style and vision. Nature, written by Henry David Thoreau when he was a senior at Harvard College, was an essential influence on his own works, including Walden.

April 19: Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden

Selected to accompany the exhibitions American Scenery and Go West!, Nothing Daunted follows Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, childhood friends and graduates of Smith College, from their homes in Auburn, New York, to the wilds of northwestern Colorado. Bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the young men who courted them, Woodruff and Underwood traveled by train and wagon to the tiny settlement of Elkhead, taking teaching positions at a remote mountaintop schoolhouse.

In their buoyant letters home, the two women captured the voices and stories of the pioneer women, children, and other memorable people they got to know. Nearly a hundred years later, New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden—the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff—found the letters and began to reconstruct the women’s journey. Enhancing the story with interviews with descendants, research about these vanished communities, and trips to the region, Wickenden creates an exhilarating saga about two intrepid young women and the “settling up” of the West.

May 17: A is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States by Jill Lepore

What ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation of citizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds? These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly United States together.

In A is for American, selected in conjunction with American Scenery, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore portrays seven men who turned to language to help shape a new nation’s character and boundaries. From Noah Webster’s attempts to standardize American spelling, to Alexander Graham Bell’s use of “Visible Speech” to help teach the deaf to talk, to Sequoyah’s development of a Cherokee syllabary as a means of preserving his people’s independence, these stories form a compelling portrait of a developing nation’s struggles. Lepore brilliantly explores the personalities, work, and influence of these figures, seven men driven by radically different aims and temperaments. Through these superbly told stories, she chronicles the challenges faced by a young country trying to unify its diverse people.

June 21: A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World by Marcia Tucker

Selected in conjunction with The Collecting Impulse: Fifty Works from Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, this engrossing memoir brings to vivid life the behind-the-scenes struggles of Marcia Tucker, the first woman to be hired as a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the founder of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. Tucker came of age in the 1960s, and this spirited account of her life draws the reader directly into the burgeoning feminist movement and the excitement of the New York art world during that time. Her own new ways of thinking led her to take principled stands that have changed the way art museums consider contemporary art. As curator of painting and sculpture at the Whitney, she organized major exhibitions of the work of Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Tuttle, among others. As founder of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, she organized groundbreaking exhibitions that often focused on the nexus of art and politics. The book highlights Tucker's commitment to forging a new system when the prevailing one proved too narrow for her expansive vision.

July 19: Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

Selected in conjunction with The Collecting Impulse and The Human Touch: Selections from the RBC Wealth Management Collection, Sarah Thornton’s judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history will change the way you look at contemporary culture. Based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, this series of beautifully paced narratives investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale.

August 16: The 12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Donald N. Thompson

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock’s drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million?

Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.

Photos: Rick Hall

Exciting new projects from the Latin American Department are on the horizon!

2011-12-15T10:23:00.019-06:00

Ursula Davila Villa, associate curator for Latin American art, gives an update on several great new projects in the works...

The last few months have been exciting, busy, and full of new discoveries. About a week ago, I returned from Los Angles, where I saw several exhibitions organized as part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980, a hugely ambitious six-month Getty Foundation and Getty Research Institute initiative that encapsulates the history behind the birth of the Southern California art scene. Although my visit to L.A. was quick, I left inspired and revitalized from seeing powerful art that told a variety of stories, all emblematic of the richly diverse social fabric that shapes California. My two favorite exhibitions were Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987, organized by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, on display at the Hammer Museum.

The first presents a full survey of the wide-ranging performance and conceptual art of ASCO, a group of Chicano artists from East Los Angeles that included Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón, and Patssi Valdez. This dynamic group used performance, public art, and multimedia to respond to social and political turbulence in Los Angeles and beyond. Their work and happenings felt exuberant, fun, and display a creative and diverse array of extravagant disguises. The art in Now Dig This! shared the same dynamism as that of ASCO. Yet, the works displayed a different materiality. Rather than immaterial or theatrical art, the works in this exhibition appeal to our visual and tactile senses through color, texture, and variety of materials. Artists like Noah Purifoy and John Outterbridge produce powerful sculptural objects that illustrate the many challenges confronted by the African-American community at the time. I recommend visiting Los Angles during this season of Pacific Standard Time—it is an experience you should not miss!

Looking ahead, 2012 will be a hectic but thrilling year. On April 28, 2012, I will travel to San Juan de Puerto Rico to install and open the 3rd Trienal Poli/Grafica El Panal/The Hive. As part of the curatorial team—which includes Deborah Cullen, Sergio Bessa and Rebeca Noriega—I have been working for the past year on selecting contemporary artists and collectives whose work speaks of or is based on collaboration, the theme of next year’s triennial. Historically, the event has been about printmaking, a rich and long tradition in Puerto Rico. In 2004, the concept behind the triennial shifted to include works based on a variety of media that conceptually related to the ideas behind printmaking (i.e. edition, repetition, distribution, collectiveness). We defined the theme of the 3rd Trienal Poli/Grafica El Panal/The Hive around the idea of graphic practice as reliant on an essentially collaborative spirit, emphasizing the social networks in which artists and their practices converge.

The year will continue at full speed as The Blanton prepares to open the retrospective exhibition of Brazilian artist Waltercio Caldas at the Fundação Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I will co-curate this exhibition along with Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro of the Cisneros Foundation in NYC, and will work in collaboration with the foundation in Brazil. We are very excited to be the first North American institution to develop a full career survey of one of Brazil’s most important contemporary artists. The exhibition will travel through Latin America between the fall of 2012 and spring of 2013 and will later open at The Blanton Museum of Art on October 27, 2013. Caldas’ work calls for deep visual engagement through unique elegant forms and materials. The excitement I feel for this project lies in the unpredictable visual chemistry that I imagine a full display of his work will generate once installed in our galleries. Stay tuned!

Image: Waltercio Caldas
Escultura em granito [Granite sculpture], 1986
Granite, 4 x 19 5/8 x 15 3/4 in.
Purchase as a gift of Margaret McDermott in memory of Barbara Duncan, 2005

Make Some Special Memories this Holiday Season

2011-11-29T15:44:00.010-06:00

Jennifer Garner, Manager of School and Family Programs, explains why The Blanton makes the perfect setting for holiday family fun...

During the holidays we are so often bombarded by messages telling us what the season should be about—shopping for gifts, decorating (and cleaning) the house,cooking the perfect holiday dinner, and writing cards to every friend and acquaintance, past and present. It often feels like a mad race to get everything done and to make it look effortless, too.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the holiday pressure, and that can take all the fun out of it. At times like this, I try to pause and think about what the holidays mean to me. A getting back to basics approach, if you will.

Ultimately, it means spending time with people I care about. But rather than focusing on all the items on the “to do” list, I prefer that we get out of the house and do something as a family. We get to know each other better through these shared experiences, and for me, that’s the stuff relationships are built on.

It may sound hokey since I work at an art museum, but if given the chance, taking my family to look at art is one of the best holiday outings. I take them around the galleries and show them artworks that are “my favorites” as if they were good friends of mine that they’ve never met. I might tell them a tidbit or two about the artwork or the artist, but I also like hearing what they think of things.

We end up having some fascinating conversations. Sometimes we discover something new together, like noticing that the painting From That Day On by Ben Shahn has a red dragon in the background. Or we might discuss questions that we have about something we see, such as looking at Carlo Ceresa’s Portrait of a Widow and wondering what she’s really thinking. My mom, who swears she doesn’t like contemporary art, often surprises me by showing interest in Kehinde Wiley’s or Anselm Kiefer’s work. Of course, we don’t always like the same things, and that’s okay. In fact, those conversations can give me insight into how some visitors might respond to certain artworks in the collection.

Maybe that’s why I like to create family programming for The Blanton. After all, it gives me a chance to set the stage for families to spend time together and have fun. I try to design activities such as art-making or interactive stations that have appeal for kids and adults alike, and I also strive to get them talking about art with each other by offering exhibition gallery guides or gallery games. With that in mind, I always plan Blanton Family Days at the holidays in hopes that, when the dust is settled from all the usual festivities, they will come to the museum and have those great conversations. It’s the best gift I can think to give at the holidays—the magic of really connecting with each other through a work of art.

Blanton Family Days are on December 27 and 28 from 11-4. For more information go to http://blantonmuseum.org/experience_the_blanton/family_programs/.

Images: Father and Daughter enjoying the museum
Kehinde Wiley, Le Roi a la Chasse, 2006

We’ve been to Paris, and you can’t touch art there either.

2011-11-15T08:51:00.003-06:00

In this day and age, protecting art is a complicated matter. Chris Seebach, Director of Facility Operation and Security, along with The Blanton's Gallery Assistants, explain the ins and outs of museum security, and how this line of work offers more than one would imagine..

We’ve been to Paris, and you can’t touch art there either. This day and age, everyone has come to accept the idea of “security”. Security is an indispensable part of today’s world, most importantly in public gathering areas, whether we like it or not. Cultural institutions are reminded of this daily, from accidental or intentional damage to objects we display, theft, or even medical emergencies taking place in the galleries. It’s a necessity for us to be present, in this museum setting, walking, watching, and preventing.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not simply a job where we ask you to not touch the art. There’s an overabundance of policies to know and variables to manage when working in the cultural property protection field, commonly referred to by many security managers, as running our own little world. We, as museum guards, protect this collection for you, your kids, your grandkids, and their future kids too. We are The Blanton Gallery Assistants, and when you’re lost, we’ll guide your way. When you don’t understand something, we’ll help explain. If you happen to fall, we pick you up; and when you touch what we cherish most about The Blanton, we intervene, as it is our duty to prevent it from happening again. In order to help inculcate a sense of who we are and why we work here, please enjoy these excerpts from my extremely talented staff. They’re the reason I’m here, and I’m positive they’re one of the reasons you’ll keep coming back.

* "What I enjoy most about being a gallery assistant is meeting and listening to people who are excited to be in the museum. Some of them can be first time visitors, and others are veteran museum members. However, each time can be an equally rewarding experience for both. I personally most enjoy interacting with a first time visitor. The Blanton may be the first art museum this first time visitor has ever visited, and they often have similar questions to the artwork they find here. Although the questions are often identical, I never tire of responding because I see them excited and engaged with the experience. That really makes me happy, because I see the collection truly affecting them, and whether their response is a negative or a positive critique, I know they are being challenged to think and see in new ways. I believe this is how art truly functions. It is a means of communication that can inspire and move us all."

* "When I first started working at The Blanton, I was under the impression that this would be a fairly static job in terms of what I could expect to encounter every day. However, I soon came to see that this was not the case; every visitor, docent, adult, and child has a different and fresh perspective on art, and by interacting with them and listening to their questions and own experiences with the pieces in our collection, I've learned that the art I am constantly surrounded by is anything but constant. Depending on visitors, weather, the events happening around town, or the general mood in the air, the feel of the art is shaped on a day-by-day basis by the environment of the museum, a realization that has opened up a new perspective to this position. And although it can be a little heartbreaking to inform a child that our two perspectives on climbing through 600,000 pennies might differ from one another, for the most part every day I spend as a gallery assistant is one I wouldn't change for the world."

* "I often have people ask "Is your job boring??" And I surprise them when I say no. Working as a museum guard while being an art student allows me to study art while working. Every day that I work I try to find something new in a painting, memorize a name for research, dissect the composition, critique and develop a more articulate stance on why I do not like a particular work of art. I also meet curators, educators and artists (that I probably would not have met otherwise) and make connections that I may need in the future."

* "The most enjoyable part of being a GA is watching and listening to people react to various works of art. The elementary students have the freshest approach and I love the energy they bring to the galleries. Their engagement with the art is genuine and immediate. I have yet to see a young child roll his/her eyes and respond "I just don't get it". When describing art, they are not aware of unwritten rules constructed in the art world or sounding eloquent. For kids, looking at art can be humorous and exciting. That kind of energy is sometimes omitted from a museum environment and I am pleased that at The Blanton it is welcomed."

* "I did not know exactly what to expect of the day-to-day work environment when I first joined the gallery assistant team at The Blanton, and now 4 years in, I can still say the same thing. Every day brings about new experiences and interactions that you can get in no other workplace. Walking the galleries all day long, surrounded by every type of artwork (whether it suits my tastes or not) is nothing short of spectacular. But beyond my own interactions with the artwork, the best experiences of each day are the conversations with or overheard by the public. On any given day, I get to experience seeing the excitement and awe of a new visitor or a long-time patron as they first see a new artwork, or when they return to see an old favorite. And when I get to visit with them or answer questions about particular works (whether it suits their tastes or not), really makes my day. Beyond the gallery spaces, we also get to experience every aspect of the behind-the-scenes magic of exhibition installations; from overseeing the delivery and unveiling of crates, to watching the planning and building of new layouts, to our very own private curator led tours; those experiences make me feel like I'm a backstage VIP. Each day holds a new surprise, and has the potential to enliven a new creative spark or learn something new about the art world, and the people who come to experience it."

* "While working at The Blanton, I have not only learned a great deal about art history, but also have had the opportunity to meet amazing and talented people. My co-workers are the best a gallery assistants I could ask for, and I can sincerely say that I enjoy going to work there."

* "Being a gallery assistant is a great job. To be surrounded by art and art lovers all day is an enjoyable experience. I love that I am able to walk through the galleries and learn something new about a different work of art each time. There is a lot of knowledge about art that can be gained from being a museum guard. Overall, I’d have to say that one of my favorite things about being a gallery assistant is getting sneak peaks to upcoming exhibitions and having our own special tours. It's really a job that you can get a lot out of."

* "As a Gallery Assistant at The Blanton, and therefore surrounded by the museum's collection on a daily basis, you develop a deep appreciation for the art. And it's a constantly shifting one. Different works will have different effects on you on different days. Certain pieces immediately resonate with you, while others build up from a steady hum eventually permeating your sensibilities. And that's great to be engaged and affected in that way. Visual art is a language, and languages are best learned through continued exposure, so being immersed daily is the best part of the job."

* "Walking around the galleries to enforce the rules of the museum is met with both defensive patrons and kind, understanding lovers of art. We have the advantage of people watching and seeing how viewers interact with works... And as long as it is in a hands off way, it is beautiful to see someone spend a good while in front of a piece that many people throughout the day rush past. Also, children love piles of pennies. "

* "From European, Latin American, and Western art, to Greek busts and sculptures, The Blanton houses a variety of colorful pieces that makes one's visit worthwhile. As a Gallery assistant we get to see firsthand, openings of new exhibitions, artists, and special events at The Blanton. The best part of all of these experiences is the patrons' appalled or amazed reactions to our works of art. "

* "Every time a group of kids comes into the museum we all hold our breath a little just waiting for disaster to strike. Inevitably, there is at least one in every group that makes the chaos worthwhile. One of my favorite moments was talking to a little girl in the minimalist gallery as she came up to the Waltercio Caldas piece, a large piece of black granite cut in a simple rectangle curving down at each corner to rest on a point so it looks almost like it is floating. The girl asked me if it was art and I said "yes". Her response was "That's amazing!” It still makes me smile to think about. "

* "There are really so many things to enjoy about my job: I am in the presence of the art all day, being behind the scenes and seeing the inner workings of the museum, having the most incredible and talented co-workers on the planet. But if I had to pick one thing, I’d say it’s getting to witness, in real time, people of all walks of life connecting and having transcendent experiences with the art. They’ll turn to me with joy and wonderment and exclaim.....‘It’s amazing’! Gives me goose bumps every time."

* "I love working at The Blanton. The creativity and ambition of my fellow gallery assistants (and all Blanton staff) is a daily source of inspiration."

Some of them are even good at kickball.

We've come a long way, baby!

2011-11-01T08:51:00.007-05:00

Richard Havens, Manager of Special Projects for the Director's Office, takes a look back at the (incredible) last eight years in the life of The Blanton...

When I started work at The Blanton, the Michener Gallery Building was still a hole in the ground. Any construction setback sent paroxysms of teeth gnashing among the staff—and there were a few. One I recall clearly was, while drilling what would become the basement, water sprang from the limestone bedrock in unexpected torrents. I don’t think artist Teresita Fernandez knew that story when she envisioned her Rapoport Atrium installation, Stacked Waters, but the words intuition and synchronicity come to mind. A few more delays and then we were celebrating the “topping out”—that special milestone when the highest structural component is put in place and nothing’s left but the filling in. Hundreds of people came to witness this moment. And that’s about the time it really set in for me.

I attended UT and lived in Austin for many years before working at The Blanton. To me, Austin was a sort of lo-fi incubator for creativity. Anyone and everyone seemed to feel not only the urge but the impulse to express themselves. An actor who only dressed like Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp. A screenwriter who incessantly quoted lines I said months ago as he tried them on for size. Or an artist who, upon completing her UT doctorate in psychology, turned to full-time painting. I moved to Chicago for a few years only to find this wasn’t the norm. So I came back.

The topping out party drew a slice of life Fellini would adore. For each person The Blanton promised something—inspiration, distraction, solace, homework, a whole new world. The staff’s teeth gnashing stopped, and the fast approaching opening sent them into other states that would have been amusing if I wasn’t feeling the same. A week-long celebration for every audience segment you can imagine culminated with the EGO—the 24-hour Extremely Grand Opening. I followed the entrance line to the final bash that snaked around the entire 125,000-square-foot building. People kept arriving. It was 2:00 a.m. “If you build it they will come,” came unbidden to my mind.

Since then, the museum’s connected three-quarters of a million visitors to Renaissance masters, Latin American geometric abstract artists, mid-century modern designers, and a world-renowned African sculptor, to list a few. Annual visitation keeps growing with the highest last year at 145,000. We have more than 7,000 members. These numbers are unheard of among university art museums. But then again, this is Austin. And it is The Blanton.

Image: Visitors in long lines for the museum's Grand Opening event, 2006

Behind the Scenes with El Anatsui (Part II)

2011-10-13T14:11:00.009-05:00

Our last post provided a glimpse into the life of The Blanton's installation crew, highlighting our preparation for the El Anatsui exhibition. In part two of our "behind the scenes" look at this show, we share a video by Blanton staffer Mary Myers, featuring footage of the artist himself. Enjoy!

Sneak Peek! Behind the Scenes of the El Anatsui Installation..

2011-10-04T11:25:00.009-05:00

Installing the large and very delicate works by artist El Anatsui was a daunting task. Learn more about how it was done in this video for The Blanton Blog by preparator Matt Winters and narrated by installation manager James Swan.

The Art of Handling Art..

2011-09-14T10:28:00.006-05:00

In this post, Blanton registrar Sue Ellen Jeffers explains the ins and outs of moving and storing art...

Moving art. What’s the big deal? How hard can it be? Maybe a little like creating order out of chaos?

The Blanton has recently finished building a state of the art storage facility so that works of art that have been stored off site can finally come home to the museum. While this is a wonderful thing, it creates quite a daunting task for us, the museum’s collections management staff. Moving hundreds of collection objects will take a lot of advance planning and preparation. There are sculptures and paintings of all sizes, as well as some really heavy large stone and bronze sculptures, each needing to be handled carefully. Some objects are packed in large wooden crates, others in cardboard cartons, others in bubble wrap.

One of the first things we have to decide is where, exactly, these art works will go in the new storage facility. On a shelf? On a screen? (A screen is a large moveable “wall” that multiple paintings can be affixed to – see photo.) We only want to move things once! Some works are very large, and they will only fit on certain painting storage screens that can accommodate their size. Other works are three-dimensional and must go on shelves. Very large sculptures will be placed on pallets on the floor, but we must decide if we want them grouped together. And if so, how? By medium? By collection?

We also have to determine how many truckloads and the number of weeks required to bring all of our collections back. We have to know the dimensions of all the works and how each is packed so we can figure out how to combine objects on a truck to make the most efficient use of space without endangering the art works. How many loads of artwork can we receive each week and safely unpack and store away? How should we prioritize which works are delivered first? How many trained art handlers will we need on hand for this project? All of this must be scheduled around The Blanton’s many other activities and programs.

The moving trucks must be climate controlled and have air ride suspension because the works of art should not be subjected to wide variations in temperature or humidity and we don’t want them to have a bumpy, potentially damaging ride to their new home. Fortunately, there are companies that specialize in moving fine art and have the needed equipment and staff trained in handling delicate art works.

Once the art works are here, we will carefully unpack each one and put it on the pre-determined shelf or screen. Each screen and shelf will have an ID number, and the location of each object will be noted in our collections management database so we can find it in the future.

And that is how The Blanton’s collection management staff creates order out of chaos!

Photo: Members of the museum's installation team securing paintings to a screen

This Fall at the Museum Shop

2011-09-09T09:18:00.010-05:00

The big news in The Blanton Museum Shop is how excited the staff is in preparation for El Anatsui: When I last Wrote to You about Africa, the museum’s eagerly anticipated fall exhibition. We searched for months and have found all kinds of fun and collectible African items, many from Ghana and Nigeria, where the artist resides. I was fortunate to travel to Africa back in the 1990s with Jerome Vogel, special advisor to the president of the Museum for African Art in New York City, the organizers of this exhibition. He has been helpful in finding resources for great merchandise to offer during the run of the show in Austin.

The majority of the items are from West Africa—in and around the Ghanaian and Nigerian area —but some of the recycled/repurposed items are from other parts of the continent.

Inspired by El Anatsui’s use of found materials, we will feature models of saxophones, guitars, bicycles, Vespa’s and animals all made from cans and wrappers scavenged in Africa.

We will also have hand-made items: musical instruments, such as juju seed shakers and bottle cap tambourines; one-of-a-kind hand-woven Kente cloth textiles, a type of silk and cotton fabric unique to the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast; and hand-woven scarves, placemats, and table runners for your home. One of our favorite galleries in Soho (NYC) will be sending a selection of antique, one-of-a kind jewelry pieces. And, we will have fun, colorful jewelry from our friends at Tribal Arts.

The exhibition catalogue is one of the most beautiful we have ever carried. Produced by the Museum for African Art, it is a handsome 170-page hardbound book with full color images throughout. It retails for $50 or $45 for Blanton Museum members.

All of this excitement is building towards our “African Market Show” during the first weekend of December. Members will receive a double discount (20%) off all their purchases from Friday, December 2 through Sunday, December 11. We will have African vendors available with an assortment of market items, including all the items listed here plus many more!

Our museum shop always has a wonderful selection of design and gift items, jewelry and toys, but it is especially fun to plan for a special exhibition such as this. This one has been especially enjoyable because of the variety of affordable items made in Africa that are truly representative of indigenous crafts.

We can’t wait until the opening on September 25 so we can share all of these unique items! From our perspective, it’s always interesting to see what appeals to our visitors and what sells first. And, we love sharing that feedback with the craftspeople who make these wonderful items.

Weddings? Models? Martha Stewart? And you thought we were just a museum!

2011-08-12T09:09:00.015-05:00

Blanton Manager of Special Events, Stephanie Topolgus, takes a look back at some of the museum's more interesting events, and looks to the future with a new and improved B scene...

The Blanton's Special Events department has seen a lot since The Michener Gallery Building opened its doors in 2006. We have worked with everyone from high school whiz kids being recruited by UT, to fifty fashion runway models dressing in our back hallway, to Martha Stewart herself–with at least five of her stressed out assistants in tow! Everyone loves to party at The Blanton, and who can blame them? The museum is a beautiful and inspiring place to host an event, and it is an inspiring place to work as well.

One of my favorite experiences on the job was meeting a wonderful woman named Paige and her mother Carol. Paige was the first person to have a wedding ceremony in The Blanton's galleries. (We had just finished our first season of hosting wedding receptions, and had finally received approval to become a venue for ceremonies as well.) Paige was a UT art history grad marrying an adorable Austin musician from a Texas oil family, and both she and her fiancée had spent time in our galleries throughout college. I could just tell when I met Paige and her mother that they would be the right fit for a wedding ceremony in our modern and contemporary galleries. I led them through the museum to what would be the “altar,” describing along the way where I’d be hiding the bride and flower girls while ushers were meeting guests at the top of the grand staircase. As soon as we stepped foot into the vast open space of the sky-lit Huntington Gallery, with its large abstract expressionist works, Carol burst into tears and hugged me and Paige both. It was fantastic!

I too get overwhelmed with emotion and excitement sometimes when planning The Blanton’s special events. Not long ago in a meeting for the upcoming exhibition American Scenery – an exhibition of landscapes depicting the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York– I was so inspired that I could barely contain myself. I was thinking about the ferny, feathery, mini Hudson River Valley arrangements that our favorite florist would create as centerpieces for events around this exhibition. Yes, this behavior is sometimes met with rolled eyes, but I know the details are appreciated in the end!

In addition to all of the private events that we host on behalf of others, we also organize several signature public events as well. Perhaps the best known is B scene, our "art party" loved for its creative mix of live music and entertainment, cocktails, guided gallery tours, interactive art activities, and more – all programmed to a central theme. For me, this event is the most fun to conspire with colleagues and collaborators to create.

B scene has grown in popularity over the past few years, and in our 2011-2012 season, we are seriously going to blow it out! We will be moving the party to a quarterly format (October, December, March and June) in order to bring you even bigger and better entertainment. Not to be missed: our new Member Lounge, offering luxurious seating, a private bar, and complimentary light bites from our favorite restaurants and caterers – all overlooking the action from the museum’s mezzanine.

The Blanton Cafe is also getting into the action with a delicious new menu of small plates available throughout each B scene event. Make a night of it by having dinner in the cafe – be sure to pair your plates with a nice glass of wine – and then enjoy the art, music and other festivities at B scene.

As we go forth into The Blanton’s 50th Anniversary year, which will entail extreme event planning, some ask if we should take it easy and not try to constantly outdo ourselves. My answer is that my department is called Special Events – not Regular Events!

Image: Rapper Tee Double performs at the June 2011 B scene

Beat the heat...and learn something too!

2011-07-14T14:25:00.006-05:00

Tom Flowers, Blanton Manager of Facilities, explains why the museum is one of the "coolest" places in Austin!

As Austin’s terrible heat wave/drought marches on into July, Barton Springs is a popular spot to cool off. Another good place is the Blanton Museum, and you won’t need to bring a towel or worry about how you look in your swimsuit!

To ensure the safe keeping of the museum's extensive and well-known art collection, The Blanton has to keep its interior spaces cool and dry. That means a 72-degree temperature year round, and a relative humidity in the 50% range- no small task, given the scorching temperatures outdoors. So how do we do it? To keep these cool, dry conditions, the museum uses state-of-the-art digital sensors and controls to monitor the conditions 24/7/365. Each gallery has three sensors which average out and maintain the temperature and humidity levels at each location. This information is then transmitted back to the HVAC unit (or air conditioner to us lay people) which adjusts the amounts of hot and cold air sent to each gallery. If the atmosphere becomes too dry, steam is injected into the air stream until the proper relative humidity is achieved. Phew!

Fortunately, the by-product of a well-conditioned art collection is a very refreshing location for Austinites and visitors to escape the brutal summers. The next time the heat has you down, head to The Blanton and spend a couple hours in our cool, non-humid galleries while enjoying European masterworks and a wide range of modern and contemporary art. And afterward, you can always head to The Blanton Cafe for an iced coffee or lemonade!

Image: The massive Blanton HVAC system

A Source of Inspiration

2011-07-07T15:16:00.009-05:00

The Blanton's Director of Development, Sarah Young, shares her thoughts on how the museum can be a life-long source of inspiration

People often ask me if working in a museum is as fun as it seems, and it is. Museums are ever-changing environments, filled with inspiring objects and people. They have an uncanny ability to bring a dose of creativity to each visitor who walks through the doors. I bet that being a fundraiser doesn’t sound very fun to most people, but at The Blanton, it is not only enjoyable, but also extremely rewarding.

Of the nearly 48 years since The Blanton’s founding, I have worked here for almost a decade. It has been my pleasure to visit with donors, members, docents, visitors, artists, and curators —almost any type of person you can imagine who has something to do with the visual arts. Over the years, I have met one of my most favorite artists (Luis Jimenez), a few famous folks, and several Texas legends. But mainly I get to spend time sharing the story of The Blanton, ensuring that everyone knows that the museum continues to be a vibrant and inspiring place thanks to the generous support of people like you.

Think about the last time you were moved by a work of art or learned something new during a visit to a museum. Imagine helping make that experience possible for your friends and neighbors in Austin, for K-12 students from throughout Central Texas, and for University of Texas students from across the nation. Art has the power to inspire each of us as individuals, and at the same time, brings us together as a community.

Your support makes a difference, no matter the amount, for each person who comes through The Blanton’s doors. I hope that you will consider a gift to the museum. It’s easy to do by clicking on the “Support The Blanton” button at www.blantonmuseum.org. I also hope that you have the opportunity to visit the museum soon to see for yourself the difference you make!

Museum as Sanctuary

2011-06-14T09:52:00.009-05:00

Staffer Ansley Netherland relays her conversation with Blanton member, Larry T., and is reminded of the very Zen experience of looking at art….

A few years ago I was having lunch with some friends at a local Mexican restaurant when a man named Larry T. pulled up a chair and joined us. He reminded me of Tony Soprano (minus the pinky ring and thick Jersey accent), but a man with a hefty build and an intimidating presence. He sat right across from me and I felt so uncomfortable, assuming we wouldn’t have much in common and the conversation would be strained. He asked me where I worked and I timidly replied, “I work in the membership department at The Blanton Museum of Art.” I watched as his whole demeanor softened and his face lit up like a Christmas tree as he threw his hands in the air and practically screamed, “I LOVE THE BLANTON!” I was shocked and a bit ashamed because I had rushed to judge him as someone who would be THE LEAST bit interested in the arts. I then listened to him fondly recount all of the amazing exhibitions he’d seen throughout his many years as a Blanton member. So when I was asked to interview one of our members for The Blanton Blog, Larry T. immediately came to mind.

I invited Larry to lunch at The Blanton Café where we dined on delicious, freshly made sandwiches and ice-cold Mexican cokes. We talked for hours about art, relationships, spirituality, and conversations with God - all things, according to Larry, that one can experience when visiting the Blanton Museum of Art.

Larry, who has never taken an art history class, or had any formal art training for that matter, visits the museum time and time again, “to get right with himself.” He says, “I walk in, let go, and my equilibrium gets balanced. Standing in front of a piece of art, be it sculpture, painting, whatever, I just let go and see what happens.” He doesn’t try to figure it out, he says. “I listen to what it tells me. I let it teach me. If I connect to something visually, viscerally, I find myself having a spiritual experience. It’s as if God is speaking to me. It’s an emotion I can’t even articulate, I’m just in a state of awe.”

Larry finds The Blanton to be a soothing and meditative place, somewhere he can go to be quiet and connect to a power greater than himself. He told me how the Matto exhibition (Francisco Matto: The Modern and the Mythic) in particular had this effect on him. He couldn’t even recall how many times he had gone back to see it.

The Blanton has a very fast-paced work environment and it is easy to sometimes lose sight of why we do what we do. But as I watched Mr. Larry T. board his scooter and disappear into the haze of the Texas summer heat, I was reminded of how lucky we are to have this museum in our town, and how The Blanton profoundly impacts the lives of our visitors, members, and community at large. The opportunity for meaningful experiences are infinite.

Image: BMA staffer Ansley Netherland with Blanton member, Larry T.

Our members are the most!

2011-05-31T16:41:00.009-05:00

My first day on the job at The Blanton was August 2, 1999. I remember the date because one of the first things I did in my new position as full-time membership assistant was to create a record for myself in the database. It’s still there, my $35 individual membership from 8/2/99.

In just a couple of months I’ll be celebrating my 12th anniversary at The Blanton. These days I’m no longer membership assistant, but serve instead as Director of Membership and Museum Services. I can honestly say that after all of these years, I still love my job. Not only do I work with amazing colleagues, but I also have the great fortune of knowing and connecting with all of the wonderful Blanton members.

That’s why I’m so excited that this June (starting today!) we are celebrating Member Appreciation Month at the museum. Of course we appreciate our members every day of the year, but we are thrilled to acknowledge them this month in several special ways. The simple truth is, the museum cannot do what it does without the ongoing support and dedication of its members.

In my nearly 12 years serving the members of The Blanton, there are many stories that I could tell: tales of awe-inspiring trips to Cuba, Oaxaca, the Berkshires, and even Houston, with just a couple of snafus along the way (think food poisoning and bus delays) to keep them interesting and memorable, stories of membership growing from 1,200 to 10,200 households in the span of one year after the opening of the new Michener Gallery Building, crowning our 10,000th member at the May 2007 B scene, and how the membership database crashed after the grand opening, delaying our ability to process new membership cards for eight weeks! (Thank you for your patience, Charter Members!).

When I sign the membership letters now, I still recognize the names of those members who joined The Blanton when I first started working here. And then there are the truly dedicated members, who have supported the museum since the beginning of the membership program in 1982… and some even before that!

The Blanton currently has 6,284 member households. To all of you, I say, thank you.

On behalf of the membership team of Laura, Ansley, and myself, and the entire Blanton staff, we hope to see you at the museum this month as we recognize and honor you.

Image caption: Kim Theel with longstanding Blanton members Alicean and Charles Kalteyer at Director’s Circle Holiday Party, c. 2001.

Tech Talk

2011-05-10T09:00:00.008-05:00

Blanton staffer Kevin Madden examines his unique role as “techie” in the midst of more arts-minded folks, and the museum’s ongoing commitment to integrating new technologies into the visitor experience…..

Although my primary duty at The Blanton is to provide technical support to the staff, as the only “IT person” at the museum I am often called upon to assist with projects that involve technology of just about any kind. This is one aspect of working here that differs from most other places I have worked. I often have to step out of my comfort zone to learn about and help others with things that I am not always so familiar with. It is challenging but fun, and I love working with so many people who are interested in and excited about integrating technology into what they do.

In the past year we have really been focusing on how we can use technology at the museum. Last fall, a group of staff was able to attend the Museum Computer Network conference, which was held here in Austin. At the conference, we saw some amazing things that colleagues in museums around the world have done with technology, from websites and mobile tours, to interactive displays in galleries. It was great to see the variety of creative things that others are doing and I think it provided some inspiration for what we can do here at The Blanton. Of course we don’t want to just be inspired by what others have already done. Our goal is to be on the cutting edge of museum technology. To that end, a technology task force has been assembled which includes staff from across the museum. We meet regularly to discuss our strengths and weaknesses and short and long term goals, and we are dedicated to achieving our goals. In fact, you can already see things that have been implemented, at least partially, because of these discussions.

One of the projects we recently finished was in the museum’s Meredith eLounge, a space made possible by Lynn and Tom Meredith. The eLounge is a wonderful space in the museum with several computers that previously were not put to their best use and, therefore, were rarely used. Last fall, the eLounge was revamped to include a curated library of art books, games and activities, a work of video art, and educational documentaries on the computers. My part of the project was to prepare digital videos that were selected by curator Risa Puleo, and to create the computer interface for viewing the videos. This was definitely one of those things that was a little out of my comfort zone and put my limited web design skills to the test. I really enjoyed this project and it has been great to see visitors of all ages using the eLounge and especially watching videos on the computers.

For our current exhibition, About Face: Portraiture as Subject, a cell phone audio tour in both English and Spanish was created. Although the audio tour is best experienced in person, we decided to also feature the audio files and images of the works on our website. In addition to the audio tour, several web videos that feature curators, educators, and others speaking about select works in the exhibition are also being featured on our website, YouTube, and Facebook. The videos and audio tours are great examples of ways in which we are using technology to engage our audience and enhance the visitor experience, and I look forward to continuing to develop new ways to do this in the future.

Image: The Blanton's Meredith eLounge

Sharing the wonders of art, one student at a time..

2011-05-09T16:48:00.016-05:00

In this posting, Blanton educator Jennifer Garner relays the wonders and rewards of sharing art with students in our ART CENTRAL program....

This week, we are having our last Art Central tours of the season. For those of you who don’t know about Art Central, it is The Blanton’s multiple-visit school program for fourth and fifth graders from all over the Austin area. Students in the program come to the museum four times during the school year to experience art from many different time periods and cultures.

Over the course of the year, the kids really develop in their ability to speak and to write about works of art. They learn about how certain artworks are made, messages that artists can communicate, how to read a museum label, and even about the various jobs within the museum.

On this last tour, we always take the students to see Cildo Meireles’s Missão/Missões (How to Build Cathedrals)? an artwork that is shown to them on their first visit, and one that really dazzles them. Seeing it for the second time, the students have all the anticipation of a person visiting a friend they haven’t seen in a while. I think this is in part because it's the only work in the collection that they can touch.

We have the kids begin by sitting in the gallery along the wall to look at the installation from the outside. They make such great observations: They notice the black, veil-like material that surrounds it; they notice the apparatus that holds up the structure; they even comment about the dark wall color and lack of lighting in the gallery. We talk as a group about why Meireles’s work was installed this way and how the choices for installation really bring attention to the artwork itself.

Then the students step inside the piece and find a seat on one of the paving stones. They are quick to remind you of all the things they have learned about the work. For example, many kids point out that it includes real cow bones. Some will say that they know there are 2,000 bones or 600,000 pennies or that the pennies all come from the year 2005.

They also like to tell you that this artwork is very different from the others they have seen because they can step inside of it. For many of the students, they say that this is their favorite artwork they have learned about this year. Sometimes they tell kids from the younger grades about the work they call “the pennies,” so next year a few of the students will ask to see it.

At the end of our last visit, we have them reflect on what they have learned about art; we ask them, “What do you know now that you didn’t know before you were in Art Central?” Of course, they have lots to say such as, “Art is not just paintings,” or “A lot of different things can be called art,” or even, “Art doesn’t just mean one thing.” We listen, nod, and smile. Yes, those are the experiences that nurture kids to find something meaningful in art.

The (mis)adventures of a Blanton docent...

2011-05-01T10:43:00.009-05:00

In celebration of our 50th anniversary of docents, we have invited Beth Bokros to share her experiences....

I began giving tours last summer, and love my position as a docent at The Blanton. I originally started because I wanted to learn more about art and couldn’t wait to begin the educational training program. I worried about the actual tours - that I would have performance anxiety or wouldn’t have enough to say for an entire fifty minutes.

Luckily, I learned that I liked the challenge, and I’m not sure why I ever doubted my ability to talk incessantly. Tour groups can range from a university class to a group of five year olds. This makes me fully prepare for all types of situations, and the constantly changing audience keeps it new and interesting to me. Being a docent has increased my desire to continue to learn about art (I’ll be an art education grad student in the fall!) and it has strengthened my dedication to The Blanton. I feel the best way for me to describe this would be to share a few incidents that have occurred in the past year.

My tours very much depend on audience participation. Often the basic questions I throw out to get a group “warmed up” lead the conversation down a completely different path than I anticipate. I was giving a tour to a kindergarten class, and we were discussing Hans Hoffman’s Elysium. The title can mean “paradise,” so I asked the class if heaven was a happy or sad place. One girl immediately said “SAD.” I paused for a second, as this was obviously not the answer I was expecting, and asked why she thought that. “Because it’s full of dead people.” Well…yes, I can see the logic in that. I had a few of her classmates offer alternate opinions, we had a little discussion, and moved on.

Like most people, speaking in front of any group can make me nervous, but it can be even harder when I don’t know my audience. After talking to an individual about a work of art, he said to me, “Oh, you like this one? My mom is the artist. She’s over here, do you want to meet her?” I would have been significantly more nervous if I had known that little piece of information before I began talking.

Honestly, I learn something with almost every group. I had to give a tour to a class that included junior high and high school students, and was apprehensive about the dynamic. I pictured prepubescent boys being derided by the varsity football players, or worse. Instead, I ended up getting annoyed with myself because the kids had so many good ideas, and I didn’t have a pen to write them down. Which painting evoked such lively discussion from this group? A Dutch still life from the seventeenth century, of course.

I thought that being a docent at The Blanton would be an intellectual exercise for me (check), that it would make public speaking easier for me (check) and that I would enjoy it (double check – it’s one of the best parts of my week).

- Beth Bokros, Blanton Docent

Image: Abraham Van Beyeren
A Roemer with Grapes, a Pewter Plate and a Roll, c. 1680

The "art" of Storm Thorgerson?

2011-04-13T15:36:00.010-05:00

In this installation of The Blanton Blog, Kathleen Brady Stimpert, director of PR and Marketing, explores the age-old question of what makes art, art…

Last month The Blanton had the great pleasure of hosting artist Storm Thorgerson in a special conversation with filmmaker Roddy Bogawa and former Artpace director and curator, Matthew Drutt. Thorgerson is the man behind legendary album covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Catherine Wheel, Muse, Peter Gabriel, Audioslave, and dozens of other bands. Most of you likely have an image or two of his work in your record collections right now.

Storm was quite a character. He regaled the audience with witty anecdotes from his past, and even posed them - with paper stars over their eyes - for a group photo in The Blanton auditorium. Over the course of the evening’s conversation, an issue was raised that I would like to explore further in this post: Some wondered whether or not Thorgerson’s work could /should be considered fine art. My response is a resounding “yes!” Of course his work is art, as is the music that inspires it. His amazingly creative concepts and meticulously designed sets are artistic creations of the highest order. Moreover, much of his imagery is deeply integrated into our pop culture. On virtually any given day, one can encounter Storm’s iconic “Dark Side of the Moon” prism T-shirt on the back of an Austinite.

While his colleagues have turned to Photoshop and computer generated graphics, Storm continues to painstakingly create sets that are hand built to realize the vision he and the bands he works for have in their heads. He art directs his photographer and oversees the entire process, start to finish. Because his work is not often seen in galleries, and never in museums, many view it as commercial graphic design, similar to advertisements in magazines. What, then, constitutes art - fine art with a capital A? Is Storm’s process not similar to that of artists Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, who also rely on others to execute their visions? Is the difference that Storm’s work is done specifically for his clients and is not “art for art’s sake?” In my mind, this is no different from commissions that artists happily receive all the time. Is it then the medium? That his work is printed on the cover of albums, and is not created with paint on canvas or other more traditional means? Is it because his work is a “product?” What about the Louis Vuitton handbags designed by artists Takashi Murakami and the late Stephen Sprouse that were sold at art auctions? And what about Andy Warhol’s work for that matter? He started his career as a graphic illustrator and then completely blurred the distinction between commercial and fine art.

Ultimately, I guess it is up to each of us to personally determine what we believe to be art, or not. And many of you will likely not care enough to make such distinctions. Perhaps, like me, you just enjoy what you enjoy, and never feel the need to tidily classify what you see one way or another.

We love our volunteers!

2011-03-30T13:09:00.018-05:00

Managing volunteers at The Blanton is always entertaining, and this past March was particularly fun! On March 4 and 5, volunteers helped with the installation of A Knitted Wonderland - the temporary textile work by Magda Sayeg in the museum's Faulkner Plaza - and also helped us host Explore UT, the university's annual open house. It’s always amazing to see visitors at this event enjoying our exhibitions, but this year we saw a record 8,240 guests, in part because of this special installation that looked like Dr. Seuss had come and dressed our trees!

The idea to commission this artwork originated with Jennifer Garner, the museum's Manager of School and Family Programs. Her desire was to drive more traffic to The Blanton during Explore UT and to reach out to Austinites, middle school visitors, and hosts of out-of-town guests here for SXSW. She also felt the installation would complement the museum's current exhibition, Recovering Beauty, which explores notions of color and playfulness. Jennifer was assisted by graduate student and Blanton intern, Kristen Bellamy, who worked hard to help execute the event.

A Knitted Wonderland would never have come to fruition without help from the scores of volunteers who generously offered their time and talents. The work was created by 175 volunteer knitters from all over Austin and was installed with the assistance of many museum volunteers. On the evening of March 4, our volunteers assisted the knitters as they sewed their custom "sleeves" onto the trees. One of the sweaters had the words “I am a tree” embedded within the knitted stripes. Another was created using the Fibonacci series of numbers by students from The Girls School of Austin. And a Blanton member knitted one particularly perfect sweater that held majestic court at the entrance to the Smith Building! While each sweater was made up of the same colored stripes, each was unique.

Volunteers also assisted with a series of fun activities that The Blanton developed in conjunction with Explore UT. This year, we offered lectures, tours, and a sculpture challenge that was judged by museum director Ned Rifkin, along with Blanton curator Ursula Davila Villa, and docent Ellen Hunt. In preparation for these activities, volunteers from the Liberal Arts Science Academy’s National Honor Society came to set up tables and supplies, and the sculpture challenge was overseen by volunteers from The Blanton's Student Guild, a registered student organization on campus.

Even though we all were exhausted, the day was a great success. A Knitted Wonderland was so well received, we even extended it a week! Congratulations to everyone and a heartfelt thank you to our many volunteers who helped to make it possible.

- Martha Bradshaw, Manager of Visitor and Volunteer Services

Image: Blanton volunteer, Allyson Weber, attaches tree numbers to the 99 trees in A Knitted Wonderland so that knitters could find their tree and sew on the custom sweaters.

2011-03-14T11:27:00.009-05:00

For the second installment of the new Blanton Blog, assistant curator Risa Puleo reports on her recent whirlwind trip to NYC for "Art Week," and the sanctuary she found in a new installation by Dario Robleto.

Returning to Austin as it amps up for South by Southwest after a week spent in New York during Art Week, I’ve been thinking of the pros and cons of amassing great amounts of anything—art or music—in an exposition format. For those of you unfamiliar with art fairs, imagine a trade show, but for contemporary art. Art galleries from all over the world set up temporary shop, displaying works from their stable of artists in niche-like spaces in civic spaces and hotels across Manhattan. The Armory show is the largest among them, taking up two piers along the Hudson River. There are also the satellite fairs like Volta, Scope, Pulse, the Independent, the Dependent, and the Art Dealers Association of America. I went to them all. A day at the fair should be an opportunity for getting a pulse on the state of contemporary art production. However, after navigating crowds of people and trying to take in, let alone entrench into one's memory, booth after booth of disparate objects, more so than not, art fairs are the worst kind of ocular overload.

There were standouts, nonetheless. At the Armory, Carrie Moyer at Canada Gallery's booth and Katerina Grosse at Galerie nächst St. Stephan, and at Volta, Elizabeth Subrin's video at Sue Scott Gallery and drawings by George Kuchar—an artist better known for his films—at ADA Gallery, all provided moments of respite among the hubbub. The Dependent, the newest and most edgy of the art fairs focusing on smaller project spaces and artist-run initiatives, was refreshing. Cleopatra, a curatorial collaborative, made over their hotel room with a Polly Apfelbaum duvet and closetful of flowers arranged by artist Alex de Corte. At Recess, which offers residencies for artists to interact with the public, I got a haircut as part of a performance by Brown Bear duo AK Burn and Katie Hubbard.

Outside of the fairs, there were studios, museums and galleries to visit. Lynda Benglis is still my hero, reconfirmed by her retrospective exhibition at the New Museum. The Whitney and The Guggenheim's current focus on collections meant early 20^th-century favorites came out of storage: George Bellows, Paul Cadmus and Charles Demuth playing for American realism and Kandinsky, Delaunay and Kupka on the side of European abstraction.

A real intimacy with a work of art is almost impossible to have at the art fairs because of the ways in which the displays are constructed. But there was one moment amongst all the cab-hopping, cheek-kissing, and generally running around, that will stay with me for a very long time. On the way to the Independent art fair I stopped into a few Chelsea galleries. At D’Amelio Terras, I was fortunate to run into Dario Robleto, an artist whose work is in The Blanton’s collection and whose show The Minor Chords are Ours had just opened at the gallery. Here, the gallery was refuge from the hoards of people outside, and Dario walked me through his exhibition.

It’s been a while since a work of art has made me cry. But standing in front of two works –I Wish The Ocean Sounded More Like Dusty and I Wish The Ocean Sounded More Like Muddy Waters, I did. Full on. Crying in public. During Art Week no less! For the work, Robleto amassed a collection of apple blossom seashell halves, each with a pale pink blush. He then went about the arduous task of pairing disconnected seashells together, lovingly reconnecting the other’s missing side while serenading them with a soundtrack of Dusty Springfield and Muddy Water’s music. Once reconnected he separated the shells again, returning one half back to the ocean and using the others to write out the names “Dusty” and “Muddy” on paper to create the works.

This experience was a gentle reminder to me when I left the gallery to fight the crowds again—one that I hope I can recall while battling traffic during South by Southwest this week—that ultimately, across any medium, whether art or music, these are products made by people trying to communicate. When we are part of an audience we are putting ourselves in a position to receive, and in doing so are able to forge a connection that exists beyond ourselves, the work, and the artist into a new space in between.

So I encourage you to look for those moments of connection among the masses at South by Southwest, when it seems that we are inundated with so much music that we can no longer hear. If you are in search of quiet connections, come to The Blanton and sit vigil with Josefina Guilisasti’s La Vigilia, one of my favorite works of art in the museum right now.

http://ny.voltashow.com/index.php

http://www.scope-art.com/index.php/new_york

http://www.pulse-art.com/newyork/

http://www.independentnewyork.com/thedependentartfair.info

http://www.artdealers.org/

http://hyperallergic.com/20133/the-dependent-art-fair-2011

Image: Dario Robleto, The Minor Chords Are Ours (detail) 2010 , 60 x 23 x 23 inches, mixed media

Welcome to the new Blanton Blog

2011-03-01T09:45:00.008-06:00

Welcome to the new Blanton Blog! Formerly known as "Inside the Box," our blog has been revamped to provide you with richer and more varied content, and a deeper understanding of what it is we do. Issues pertinent to the art world and to our community right here in Austin will be explored, and we encourage you to weigh in with your thoughts by responding to our posts. We also invite you to follow us, to "like us" on Facebook, and to "re-tweet" our content!

For our inaugural post, Blanton Museum director Ned Rifkin examines the continuing relevance and importance of museums in today's fast-paced world. Enjoy...

I have often wondered why people support art museums, and how these institutions continue to play important roles within our ever-changing, fast-paced culture. My conclusion, after reflecting on this for many years, is that within the elements of human nature, there is a hunger for creativity. The creative impulse within each of us is what truly distinguishes us as people with dimension, and indeed, many of our successes in life are the result of exercising our imaginations and drawing from the wealth of innovative ideas that we generate virtually every day.

Where, then, might one fully engage his or her creative impulse? Throughout history, museums (stemming from the Greek word “muse” -- the mythological embodiment of the spirits that engender music, art, poetry, etc) have served as gathering places where we may commune with these muses and be lifted out of our ordinary selves. Through the examination of works of art, our typical way of acting, feeling and thinking may shift, and our perspective may change.

In museums, we encounter works created by artists from the past, from far away places, and those from the present -- all that embody notions of individual differences as well as universal connections. How can a portrait of a man from Italy in the 1500s be relevant to a portrait completed in the 1980s and done in a country that was non-existent 400 years before? The works are of course very different given the contrasting worlds they emerged from, but they maintain a similarity of human intimacy. Beyond the historical and social contexts that we can apply, what can we see in each that connects one to the other? And how can we constructively compare and contrast these two objects? It is questions like these that spark our best thinking and most creative faculties, and museums offer limitless possibilities for these types of “musings.”

Art is engaging not only because of the ideas that attend it, but also because it is visually evident, meaning that if you learn to examine it slowly and with intensity, you may actually see more than you might have initially imagined. Spending time with a work of art is sometimes challenging. Because one feels in a museum the urge to “see it all,” he or she too often ends up looking at many things without really “seeing” anything. The value of art ultimately lies in its second and third layers of examination and perception, in things that can only be discovered during sustained looking and reflecting. It’s truly less important if you “like” or “dislike” a work of art, and better to consider why or how a particular work affects you and how it makes you think and feel as you do.

We invite you to discover The Blanton anew. Enjoy the beauty, delve into the meanings, and bring your most active and inquisitive mind with you to visit “the muses.”

Some incredible changes happening upstairs!

2010-11-20T10:25:00.006-06:00

The Susman Gallery has a new look.
Here are a couple images from the transformation:

Turner to Monet

2010-11-20T10:13:00.005-06:00

Haven't heard about the exhibit yet?
Where have you been?!?

Well, the great news is you haven't missed out.
Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from The Walters Art Museum is ongoing until January 2, 2011

Also when you do visit be sure not to miss out on the Community Collaborations!

In celebration of this exhibition, we have created several public programs, and have partnered with the organizations below to bring you special discounts and incentives. Simply visit the exhibition and then bring your receipt to participating venues.

A room of her own

2010-09-18T17:37:00.013-05:00

Another old friend is back at the Blanton. George Segal's Blue Woman in a Black Chair, 1981, is now on view again in a small gallery upstairs that connects the large America/Americas and contemporary galleries. Segal (1924-2000) is a beloved American artist who may be best known for his life-size bronze figures of men in a depression era bread line at the F.D.R Memorial in Washington D.C. .

The Blanton's blue woman sits alone in a black metal chair. She is naked except for a ragged blue shawl pulled over her shoulders. She looks tired, in flesh and spirit. She is remote, distant, lost in a private moment of contemplation that we intrude upon. Like visiting a nursing home, we cannot pass by her without thinking about our own mortality, our inevitable death still a looming non sequitur to our active lives. It's an uncomfortable intimacy, standing in her room, but on a recent tour, I caught the eye of a woman in the group looking at the blue woman with an expression of the most tender compassion. I was as moved by the group's response as by the piece.

Segal used friends and family as models for his work, never professional models. He created his sculptures by wrapping his model (friend) in plaster-soaked gauze strips. His models sat unmoving while the plaster dried, and then Segal cut off the plaster cast and reconstructed it to create the finished piece--a cast off mortal coil, a moment of frozen, human time, as mysterious and eternal as the impressions of bodies left in the ash at Pompeii.

rep·ar·tee

2010-09-04T16:05:00.005-05:00

I know you can't wait for Turner to Monet but don't miss Repartee, open now! Five rooms of new prints showing in the European galleries on the second floor.
Absolutely stunning!

Mary Cassatt
In the Opera Box, ca. 1880
Etching
Gift of Susan Garwood in memory of
Sue Ann Reagan, 2004

Repartee

August 14 - January 16, 2011:

19th-Century Prints and Drawings from The Blanton Collection is conceived as a companion exhibition of over 125 works examining in greater detail the artists and ideas introduced in the presentation of paintings in Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from The Walters Art Museum (opening October 2, 2010). The social and theoretical frameworks for nineteenth-century art making are revealed in this dialog between the collections in Baltimore and Austin. Featured in the exhibition are works by John Constable, William Blake, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, J.A.M Whistler, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne and Toulouse-Lautrec to name only a few.

Last week folks!

2010-08-16T13:20:00.006-05:00

Hard to believe it is already here, but it's true. It is the last week of the temporary exhibits! The 22nd is your last chance to catch New Works for the Collection and Matisse as Printmaker.
Here is a recent review of Matisse in the Houston Examiner.

The End of the World

2010-07-11T19:54:00.016-05:00

Robyn O'Neil's disturbing, fascinating triptych is back on the wall in an upstairs gallery. Last seen during the Blanton's grand opening in 2006, the piece is a gift from Jeanne and Michael Klein. O'Neil currently lives and works in Houston.

The oracular title of the work is: Everything that stands will be at odds with its neighbor, and everything that falls will perish without grace. Obsessively drawn on huge sheets of heavy white paper with a .3mm mechanical pencil, a great white landscape organized around a large, uprooted tree unfolds. Scattered stands of little figures dot the landscape. Mountains loom up in the background under an ominous sky. Visitors that encounter the triptych invariably approach the picture with smiles. At first glance, it looks like some kind of large group outing-ice skating? skiing? Then, a vague unease sets in as one person notices a few animals in the pictures, some of which look dead. Then someone else notices that all the figures are men and they are dressed exactly alike--in jogging suits. The men are standing, walking, running, doing various sorts of exercises, but don't seem to be interacting with each other at all. A few of the figures are lying inert on the ground, or have fallen to their knees, but all seem oblivious to each other and their environment. The work is part of a series O'Neil created over seven years, ending in 2007. Check out her web site to see other pieces in the series. It tells the tale of our blinkered, embattled relationship with nature and the trouble we have remembering that we are part of nature.

As large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico become dead zones, I zoom down the road in my fossil fuel burning vehicle. A collective helplessness prevails in the face of environmental Armageddon. Oblivion is a comfortable place to be, like a jogging suit. But O'Neil's series isn't an angry eco-rant. There is something sympathetic, even heartbreaking about the men. They were inspired by O'Neil's father and his friends in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, men she speaks of fondly. From our aerial perspective, we would like to get their attention, to wake them up, to explain that something seems to be terribly wrong. And where are the women? When interviewed in 2006, O'Neil wasn't sure where the story was going. She said, "I knew I was drawing apocalyptic scenes and there would be no chance of survival if women were there, too." So does that mean there is hope?

The final drawing of the series, done in 2007, is entitled: These final hours embrace at last; this is our ending, this is our past. In it, the last man hangs alone by a fragile thread over wide and silent waves.

2010-07-08T17:36:00.002-05:00

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y screens in the auditorium at the Blanton Museum of Art on Thursday, July 15, 7pm!

Learn more ...here and ...here

The Blanton in the Texan!

2010-07-05T15:18:00.003-05:00

Photo by Mary Kang
The Daily Texan Online

2010-06-29T21:31:00.001-05:00

our tech crew in the richard serra

Exciting Book Club Update!

2010-06-15T16:26:00.005-05:00

Special Book Club Program with Artist Vernon Fisher

From July through October the Blanton Book Club will gain a deeper understanding of the work of artist Vernon Fisher by reading four books he has selected for their relevance to his practice. The artist will meet with members of the book club in November to discuss his selections and work.

I added all the upcoming books on the roster to the right,
but you can find more info and details ...here.

Vernon Fisher
Evidence of Houdini's Return, 1994
Mixed media
Purchase through the Michener Acquisitions Fund
with support from Linda Pace

Matisse review by Statesman's Jeanne Claire van Ryzin

2010-06-07T10:06:00.002-05:00

"My line drawing," Matisse once wrote, "is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion."

See the review...here.

Hanging of the Drake 5.13.2010

2010-05-26T23:52:00.015-05:00

A behind the scenes look at what it takes
to hang a really large drawing.

James Drake
City of Tells (Joy Folly Torment), 2004
Charcoal on paper mounted on canvas, 116" × 180"

Voila!

2010-05-23T16:22:00.006-05:00

Matisse by Henri Cartier-Bresson 1944

This is actually one of my all time favorite portraits.
A lovely crossover of two current Blanton exhibits I thought!

Here are some upcoming Matisse events:
Perspectives
Thursday, May 27, 12:30PM
Free
Jonathan Bober, The Blanton’s senior curator, on Matisse as Printmaker.

Perspectives
Thursday, June 10, 12:30PM
Free
Kenneth Hale, Marguerite Fairchild Centennial Professor, UT Art Department, on Matisse as Printmaker.

Special Lecture: Why Matisse Matters
Saturday, June 12, 2PM
Blanton Auditorium, Free
John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, curator of of Henri Matisse: A Retrospective and co-curator of Matisse-Picasso, 2002, and Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-17, discusses the continuing relevance of this modern master.
Funding provided by the Charles and Dorothy Clark Lectureship in Fine Arts.

Printmaking Workshop at Flatbed Press & Tour of Matisse as Printmaker
Saturday, July 17
Tour: 11 - 11:45AM
Workshop: Noon - 5PM
Class fee: $125/ $100 (Blanton members). E-mail mark@flatbedpress.com or call (512) 477-9328, ext. 30 to register and pay in advance of the class.

It's time...

2010-05-23T13:08:00.001-05:00

New Works for the Collection
May 23 - August 22, 2010

The Austin Critics' Table

2010-05-17T07:58:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to all for their Austin Critics' Table nominations!
Winners announced 7 p.m June 7 at Cap City Comedy Club.
Here are ours:

Museum Exhibition
“Desire,” Blanton Museum of Art, curator: Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, curator

Work of Art: Independent or Public Project
‘Eclipses for Austin,’ Pablo Vargas Lugo, Blanton Museum of Art

Work of Art: Installation
‘Epic,’ Teresita Fernandez, “Teresita Fernandez: Blind Landscape,” Blanton Museum of Art

Touring Show, Art
“Francisco Matto: The Modern & The Mythic,” Blanton Museum of Art
“Teresita Fernandez: Blind Landscape,” Blanton Museum of Art

hey artists!

2010-05-10T10:28:00.002-05:00

A great opportunity for Austin Artists, you should do it!
Austin Museum of Art call for entry: New Art in Austin
due in by July, 29, 2010

The Cultural Compass

2010-05-04T15:53:00.003-05:00

I should have known this already, but I just learned the most wonderful Harry Ransom Center (on 21st and Guadalupe) has a blog!
You can find The Cultural Compass and a new post from the Blanton's Associate Curator of Latin American Art, Ursula Davila Villa here.

2010-04-29T09:51:00.006-05:00

Picasso: A Graphic Inquiry featured in artdaily.org ! artdaily is an international online art magazine. The exhibit will be up through August 1, 2010. Don't miss it!

One of Álvarez Bravo’s contemporaries included Dorothea Lange....

2010-04-28T15:40:00.007-05:00

...here is an interesting NPR story on her that just posted today on Morning Edition.

Another interesting aside about Dorothea Lange is that her first husband was American West painter Maynard Dixon. Two of his works are in the Blanton's C.R. Smith Collection, both are currently showing in the Odom Gallery. (First room of America/Americas, make a right at the top of the stairs!)

Curator Ursula Davila Villa comments about Álvarez Bravo Exhibit

2010-04-26T16:45:00.004-05:00

It has been quite sometime since we presented a photography exhibition at The Blanton. This spring, as part of the celebration of the Bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution, the museum has organized the exhibition Manuel Álvarez Bravo and His Contemporaries: Photographs from the Collections of the Harry Ransom Center and the Blanton Museum of Art. The show includes 45 photographs taken by Álvarez Bravo during the 1930s (but not printed until the 1970s and 1980s), along with photographs by Walker Evans, Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Dorothea Lange, among others. With a Graflex camera at hand, Álvarez Bravo’s work reveals a unique perspective on city and country life in Mexico during the early twentieth century. His images offer a different glimpse of the transformation that was taking place than that of his contemporaries such as Diego Rivera and David A. Siqueiros. His artistic sensibility brought together local and international styles that, along with photographers like Tina Modotti and Edward Weston, became an important contribution to the photographic revolution that emerged at the time. Álvarez Bravo believed in the universality of all art, both in terms of what it represents and how it conveys information. In fact, he once said: “Art is a way of expression that has to be understood by everybody, everywhere.” He followed his beliefs during his long life (he lived for a hundred years) as an extremely prolific and productive artist. I invite you to visit the museum’s galleries and enjoy the wonderful photographs that are now on view (through August 1).

Ursula Davila Villa, Associate Curator of Latin American Art

***The Cultural Compass is the blog of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
See additional comments from Ursula ...there! ***

2010-04-20T16:02:00.003-05:00

IT'S THE LAST WEEK OF DESIRE!

Desire in Artforum!

2010-04-13T13:46:00.003-05:00

http://www.artforum.com/picks/section=us#picks25305

2010-04-03T00:53:00.011-05:00

Manuel Alvarez Bravo's photography spans the 20th century, but he began his artistic career in the post-revolutionary Mexico of the 1920s and 30s. His photography was influenced by many artistic, political and social currents flowing through in Mexico at that time, and he was allied with the muralists who were creating heroic visions of Mexican workers, farmers and revolutionaries. But he is known for his own particular political and poetic vision of common Mexican people--more subtle than the muralists.

At a talk last Sunday in the Blanton auditorium, UT Prof. Roberto Tejada pointed out how Bravo plays with our desire to project meaning onto a photograph more than he gives us a certain meaning. I have noticed an unusually deep appreciation of these photographs being expressed by visitors to the exhibit, most of whom were not familiar with Bravo's work when they arrived. Last night on my B Scene tours, I heard some thoughtful observations that enhanced my own appreciation--of Bravo and of observant, thoughtful museum visitors.

The group quietly communed with The Daydream (1931) taking in its contemplative mood, and didn't fail to notice the light, dramatically, but still gently, falling on her shoulder. What meaning could we make? Could the photograph be read as a contemporary Annunciation? We speculated together: Did Bravo, looking up from the pages of Dostoevski one warm afternoon at the tenement where he lived, see a manifestation of the Virgin Mary? How blessed of him to capture that vision for us.

Still under the influence of The Daydream, we floated over to look at Public Thirst (1934). There were smiles as the group took in the boy, crouched on top of a public trough and drinking from an outdoor fountain. While his face isn't available to us, we found ourselves focused on that foot. Dusty and rough, jutting out into our space, it seems to humanize him more than a face would. And yet . . . someone pointed out how, again, Bravo used light dramatically, brightly illuminating the draping folds of the boy's shirt . . . and then someone else said she saw ghostly wings in the folds. And we were back in the Baroque. I remembered reading John Banville's comment on this photograph in his essay A Magician in Light, noting that this photograph was "straight out of Caravaggio." The point wasn't lost on the group.

The Manuel Alvarez Bravo exhibit is worth a pilgrimage to the Blanton. Bring your imagination.

New Print works on display

2010-03-29T15:44:00.003-05:00

Newly opened, Picasso: A Graphic Inquiry March 20 - August 1, 2010. This along with new works in all the European print galleries.

Bravo! Bravo!

2010-03-29T15:38:00.007-05:00

Photography at the Blanton? How exciting!
It's now open and it's glorious.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo and His Contemporaries

Discover DESIRE

2010-03-08T10:29:00.009-06:00

Have you been yet? Don't miss out!
February 5 - April 25, 2010

Some Links:
KUT: ARTS ECLECTIC
Austin American Statesman
...might be good
TRIBEZA Pick
DailyServing

hey, more staff exhibitions in Austin!

2010-03-08T10:21:00.005-06:00

check this out:

Over

@ Mass Gallery
March 6th - March 27th

New Workspace Exhibit is now open!

2010-03-08T09:20:00.007-06:00

Anna Craycroft: Object of Study/Subject of Learning
March 5 - June 20, 2010

The Blanton presents Subject of Learning/Object of Study, the next installation in the museum’s WorkSpace series of contemporary art. Conceived by Brooklyn-based artist Anna Craycroft, the installation will transform the Blanton’s WorkSpace gallery and adjoining e-lounge into educational spaces complete with colorful sliding chalkboards, modular furniture, pedagogical computer displays, a library of educational books, and other elements designed by the artist to create a “classroom” setting.

Read more...here.

Also, a special Thank You to the UT library system who lent us over 500 books from their collections in support of the exhibition!
You can read more about it in Tex Libris, the blog from the Office of the Director of the University of Texas Libraries.

Volunteers Are Awesome

2010-03-06T14:36:00.002-06:00

Well, another Mix has come and gone for the semester! We had a good turn out and I couldn't have asked for better entertainment and music from DJ Honeycomb, Kitty Kitty Bang Bang and Many Birthdays! We had the largest ever group of volunteers this year as well thanks to Lauren and Margie for getting the word out to classes, various organizations on campus, flyering etc. etc. The food was yummy and the Desire exhibit was enjoyed by all who attended Mix, so many thanks to everyone who helped make this semester's Mix a really great event.

Now that Mix is over, the Guild is concentrating on volunteering for a variety of things around the community and for UT. Today was Explore UT all over campus so we had members sign up to volunteer to help out at the Blanton. Some volunteers made watercolors with the kids, while others guided groups of children on tours through the museum in a "Time Traveling" activity. The theme of the day was time, so all of the activities either related or referenced to the passing of time. There was a post-it note mosaic that everyone was contributing to in the Atrium of the Blanton. Every hour the post-it note would change to a different color to represent the passing of time. It was really cool to see it grow and expand from the second floor.

Tomorrow is Project Hope at the Austin State Hospital. We are going to be painting more canvases for the ASH, which will probably be inspired by the patients' drawings. Everyone had such a fun experience the last time we volunteered for the Austin State Hospital that we are volunteering again! It should be a really beautiful day tomorrow so painting should be enjoyable! That's all of the updates I have from the Blanton Guild for now. For our next meeting, we are going to be talking with the artist Anna Craycroft, whose work is in the Workspace at the moment, which I am looking forward to a lot!

2010-03-01T11:21:00.009-06:00

Don't miss the Desire Interactive Feature:

Mapping Desire, an interactive web-based counterpart to the exhibition, is organized by a group of students from UT’s Department of Theatre and Dance in the College of Fine Arts and the Department of Computer Science.

Staff Exhibits!

2010-03-01T10:20:00.004-06:00

As many of you know we have some incredibly talented artists on staff.
If you get a chance you should check out these exhibits:

Creative Research Lab Senior Exhibition with graduating UT studio art students, up until March 13th and Austin City Hall's The People's Gallery ongoing throughout the rest of this year.

Congratulations guys!

Mixxx

2010-02-24T15:39:00.003-06:00

Wow, I can't believe how fast time has gone by! Our main event, Mix is tomorrow at the Blanton from 7-10 PM and we're all super excited!! We've been flyering all over campus, chalking the drag, making promos and tabling out on West Mall and Gregory to get the word out to everyone. Layne, our SAC Chair has been super awesome at PR for Mix and I'm sure we'll get a huge crowd because of such good advertising!

The promo went really well. We wrote up a script the day before we went to record at the KVRX studio and we practiced a couple of times before recording. After a few takes we got to pick out some background music. There were a lot of odd choices, but we settled on a Latin inspired one with jazz undertones, haha. Hopefully you've been hearing it played on KVRX sometimes! So yeah, that was really fun.

Our meeting February 8 consisted of flyering and chalking the drag for Mix. We wanted to make sure everyone knew about it so we made the chalk drawings as huge as possible! The problem with chalk is that it isn't permanent, but it does get the word out relatively fast and easy. We also recently had another committee meeting, on the 22nd. We finished up the rest of the volunteer shirts that we had left and talked about the last Mix details. Eek, I still can't believe it's tomorrow! Of course I'll update later with how Mix went! One more day!! Be sure to check out the Desire show if you can't make it out to Mix tomorrow night at the Blanton!

Art is Dangerous

2010-02-06T17:53:00.036-06:00

Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Blanton, moderated a panel discussion on Saturday afternoon with artists Marilyn Minter and Glenn Ligon to discuss their work, particularly their pieces included in the new Blanton exhibit Desire. The exhibit is made up of 32 works of contemporary and conceptual art--that is, art about ideas--and in this case the idea being investigated is desire. Conceptual art requires a viewer to show up and complete the piece, so we come with our own personal histories of desire and our curiosity--prurient and otherwise. (All curiosities are welcome at this exhibit.) One curiosity (and perhaps a prurient one) I have as a viewer of art that seems, in many cases, quite intimate and revealing, is how much of themselves the artists have put into their work. Annette put this question to the artists for all of us. Ligon admitted that, rather than approaching his work with a message or a feeling he wishes to convey, he figures out what he thinks about things in the process of making the work. (I call that: courage.)

On B Scene night, with a crush of people in the Desire exhibit, we toured upstairs in the quiet galleries of the permanent collection with a goal of tying it in to the exhibit downstairs. Old Master Italian baroque paintings are decidedly not "conceptual." They were often sponsored by the church for the purpose of teaching Bible stories and inspiring their viewers to greater piety or by wealthy patrons for the purpose of signaling their piety to others. What could they possibly reveal about the desires (much less the libidinal desires) of the people who created them and gazed at them in the 17th century?

Claude Vignon's David With the Head of Goliath seems to me the most erotically discomfiting painting on display in the European galleries. David, who in the story told in 1 Samuel comes off as a tough little guy who saves his people with his slingshot is presented by Vignon in 1622 as a pensive, androgenous, pretty-boy wearing an outrageous hat--as elaborate as the ones African American women wear to church in the off-Broadway play Crowns. His hand rests on the head of Goliath, not victoriously, grasping the hair, but sweetly, as if to comfort. I couldn't help seeing Vignon's David echoed in an early photograph of Patty Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe when they were a couple, before either of them were famous or had caused much scandal. Smith was enjoying her androgeny and confusing the likes of Allen Ginsberg, who she reports tried to pick her up at an automat once thinking she was "an unusually striking boy."

Looking at this eroticized version of David, it is tempting to paint Vignon as a 17th century Mapplethorpe. Was he revealing his own desires or perhaps those of his patron? We know androgynous young men were common in Caravaggio's paintings, and his style was clearly an influence on Vignon, but what their paintings reveal about their own desires are less clear. Friday night, I brought up the work of Michael Rocke, a historian of the Italian Renaissance, who points out that in 16th & 17th century Italy, male desires for each other were not categorized, and when they occured, may have simply been considered a phase of male life. Rocke's conclusions are unsettling to our current way of thinking about these things, and Vignon's work creates a similar, uncomfortable dissonance between a traditional Bible story and the mood of the painting. Visitors never fail to notice. What they make of it probably depends on what they bring with them to the galleries.

New Officers, New Year!

2010-02-01T00:48:00.002-06:00

This is my first post on the Blanton Blog as a blogger representing the Blanton Student Guild! I am here to tell everyone about the events and general going-ons in the Guild just to give everyone a better idea of what goes on behind the scenes in our organization. Being a member of the Guild requires a lot of dedication and enthusiasm, which I am proud to say that all of our members have!

I'll say a little bit about myself as well so I'm not just some stranger posting on the Blanton blog...My name is Anastasia (Stacy) Kirages and I am a senior Art History and Business Foundations major. Since the former President Dhruti is doing an internship in New York and Maria, our former Volunteer Chair graduated last December, I was approached by Suzy to help out the Guild this semester as the new President! I was quite surprised, but I know that it is going to be a fun semester with the Guild!

Our first meeting was this past Thursday and we had a great turnout. We introduced 5 new officers for the Guild (Volunteer Chair, Co-Volunteer Chair, SAC Co-Chair, Historian and Mural Chair) and then played a really fun ice breaker game called "Telephone Pictionary," lead by our new Volunteer Chair, Margie. Everyone separated into groups and began to make their own unique picture stories, of which many changed meaning towards the very end into something totally different from the beginning. It's kind of hard to explain in a blog how the game works, so you'll have to trust me on this one.

Our main event called Mix is coming up on February 25th for the new art exhibit about Desire, which opens this coming Friday. Some of the other officers and I are getting to record a promo for the event at the KVRX studio! It's going to be an exciting process I think because everyone is going to be collaborating on a script and throwing around ideas for the promo. Also, we'll get to choose the music as well to be in the background. We'll be recording towards the end of the week though. I can't wait! For now, I must end this post because tomorrow is a school day. I'll be back later though to write about how the recording went and our second Guild meeting which is taking place February 8!

Art is Social

2010-01-24T11:29:00.020-06:00

One of the things I found most unnerving when I first began conducting docent tours was the prospect of being asked for information about a work of art or art history that I could not deliver, no matter how thoroughly I prepared. I am a volunteer docent with a day job and an interest, but no credentials, in art history. I soon found that people who join in a public tour with a volunteer docent are usually quite gracious and appreciative of whatever information I have at hand and are often willing to contribute information and observations they have to the group as well. What a relief!

I'm convinced that visitors will soon be able to access as much information on the works of art they are viewing as they desire--information that will include scholarly interpretations, historical context and curator comments. There could even be some form of interactivity, such as a "comment wall" where a visitor could add a comment to an ongoing conversation about a work. By whatever method, technology is sure to offer a different way to privately view art in a museum.

The pleasures and importance of private viewing notwithstanding, there is nothing like participating in the flow of good conversation in a group, listening and responding to another's observations in the moment, to get you out of your own head. And this is where docents have always had a role to play, and I think always will. Art is intimate and social.

In particular, I think it is most important to share difficult works and to discuss them in groups. For example, while I've read interviews with Richard Tuttle and sought out information and criticism of his very challenging minimalist work, my appreciation of the Blanton's Light Pink Octagon, an oddly shaped piece of light pink cloth tacked to the wall, is more informed by the responses of visitors on my tours than anything I've read. One visitor wondered how this could be in a museum and commented that the piece reminded her of her housecoat. Another participant offered that perhaps there was more beauty in that housecoat than she had noticed. Surprised and somewhat taken aback for a moment, she then smiled and said wonderingly, "Maybe there is!?"

There is nothing so surprising and delightful for me than when a visitor's observation shifts the way I see a work of art that I've looked at countless times, or even better, shifts the way I see the world. So the role of docents may be to create a safe space for people to speak up and share their perceptions--to find the right balance of information, generative questions and just plain silence--to create a memorable shared experience of a work of art. (The Blanton's docent training program focuses on all these things.) If, as a result of digital media, visitors come to docent tours with more information about the art works than ever, it should only make the conversation richer and more fulfilling. In the end, it's all about looking, and a good docent tour might inspire you to look again (and again and again.)

Read more:

"Have you ever experienced not just a social experience, but 'shared rapture' in a cultural institution?" See Nina Simon's discussion of art as social objects on the Museum 2.0 blog.

See Holland Cotter's remembrances of formative private viewing growing up in Boston.

Brilliant features Blanton director, Ned Rifkin

2010-01-19T14:58:00.004-06:00

Joan Reed, one of our many gifted docents, interviews Ned Rifkin.
Read the article... here.

The Digital Docent?

2010-01-16T10:37:00.019-06:00

"The most basic mission of a museum is the physical conservation of art into eternity," said Jonathan Bober in a gallery talk I attended earlier this year. Jonathan is the Blanton's curator of Prints, Drawings and European paintings. (The talk was leading up to the opening of the Petrobelli altarpiece, a triumph of conservation and reconstruction.) These days, creating community interest, membership and attendance is one of the keys to a museum's survival and, consequently, its ability to fulfill that sacred mission. So the secular, and often marketing-driven, question: What brings people to the museum? has eternal consequences.

Most people I interact with as a docent have come to the museum looking for expanded knowledge, better "looking" skills and an enriched appreciation of art. A docent guided tour is one way you might find these things (and my personal favorite, of course,) and many museums (including the Blanton) have an audio-guided tour. But this is the digital age, and new tools are being created as we speak.

I recently met and spoke with Rudy Laddaga and Alejandro Machorro, the founders of a newly formed, award-winning company called U-Tour based in Chiapas, Mexico. The company is producing digital media tours of museums and cultural sites in Mexico that can be accessed on iPod Touch devices. Stomping around the ruins at C hichen Itza, you will be able to point your iPod Touch at something and get as much information about it as you please, along with video presentations from curators. What could be more fun than having that kind of information in the palm of your hand? It is irresistible, and certain to attract younger visitors to museums, that elusive and sought after demographic! This will surely contribute to fulfillment of the sacred mission. I'm sold! But wait . . . I'm also a docent. Could the new digital guides, full of more information than I could possibly hold in my head, replace the docent-guided tour? Are docents headed for extinction in the digital age?

It's a lot to think about, so I'll continue looking at the evolving role of docents, particularly in light of museums' inevitable embrace of digital media, in my next post . . .

In the meantime, you can check out Roberta Smith's recent article: "A Guided Tour In the Palm of Your Hand."

Straight from the desk of Bill Powers himself

2010-01-04T16:29:00.007-06:00

A new interesting addition to our blog role today is from our very own William Powers Jr., President of UT!

About his new endeavour Powers said, “I hope this blog will also serve as an effective way for you to share your feedback with me and the rest of the UT community.

“In the days ahead I’ll be writing about our budget, about our exceptional students, faculty and staff, about the admissions process and about the Longhorns’ trip to the BCS Bowl Championship.”

I'm looking forward to keeping up with this:
Tower Talk

Contemplating Time, Life & Death

2010-01-03T14:18:00.006-06:00

Ascending the stairs from Paul Chan's 2nd Light to view the Petrobelli altarpiece, painted by Veronese in the 1560's, you might expect to get time travel whiplash, but there is a thread to pull through these two pieces. They are both about the end of the world: Paul Chan's apocalyptic vision vs. Antonio and Girolamo Petrobelli's vision of the end of their particular world. The altarpiece was commissioned for the cousin's burial chapel in the Church of San Francesco in Lendinara, a small town in the Veneto (now northern Italy.) Altarpieces like this were commissioned, among other reasons, to comfort those family members who remained with the portraits of the departed and to reassure future generations who may fear their own death with a message of faith and piety. We do not endure, but art does. It connects us to the past and the future. Whether the Petrobelli's particular message resonates with us today or not, the beauty and endurance of this work of art seems to touch everyone who sees it.

Roberta Smith's Jan 1 article points out that so much of art IS about the end of the world. "It is hard to feel, in an art museum, alone in your fear of death, since it is one of the most common motivations for artists." I'm reminded of a very meaningful tour I was privileged to conduct in 2007 that included Ladybird Johnson, some immediate and extended family, her secret service and personal assistants. Her health was very delicate at the time and she had discontinued all public appearances, so her family was very surprised when she expressed the desire to come to the museum. Although she could probably not see the artwork clearly due to her macular degeneration, and could not speak, she seemed to take pleasure in each work we stopped to discuss. The Blanton visit was her last outing. She passed away a week later.

I often reflect on that tour as I walk through the Blanton's galleries. Michael Kimmelman, in his book The Accidental Masterpiece, relates the story of Edgar Degas, who as an old man would visit a gallery containing the works of Ingres. Although he was blind "he went simply to run his hands over the pictures." What was Mrs. Johnson thinking that day? What would I be thinking, looking at this art at the end of my life? Her determination to be in the museum that day to make contact with its treasures deepened my appreciation of her and of the power of art. Like Degas and Mrs. Johnson, we must cherish it.

See more of Michael Kimmelman's comments on looking at art.

Paul Chan - A Dark Story Told With Light

2009-12-27T18:42:00.011-06:00

In "Drawn Toward Light," an exhibit next door to Teresita Fernandez's "Blind Landscapes," Paul Chan's apocalyptic vision 2nd Light is projected on the floor like the shadows in Plato's cave. A narrative loop of about 10 minutes opens, unfolds, closes, repeats. It is somewhat abstract, but a story emerges. First, there is light, then a tree appears (a common centerpiece of Chan's works,) there is evidence of human conflict, bodies and other objects fall through the air, the tree becomes more and more ravaged, the light fades.

Recently, the curator Risa Puelo spoke to the docents about 2nd Light. We stood around the piece and watched the shadows moving in the light. I filed away the information Risa offered and made a few mental notes about how I might introduced the piece to visitors on tours. That night, a nightmare featuring elements of the piece woke me up. I couldn't shake a feeling of dread the following day, but I also felt a new respect for the power of the piece--for me, anyway.

Since my nightmare, I tend to approach it carefully with visitors, wondering if it will work on them in any particular way. One visitor mentioned this poem by Yeats (The Second Coming, a fragment below.) Yeats wrote it after World War I, and Chan created 2nd Light after a visit to Iraq (post invasion,) but the poem and Chan's piece could apply to so many moments in the loop of human history.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

I have found that 2nd Light turns out to be a great prelude to Veronese's Petrobelli Altarpiece from the 1560's upstairs . . .

Stories Told With Light

2009-12-20T13:42:00.013-06:00

Light is a primary element in three of the special exhibits up now: "Blind Landscapes"-sculptures by Teresita Fernandez; "Drawn Toward Light"-art works from the Blanton's permanent collection; and Veronese's Petrobelli altarpiece. Visitors I talk to are seeing the light and the dark side of these exhibits. I'll start with "Blind Landscapes" in this post . . .

Fernandez's gleaming polished aluminum pieces like Vertigo (Sotto in su) throw complex patterns of light out on surrounding surfaces that bring to mind patterns in nature. Each bead of glass in the wall array Mirror Canopy returns a point of light from the gallery and the whole piece sparkles. Fernandez's work charms and seduces the eye with references to nature--trees, water, stars, lava, moss, sand. Many of her pieces are made with polished, glossed or silvered materials that reflect the viewer back to himself/herself. Visitors have suggested she is reminding us we are part of nature, or feel she is commenting on our distant, mediated relationship to nature. Some simply delight in the beautiful play of light and reflections.

Ink Mirror (Landscape), one of the last pieces in the exhibit, has been having a sobering impact on visitors I have toured with. A large rectangle of black fiberglass polished to high gloss, it resembles a king-sized flat screen TV or the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey turned on its side. The "screen" sits in a bank of sculpted white marble dust that resembles snow drifts. Black, geometric precision rises up out of (or dissolves into) the soft folds of white "snow." The snow drifts are doubled in reflection on the polished fiberglass, confusing viewers' visual perception of "out here" and "in there." We are confronted with a dark, mysterious mirror world, and it's bleeding into our "real" world.

Tour groups I have conducted through the exhibit tend to quietly regard their dark, distorted reflections in the inky blackness of this piece. It has been a silence I am reluctant to intrude upon with "information." On one tour, a woman once broke the silence saying she felt as if she was being given a glimpse of "the other side, the hereafter." More thoughtful silence followed as the group continued to contemplate the monolith. Then we slowly moved on to "Drawn Toward Light" . . .

Visitor Experiences With the Petrobelli

2009-12-13T15:44:00.011-06:00

All of us Blanton docents spend time and energy preparing to inform groups of visitors about the objects in the Blanton collection, but our real mission is not only to inform, but to engage, delight and inspire visitors to build relationships with the objects in the collection.

I have been amazed by the capacity of Paolo Veronese's Petrobelli altarpiece (on display until Feb 7) to inspire devotion in visitors--those that come to the Blanton regularly and first-timers, people knowledgeable about art and those just starting to get interested, religious and non-religious people, young and old.

The history of this now fragmented work of art is as dramatic as a Dan Brown novel. The first time I related the story and reached the part where the Venetian art dealer, Pietro Concolo, cuts the altarpiece into pieces to be sold separately to private collectors in England there was a surprised gasp from the group--even though they were looking right at the results. And when I explain that the altarpiece will leave the Blanton, and (with the exception of the head of St. Michael-owned by the Blanton) the fragments will return to their respective institutions, I usually hear at least one or two cries of dismay. In the space of an hour, visitors have established a serious and devoted relationship with this piece, and that's the most exciting and humbling thing to witness and participate in as a docent.

Veronese's Petrobelli altarpiece begins to work its magic before you even enter the gallery. It beckons like a sparkling jewel through the gallery portal from a distance. The gray tiles standing in for the lost (probably discarded) sections seem to only make the fragments more vivid, and certainly the piece more fragile. A year ago, I visited Venice, most of its churches, St. Mark's Basilica and the Doges Palace and made two tours of its Accademia. An unforgettable experience, but one that left me overwhelmed and, I'll admit, a little numb. Although I put some effort into contemplation, it still felt something like speed dating. I couldn't seem to build a real relationship. Standing in front of this altarpiece in Austin, Texas, you can take your time to experience not only its beauty but the fragile hold we have on the past. You won't leave the quite the same as you came in.

"No Lone Zone": CRL exhibition

2009-12-07T13:33:00.011-06:00

"Creative Research Laboratory is a site for contemporary art and design, providing a year-round schedule of exhibitions and community programming by students and faculty in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin."

"No Lone Zone" is a performance exhibition series featuring past and present students.

Featured artists include:
Mark Aguhar
Kristina Felix
Ryan Lauderdale
Daphane Park
James Willard Pierce
Jen Frost Smith
And Blanton Staff member... Andrea Bonin on Dec 16th!

Admission is Free
A schedule and more information about this event can be found ...here.

Bach Cantata tomorrow!

2009-11-23T10:49:00.007-06:00

During the semester the last Tuesday of the month is reserved for the Bach Cantata Project. A beautiful program that is a collaboration between the Blanton and the Butler School of Music at UT. Come by at noon tomorrow Nov. 24th if you can, it's not to be missed!

Event Description:
Enjoy the timeless beauty of Baroque music played in the museum's soaring atrium by this beloved group of university musicians. This month: BWV 36: Schwingt freudich euch empor (Soar in your joy)

On another note...
The museum will be closed Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26. It will re-open Friday, November 27.

A little Bit of East Austin Studio Toiur

2009-11-21T13:21:00.003-06:00

I am so happy that E.A.S.T. spanned two weekends this year! Partly because there are always so many things going on that too many people tend to miss out, but mostly because I hate crowded art spaces. I think most art deserves to be cherished alone for a few moments without hustle and bustle.

My thoughts on a few of the galleries/happenings:

Art Alliance Austin's Art Night Preview of E.A.S.T.
As a previous intern, and now member of the alliance, I cannot say enough about this organization. Their events bring art to everyone and give people easy access to spaces they would otherwise never hear of and never see. The preview party did have a small ticket fee, but guests were shuttled around to 5-6 galleries which were each paired with a restaurant with wine and beer. I was stationed at Okay Mountain. I have to admit, I chose to work at this gallery because I wanted to (formally) meet some of the owners. I've been to many of their openings and really like what those artists are doing. After meeting them and having the opportunity to chat with Nathan and Sterling I am even more excited about Okay Mountain. I really hope the two pending sales came through for them. I wished people had taken more time to browse the 7x7's because those are amazing as well. The night was great as I love talking to guests about what they are seeing. It was even more exciting to see some buy the art. East Side Pies catered our event, and it was delicious! They even made a special pizza without tomato just for one of the volunteers! (A tomato allergy!)

All in all, the event was great. I got to do what I love (talk about/sell art), but I think we left an ice bag in Okay Mountain's backyard. Whoops!

Ryan McKerley Ceramics
I believe there were a few artists here, but I can't remember all of their names. Interesting works include, brain rattlers, asymmetric cups, an amazing backyard sculpture (you have to go to see - it's at the fire pit), skull ties and much more!

Pump Project
I always come here since there is such a variety. My personal favorite is Mark Johnson. He's upstairs in the very back. It may just be the old typewriter, it may be the swing music. But I love his work and his business cards.

Monofonus Press
I was very impressed with my first visit to this place. I think Morgan Coy himself welcomed us, told us what was going on, and offered us gin tonics. Please read this interview with him. Besides the gherkins, I was extremely impressed with Jules Buck Jones followed closely by Matt Rebholz.

Now I won't keep you much longer. There is too much to see and too much to say about it all. I certainly could not do E.A.S.T. justice. I hope you get a chance to see some galleries!

A last note-

BUY LOCAL FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Beili Liu Tomorrow Nov. 17 5:00 pm!

2009-11-16T14:02:00.007-06:00

Taking place in the Blanton Auditorium is the last of the lecture series Art and Diaspora: Asian In America. Artist and UT Professor Beili Liu will discuss Mining the Material: Time and Process.

More info...here.

Lectures at the Blanton this weekend!

2009-11-12T13:45:00.001-06:00

Join us at the Blanton Museum of Art this weekend for two exciting discussions:

Saturday, November 14th
3:00 – 4:30 PM
Conversation: Artist Pablo Vargas Lugo with Roberto Tejada
Artist Pablo Vargas Lugo discusses his current WorkSpace installation, Eclipses for Austin, with Roberto Tejada, associate professor in the Art and Art History Department.

Sunday, November 15th
3:00 – 4:30 PM
Panel: Creating the Sacred
Join Craig Kanewske of Venture Four Architects, Mark Landers of Landers' Studio, and Father Jim Wiesner of St. Austin's Catholic Church, for a discussion on the architectural, logistical, and formal implications of creating a sacred space, such as an altarpiece, within a church setting.

Both events will be held in the Edgar A. Smith Building Auditorium at The Blanton Museum of Art.

Austin Art Events

2009-11-12T13:41:00.002-06:00

The best local art happening in Austin-
don't miss out!

see info here... East Austin Studio Tour

TERESITA FERNANDEZ

2009-11-02T12:37:00.015-06:00

Blind Landscape and Drawn Toward Light
November 1, 2009 – January 3, 2010

"Contemporary American artist Teresita Fernández (American b. 1969) is widely known for her immersive installations and evocative large-scale sculptures that explore the cultural fabrication of nature. Characterized by her deft ability to transform common materials like steel, graphite and glass into forms and images reminiscent of the natural world, Fernández' works bring idea and experience into poetic tension. Meticulous, subtle, and always surprising, her sculptural scenarios offer viewers unique opportunities for contemplation and discovery."
http://blantonmuseum.org/works_of_art/exhibitions/teresita/index.cfm

and some recent news coverage:
http://uptownstudiosaustin.com/clients/AustinArtsMinute/ArtsMinute-1119.wmv
http://www.austin360.com/arts/content/arts/stories/2009/10/1101fernandez.html
http://www.austin360.com/arts/content/arts/stories/2009/11/1101kleins.html

Petrobelli Altarpiece now on view!

2009-10-05T13:54:00.005-05:00

Check out a recent feature story by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin from the Austin American Statesman...here.

The Blanton tech crew during the installation of the altarpiece.
Photo by Rick Hall

New Exhibit At Lora Reynolds

2009-09-25T14:20:00.000-05:00

Check out the new exhibit at the Lora Reynolds Gallery opening this Saturday! It will be featuring Blanton artists such as Conrad Bakker and Kehinde Wiley!!

2009-09-03T14:57:00.006-05:00

October 4, 2009 – February 7, 2010

Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece
Reconstructing a Renaissance Masterpiece

The Blanton Museum of Art recently announced an important discovery regarding a work by Venetian master Paolo Veronese (1528 – 1588). Head of an Angel, a painting from the Blanton's Suida Manning collection, has been identified as a fragment of a long-lost Veronese masterpiece. The reconstructed altarpiece will be exhibited alongside x-rays and other ephemera and will travel to the Blanton in October 2009.

Recent news on the exhibit here:
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=33053

http://elogedelart.canalblog.com/archives/2009/09/03/14940759.html

Naturalism in painting.

2009-08-05T15:29:00.003-05:00

You may have thought it was a past necessity destroyed by photography, but there will always be something startling about the realistic forms artists can create with paint. I myself work with graphite and charcoal and find oil or acrylic to be an obstacle I have yet to overcome as far as artistic expression goes. Anyone who can yield a paint brush like Vouet has gotten as close to godliness as possible in my book.

In my visits to the Blanton, there is a painting that never ceases to capture my eye. Appropriately titled "That Suicide World" by Diego Gravinese. I love his work because he paints every day scenes with such clarity. Perhaps the subject matter is banal to you, but no one really paints like this anymore.

View some paintings.

Read a nice article.

Damien Hirst

2009-07-23T15:55:00.004-05:00

Photo taken from

"Beautiful Lakshmi Nirvana Painting"

Could I say more to describe Damien Hirst's painting at the Blanton??? This work attracts visitors with its size, vibrant colors, and its use of a skull for subject matter. Morbid, but bright (thus happy.) It has its work cut out for itself as it vies for attention in a gallery full of big names such as Conrad Bakker, Marilyn Minter, Anselm Kiefer, etc. After all, taking the place of our Kehinde Wiley is no small task.

Read a bio about Hirst and check out more of his art.

Watch a video with him and his art (please excuse the techno beats!)

And of course, SHOP at Other Criteria - a company Hirst help found and works with!

I'm sooo happy that the Grisebaums loaned this one to the Blanton!

Francisco Matto Interactive Feature

2009-07-13T11:22:00.004-05:00

I love exploring our website. I continually find fun new things.
Check out this great online educational addition to our Matto exhibit!

http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/bma/interact/matto/

Francisco Matto

2009-07-03T06:48:00.012-05:00

When I heard that the next special exhibition at the Blanton Museum would focus the on the artist Francisco Matto, I didn't think a great deal about it, honestly. I had never heard of the artist and had never studied the School of the South. I could sense that he was a big deal, so I Googled him. Try Googling him and see what you get (aside from the Blanton's information.) Needless to say, I didn't learn much about him. Search for the El Taller Torres-García, and you'll

get a little more. But the question of who was Matto and why was he coming to the Blanton still remained...

The exhibition not only sheds light on a great modern artist, it allows the Blanton to share some of its vast Latin American collection. I sent Ursula Davila-Villa, interim curator of Latin American art, a few questions about the exhibition:

This is the first retrospective exhibit on Francisco Matto in the U.S., correct? Why do you think his art is drawing the attention of the public now and why is it important for the Blanton to do an exhibition like this?

In the long history of exhibitions organized by the Blanton focusing on
Latin American Art, two have contributed greatly to the field of Modern art

history: “The School of the South” and “The Geometry of Hope: Latin American
Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cineros Collection.”

“Francisco Matto: The Modern and the Mythic” is the continuation of our
efforts to study this period through exhibitions. Additionally, Matto was
one of the most important students of Joaquin Torres Garcia, a key figure in
the history of Modern art. But Matto’s work has never been presented in the
US in a comprehensive way. We will be the first museum to organize an

exhibition that features the entire work of Matto from the 1940s to the
1990s.

What do you hope a museum visitor might be exposed to for the first time?

This exhibition is one that will invite the visitor to experience

abstract art in a very intimate and personal way. Matto’s life is important,
but more important is how we—individually—connect with each of the works on

view. Some viewers might feel closer to the still-lifes, while others might be
drawn to the abstract compositions. All the works offer a different yet
similar face of Matto’s world and his vision as an artist—to see
art within the urban landscape in hopes to improve and enrich the everyday life of

all citizens.

What ideas would you explain further that you think one might overlook in the exhibit?

This last sentence I reference above—Matto’s wish to see art through out his

native city, Montevideo—is one that might be overlooked. But a closer look reveals there
are several paintings and drawings in which Matto depicted an abstract sculpture

in the middle of a port scene or in the urban landscape. Also, several

photos located in the resource room [within the exhibition] illustrate Matto’s ambition to see his totems live in the open and close to the urban center of Montevideo, where

many could appreciate them.

Matto's work has had a lasting impact on Latin American artists. What ideas would you like museum visitors to take with them when leaving the Matto exhibit and going upstairs to the America/Americas?

I would actually put Matto in the context of Modern art and not just Latin

American art. His importance and contributions are part of the history of
modernism — this is what associates Francisco Matto and
America/Americas [currently on view, drawn from the Blanton’s permanent collection]. The most important ideas to take from this exhibition are the influence of Joaquin Torres Garcia, one of the most important artists in the history of modernism, and Matto’s incorporation of

pre-Columbian art in modern and contemporary art. These two aspects are

present in our permanent collection.

Would you compare any specific permanent works on display now to Matto?

America/Americas opens with a work by Joaquin Torres Garcia among a cluster devoted to The School of the South (a group founded by Torres Garcia). Additionally, next to the Matto exhibition, the visitor will also by members of The School of the South, or artists influenced by

this group.

What works of Matto's do you enjoy the most and why?

I cannot say I have one piece, but I have two favorite groups of works:

Matto’s still lifes and his wooden totems. I like the still lifes for their

simplicity, and the astonishing way Matto was able to abstract the purity of
forms and represent ordinary things such as a jar. I like the totems because
of their universal appeal, by this I mean that Matto chose to work with very
specific figures that are embedded in many cultures and thus when the viewer
sees the totems they will feel a certain familiarity.

*********

After seeing the exhibition, perhaps “Who was Matto?” is not the right answer. Perhaps I should have asked, what does Matto stand for? The works speak for themselves and say something eternally simple and beautiful.

I would like thank Ursula for taking the time out of her busy schedule to

answer these questions (who said curators were out of reach?) I hope you
all will see Matto if you haven't already, or go again with renewed
interest.

If you would like to hear more about Matto, join Ursula for a special gallery talk entitled,

"Perspectives: Francisco Matto," September 17th at 12:30pm.

Hope to see you at the Blanton!

Matto is open!

2009-06-22T12:08:00.002-05:00

Look!

2009-06-01T10:36:00.005-05:00

Summer Film Series at the Blanton-
Beginning Thursday June 18th at 7pm the Blanton and the Austin Film Festival will be presenting five films in the auditorium.
For more information go here!

Listen!

2009-06-01T10:26:00.001-05:00

KUT's Julie Moody interviews the new Blanton Director Ned Rifkin:
http://kut.org/items/show/16953

Julius Shulman Film Screening

2009-05-14T11:43:00.003-05:00

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is being screened this Saturday night at 7pm, in the Blanton's auditorium. The museum is staying open until 8pm, but if you can't get here early enough to see the exhibition AND the movie, then bring your receipt with you on Sunday for admission to the exhibition on it's last day in Austin.

Click here to watch the trailer: http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/trailer-gallery/

Big News!!

2009-05-11T12:22:00.001-05:00

Ned Rifkin Appointed Director Of The Blanton Museum of Art

Landmarks

2009-05-11T10:55:00.006-05:00

This is a great video from OnCampus Multimedia showing some of the installation of the Landmark sculptures on UT campus. You may recognize a couple familiar faces, including our very own Matt Winters...

http://www.utexas.edu/oncampus/2009/04/06/landmarks/

Mark di Suvero's Clock Knot

image by Ben Aqua

We're Cool

2009-04-20T13:35:00.001-05:00

USA TODAY's Spring art roundup: Top museum shows across the USA

The Next Third Thursday is on May 21!

2009-04-20T13:16:00.006-05:00

Join us for Third Thursday, a monthly themed event that features extended hours and multiple programs.

6:00pm Artistic License: WorkSpace artist Lisi Raskin will give a special gallery talk.
6:30pm Yoga in the Galleries
7:00pm Blanton Book Club: The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
7 & 8pm Art Brief Tour: Art & Memory
More Info

2009-04-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

2009-04-06T10:49:00.005-05:00

Don't miss a special "Birth of the Cool" film series sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse and Austin Film Society. In celebration of the Blanton exhibition, the Alamo Ritz downtown will screen unique films from the 1950s West Coast.

Time:

7-9 p.m.

Description:

Third in the film series is "Visual Acoustics," a 2008 study of the architectural photography of Julius Shulman.
83 min. followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Eric Bricker.

Location:

Alamo Drafthouse, The Ritz, 320 E Sixth St.

Admission:

More about this event...

$8.50, $6.25 for students

2009-03-25T16:19:00.006-05:00

Birth of the Cool Film Series
Wednesdays, March 25, April 1, April 8, and April 15, 7 PM
Sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse and the Austin Film Society, the series features unique films from this period. On March 25 enjoy "Designing the Cool," a series of shorts by designers/filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames, along with a film on title designer, Saul Bass. All shows will take place at the Alamo Ritz downtown begin at 7 PM. For ticket information and upcoming film titles, click here.

Birth of the Cool Jazz Series at the Elephant Room
Saturday, March 28, 9:30 PM
Featuring Kat Edmonson
Visit Austin's premier jazz club for a special series highlighting music from the 1950s West Coast. For a list of upcoming shows click here. The Elephant Room is located at 315 Congress Ave., $5 cover

Congrats Mike!!

2009-03-16T11:49:00.003-05:00

You may know Mike Castillo, one of our tech crew, from the Blanton rack card 'Our perspective' or you may just know him :)

Tell him congratulations on grandbaby #5!
sweet Kayla Elizabeth, 15in 14 oz, was born during Obama's inauguration.

ahh... Birth of the Cool

2009-03-16T11:15:00.006-05:00

Besides being wildly popular, there are a plethora of events around town in conjunction with the exhibit. Some of which are located at Austin's famous Elephant Room.

Next up- Kat Edmonson 3/28 9:30pm
http://www.myspace.com/katedmonson
http://www.elephantroom.com/

A great video from Sam Sanford-

2009-03-16T10:56:00.004-05:00

'Walkthrough of Lisi Raskin's installation at the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, with behind-the-scenes footage and audio from an interview with the artist.'

Special Talk by Blanton WorkSpace Artist, Lisi Raskin

2009-02-16T10:17:00.001-06:00

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Art 1.102
Free Admission

In 2008, artist Lisi Raskin took a road trip to various nuclear test sites across the country. This trip inspired and generated a series of artistic projects, one of which will be on display at the Blanton Museum of Art this spring as part of the museum’s WorkSpace series (March 6 – June 21). In this free lecture, Lisi will discuss her work, which investigates zones of power, such as military defense systems and residual Cold War anxieties, which resonate with our current cultural and political climate.

Born in Miami, Florida in 1974, Raskin received her MFA from Columbia University, New York in 2003. She has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Glasgow, Milan and Stockholm, and Luxembourg.

John Mark Sager Show at Hooks-Epstein

2009-01-26T10:41:00.006-06:00

One of our tech crew members currently has an amazing exhibit up in Houston-
The Bookeeper on display through Feb 14.
There is a gallery talk with John on Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 12:30 pm.
Hooks-Epstein Galleries

John also participated in The Texas Chair Project on display at Austin Museum of Art until Feb 8

check it

2009-01-16T16:39:00.001-06:00

http://kut.org/items/show/15386

tem·po·rar·y -1. lasting, existing, serving, or effective for a time only; not permanent:

2009-01-05T12:36:00.019-06:00

Don't miss out, they're leaving soon!
Our current temporary exhibits Reimagining Space and The New York Graphic Workshop: 1964-1970 are closing on January 18th.

Here are some press we've had recently on the shows:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A721403
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/6235

...and in other news
For those of you missing Dan Boehl's awesome blogging skills, as we all are, you can find him now writing for "...might be good"
where we can keep up with his Austin art scene insights:
http://www.fluentcollab.org/mbg/index.php/reviews/review/109/79

Oy!

2008-11-19T21:02:00.008-06:00

We've been so neglectful of the Blanton Blog, but we have a decent excuse (sort of). For those of you not around Austin to hear the hubbub, the Edward A. Smith building is now open.
Complete with a glorious new museum shop, yummy cafe, and room for all sorts of fun.

Here are some images from the opening:
http://www.austin360.com/arts/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=130810

Triple Duh.

2008-09-08T09:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I posted the daily entry for my blog on the Blanton's blog. Embarrassing, for real. You are all going, Home Shopping... wha? When is B Scene!?

Well, these things happen. I am a beginner. If you like to watch amateurs check out:

http://jillpangallo.blogspot.com/

It is art related after all... the blog's main function is to be a personal sounding board while I am developing a solo performance project to be shown next Spring.

Anyways, pardon. And a big shout out to Dan Boehl. Who makes blogging look like blinking. No big deal. In a good way, no big deal.

Ciao for now.
jillp