Tang Teaching Museum Announces Slate of Special 15th Anniversary Events on October 17, 2015
Provided by the Tang Museum:
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, known for its innovative interdisciplinary exhibitions and arts programs, announces a series of special events to mark the Museum’s Fifteenth anniversary during the College's Celebration Weekend on Saturday, October 17, 2015. All programs are free and open to the public.
From noon to 1:30 pm, children ages 5 and older, with an adult, are invited to a drop-in art-making activity called: Collages That Look Back At You! Inspired by Ken Tisa’s hanging artwork Looking at the Sun in the exhibition Affinity Atlas, made from sequins, beads, fabric, and thread, we will create collages on black backgrounds using sequins, rhinestones, beads, googly eyes and more.
At 1 pm, you can take a tour of the museum on a Tang Guide Tour with Evian Pan '17, the 2015-16 Carole Marchand '57 intern. The Tang Guides program is a volunteer opportunity that allows Skidmore students from across campus to be involved in the Tang Teaching Museum, to learn about museum education, and to develop the skills needed to lead public tours.
At 5:30 pm, a dialogue about the Tang will feature Dayton Director Ian Berry and former Director John Weber, who is now the founding director of the Institute of Arts and Sciences at University of California Santa Cruz. Their talk will be moderated by Barbara Kahn Moller '78, the author of a new book about the Tang's history called Everything is Connected, which will be released on Saturday, Oct. 17.
At 6:30 pm, a public reception will begin and will include two artists affiliated with the exhibition Machine Project — The Platinum Collection (Live by Special Request). Joshua Beckman, a poet and editor who lives in Seattle and New York City, will be reading work. Kamau Amu Patton, an artist from New York City, will perform themed nomad no plastic form, a sound performance for voice and electronics that explores themes of language, machine communication, and sonic augmentation.
On view during Celebration Weekend are four exhibitions: Affinity Atlas, Machine Project — The Platinum Collection (Live by Special Request), and Liz Collins — Energy Field, and Dismantling the House.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS
Affinity Atlas
September 5, 2015 - January 3, 2016
Affinity Atlas charts an exploratory path across disciplines built on idiosyncratic treasures from the Tang Teaching Museum collection and punctuated with recent works by a roster of contemporary artists. Artworks, images, and objects spanning centuries and continents collide and coalesce, forging fresh connections between seemingly disparate works. An international roster of artists includes Ilit Azoulay, Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam, Camille Henrot, Vik Muiz, Michael Oatman, Sara VanDerBeek, and Hew Locke. The exhibition seeks to find affinities in unexpected juxtapositions. In so doing, it underscores the museum’s laboratory-like mission of experimentation and builds on the strengths and surprises of the Tang’s collection.
Machine Project — The Platinum Collection
(Live by Special Request)
September 19, 2015 - January 3, 2016
For Machine Project — The Platinum Collection, Mark Allen (Skidmore College Class of 1993) and a series of artist collaborators will generate new work responding to the campus and local community. Both a reflection and a continuation of Machine Project’s ongoing exploration of collaborative ways of working, while in residence Allen inhabits the Tang in multiple ways: the gallery is augmented with a theater and Machine Project offices, and the elevator becomes a listening station for the Field Guide to Poets of the Machine Project Region.
Liz Collins — Energy Field
October 17, 2015 — October 2016
Designed for congregation, conversation, and study, Liz Collins – Energy Field is the first in a new Tang series that will ask artists to imagine what a museum community space can be. Located on the Tang’s mezzanine, Energy Field is a long-running installation created as a lounge and social space for visitors and students. Energy Field is designed to revitalize the lounger/visitor through color, shape, and texture. It is a new age crystal cave viewed through a pop post-modern lens. With exploding supernovas on the ceiling, chevrons on the wall, and stripes on the floor, the brash sharpness is offset by plush carpeting, raining yarn, and upholstered furniture.
Dismantling the House
August 21 - October 18, 2015
Curated by Imaan Riaz, Skidmore College Class of 2015, this exhibition explores simultaneous and competing feminist narratives through artists' unconventional approaches to medium, genre, and other art historical categories. Riaz holds the Eleanor Linder Winter '43 Endowed Internship for 2014-15.
AbOUT THE TANG TEACHING MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York's Capital Region, the institution's approach has become a model for university art museums across the country—with exhibition programs and series that bring together the visual and performing arts with fields of study as disparate as history, astronomy, and physics; one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, the Mellon Seminar; and robust publication and touring exhibition initiatives that extend the institution's reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum's building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of ideas and exchange the institution catalyzes. The Museum celebrates its 15thanniversary in 2015. More information at http://tang.skidmore.edu.
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