July 2023 Cross Currents Public Tour: Fresh Perspectives

This resource page will contain information to help prepare for a July 2023 Cross Currents assignment.

Cross Currents Flyer Template_July 2023 public tour

Theme of the tour: 

Fresh Perspectives on Art: Reflect on evolving museum practices as we reimagine what art is and view artworks paired in unexpected ways.

Gallery 230 (Rotunda)

Thematic connection:

In the past, the Rotunda showcased the Classical sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome, giving prominence to the Eurocentric view of art history, where Classical sculpture is seen as one of the high points of (predominantly male) artists’ achievements. Now, the Rotunda is showcasing new accessions to Mia’s collection, better reflecting the diversity in the museum’s collection and the current curatorial approach to collecting and displaying work from artists (women and BIPOC) who historically have not had representation in these gallery spaces.

Artworks, see accession proposals for artworks on display:

Spring 2023 Rotunda Rotation Guide Proposals

Visitors might be interested in learning more about some of the other new gallery reinstallations or approaches.  You can send them to check out the Americas galleries, to explore the contemporary work on display:

How to Shift Museum Space to Native Place

For Shiva and Parvati with Companions:

Mia blog post

Visit the colorful and vibrant South and Southeast Asian galleries:

With New Light: Mia’s Reinstalled Himalayan, South, and Southeast Asian Art Galleries

as well as Pujan’s training with us (search Pujan Gandhi to find the recording)

For the Chief’s Blanket: Navajo Chief’s Blankets: Three Phases

and Navajo Weaving Methods

For Lamar Peterson, a great article: Lamar Peterson: A Self-Portrait

From Kate Christianson, a gallery with good info on Navajo weaving: Donald Ellis Gallery

 

Gallery 255

Thematic connection:

Gallery 255 is set up as a mini-exhibition, “Night Life,” which presents 20 artworks from across Africa that address the various ways nighttime was, and in some cases still is, perceived and experienced. With the sounds of African nightlife in the background, these artworks speak to the richness and vitality of life after the sun goes down.  Here the curator attempts to evoke a greater understanding of the context for the works by use of sound as well as a dark blue on the walls.

Note connections to some “fresh perspectives” on display in G250/254 (see articles below). For example, ancient Egypt art is included within the African galleries, reflecting a Curatorial approach to reconnect all aspects of African history. In the past, ancient Egyptian art was included within the ancient art galleries.

Articles about the African galleries re-design:

Inside the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s New, Improved African Art Galleries

Redesigned African Art Galleries To Open at MIA

Africa revisited: How the new galleries will change the way you see art museums

 

Gallery 318

Thematic connection:

Period rooms like our French salon used to be very static spaces, filled with decorative arts and furniture from that specific era of the room. With the Living Rooms Initiative, Mia sought to reinvigorate and reinterpret these spaces. Now the Salon is set up to reflect the use of the room, with a soundtrack and lighting scheme meant to better give a sense of its original context.

(Note: Bring a flashlight to this room to use, as it does become quite dark!)

Articles on the initiative:

Up All Night in the 1700s

Living Rooms: The Period Room Initiative

Mia’s Period Rooms

ArtStory on the Salon

Labels and panels:

Grand Salon labels and panels

Other notes:

Grand Salon_DH notes

 

Gallery 375

Thematic connection:

In this gallery, focus on the idea of “fresh perspectives” from artists, in the inventive use of traditional materials (e.g., Joe Overstreet’s canvases) and use of new materials, previously not seen in museum spaces (e.g., Harmony Hammond’s Chicken Lady). Also, in this gallery we have a focus on better representation of the diversity in modern art, with works by BIPOC and women artists prominently showcased.

Recording of training with Curator Bob Cozzolino:

Gallery 375 training 06.15.23

Bonus training G322 06.15.23

Resource page for ReVisión: Art in the Americas

This is the resource page for the summer 2023 exhibition ReVisión: Art in the Americas. “Ancient and contemporary artworks help us connect to land, people, and place in this exhibition from the Denver Art Museum’s Ancient and Latin American collections.”

July 1, 2023 – September 17, 2023 (Touring July 11 to September 10)

Panels:

ReV_Panels_Subpanels_AllSections

Labels:

(These are final as they will appear on the wall and cases. Note that the Mia objects in the exhibition are separated in the labels and are at the end of this PDF.)

Labels for ReVision 06.29.23

 

These are labels inserted into the checklists:

FINAL ReVision Labels_Mia objects

FINAL ReVision Labels_EDIT

Exhibition fact sheet:

ReVision Fact Sheet_guides

Curator Lecture:

Recording of lecture 6.20.23

PowerPoint lecture slides:

ReVision_Guides June 23_VP

Here are the checklists from DAM and from Mia additions:

ReVision Checklist_final

ReVision additions_Mia

Here is the layout:

To come

 

PDFs of the photo props:

Photos for ReVision tours_ Map of Latin America

Photos for ReVision tours_ Cochineal

Photos for ReVision tours_ Tossin

Photos for ReVision tours_ Ceiba and Quetzal

Photos for ReVision tours_ Potosi

Photos for ReVision tours_ Templo Mayor model (1)

Photos for ReVision tours_ Contemporary artists

 

For family-friendly or youth tours, a resource list. This link takes you to a Google Doc, and you can download a PDF of it. Please feel free to add any ideas or experiences to the document:

Family-friendly artworks in ReVisión

 

Various support articles from staff and guides:

Additional resources from Rafael on Latin American history

StarTribune article: Governments are gathering to talk about the Amazon rainforest

For an overview of ancient and colonial Americas, check out the SmartHistory unit: The Americas to 1900 . This includes various articles on ancient Mesoamerican cultures, ancient Andean cultures, South American (1500-1800), and Latin American art (1800-1900).

Article about Clarissa Tossin. Encontro das Águas [Meeting of Waters/Encuentro de las aguas], 2016. From JOAN Gallery (link here)

Cochineal dye, Video: Cochineal Bugs Create Red Dye: A Moment in Science

Smarthistory: Cochineal

(Short video) Nature by Design: Cochineal | Gloria Cortina

Smarthistory: Featherwork (from Mesoamerica)

From the Library of Congress: For Love, War, and Tribute: Featherwork in the Early Americas

From Hyperallergic: Plumage of the Saints: Aztec Feather Art in the Age of Colonialism

A video on Carlos Cruz-Diez, What is a Physichromie? | Carlos Cruz-Diez

From ArtNews: How I Made This: Sandy Rodriguez’s Pigments from Indigenous History

Inscription of Rafael Ochoa: Painters of African Descent in Colonial Spanish America

From the Met Museum: Gold in the Ancient Americas

Information on the painting of the Cerro Rico, Potosi.

BOLIVAR’S PLATTER: LA BANDEJA DE BOLÍVAR (video)

Artist profile: Sandy Rodriguez, LA Times, How artist Sandy Rodriguez tells today’s fraught immigration story with pre-Columbian painting tools

Video showing Chiachio and Gianonne embroidering and discussing their work.

An article from the Getty on Sandy Rodriguez: Unearthing the Secrets of Color

Video about Clarissa Tossin and her artwork, 7 minute mark, Meeting of the Waters: Encontro das Águas (Meeting of Waters) | Clarissa Tossin || Radcliffe Institute

Sandy Rodriguez, podcast: “From Invasive Others Toward Embracing Each Other” (discusses her codex, 9 minute mark)

CAA review of ReVision in Denver

From The Cornell Lab: What Is The Essence Of Iridescence? Ask A Hummingbird

Online article on corn paste sculptures:  God figures made of corn stalk paste

Also an article on corn pith sculptures from Smarthistory

Brief Video:  Sebastião Salgado on ‘Serra Pelada, Gold Mine, Brazil’

Longer interview: pedro reyes + carla fernández on practice and personal life for friedman benda’s “design in dialogue”

Serpent in St. John’s cup (featherwork): St. John with Serpent in Chalice

A modern use of the quipu profiled on PBS: Brief But Spectacular PBS July 19, 2023

Virgin of the Mountain, Potosi: Virgin of the Mountain of Potosi, 1720

Recipe for cochineal dye/instructions: Pretty in Pink

Catalog from Gloria Cortina, with more pictures of the inside of the Bullet cabinet:

Gloria Cortina Catalog

 

 

 

 

MuseumNext 2023 offerings

From the Director’s Office:

MuseumNext Digital Learning Summit 2023
19 – 20 June 2023

Are you curious about how digital learning is transforming education, and what it means for museums? Join us for the Digital Learning Summit, where we’ll bring together some of the most innovative and forward-thinking minds in the museum world.

With presentations and insights from top museums around the globe, including the Guggenheim, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Getty, Smithsonian, Museums Victoria, Nobel Peace Centre and more, you’ll gain valuable knowledge and actionable advice on the future of museum learning.  Whether you’re an educator, museum professional, or just someone with a passion for learning, this virtual event is not to be missed.

Mia staff, volunteers, and trustees can sign up for free using Mia’s season pass: https://ti.to/nxt/digital-learning-summit-2023/with/4p3gnzea9z0
***
Upcoming MuseumNext Virtual Summits
Mia has once again purchased a season pass to the June-December season of MuseumNext virtual conferences. All staff, volunteers, and trustees are eligible to attend. See below for details.

Miao or Hmong?

Some Hmong visitors feel that Miao is a pejorative term for the ethnic group in China to whom they are related. In response, Curator Yang Liu has provided the following information. If you encounter any questions or concerns on tours, please let us know.

Per Curator Yang Liu:

“The costumes and silver ornaments… belong to the ethnic group living in China’s Guizhou and Hunan provinces. These people are known as ‘Miao’ in China – that is not only the term used in Chinese official classification of the minorities, but also the self-designation of these people. I have visited these regions many times and know that they have no feeling that Hmong is in any way preferable to them as a common designator. No contemporary Chinese will feel that ‘Miao’ contains a sign of disrespect in any way, as the basic meaning of the word ‘miao’ in Chinese is ‘young plant’.

Although there are different opinions, some Western scholars propose that the term Hmong be used only for designating the Miao groups speaking the Hmong dialect in China (very small group) and for the Miao outside China. According to Joakim Enwall, Professor of Chinese, Uppsala University, it is these non-Chinese Hmong living outside China who advocate that the term Hmong be used not only for designating their dialect group, but also for the other groups living in China.”

Yang has also provided an article that discusses this further:

Miao or Hmong

As we know, sometimes visitors just wish to express concerns, to be heard, and they may not agree with the museum’s choice of terminology. In those cases, it is good to encourage visitors to complete a comment card if they wish to receive a direct response from museum staff.

Norman Akers, Interference and a Tiny Spot of Hope, 2019

Here are some resources to learn more about Norman Akers and his work:

There is some good information in the label, to at least discuss the elk’s presence:
Interference and a Tiny Spot of Hope is a presentation of the past, present, and future. Akers combines flat imagery with illusionistic space to provide an immersive and yet open-ended experience into personal, historical, and cultural issues, such as identity, disruption, dislocation, and belonging. In his paintings, Akers uses Osage stories as metaphors over illustrations, and complexity over a singular, fixed interpretation. The most prominent figure in the painting, the suspended or falling elk, is an important figure in Osage cosmology and becomes a symbol to represent ideas of being between two worlds (Osage and non-Osage), and the precarious place of being between the earth and sky, a fundamental Osage principle of balance in the world. Wind turbines found within the painting and within Osage homelands disrupt the spatial order and space between the earth and sky, and according to Akers, “obscure[d] the horizon….and the blades cut into the earth”. Other features within the painting, including tree stumps and skeletal remains along the riverbed, reference the environmental and cultural disruptions within Osage landscapes.

And here is an article about the artist:
https://www.kansan.com/arts_and_culture/theme-of-lost-identities-within-boundaries-ingrained-in-art-professor-norman-akerss-exhibit-contested-territories/article_93fade32-5e4d-11e5-864f-fb3c6c82acc4.html

And there is this video, and a painting that seems to have some similar themes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCaPpLxTCI

Caravaggio exhibition

To sign up or review Caravaggio Ask Me shifts, here is a link to the sign-up:

Sign up sheet for Caravaggio Ask Me shifts

 

Here are the videos of Rachel McGarry’s in-gallery training on 4.18.23:

Caravaggio Part 1

Caravaggio Part 2

 

Here are the panels:

CUR231906_Caravaggio_Intro_Texts_V3

Here are the labels:

EUR231905_Caravaggio_Wall_Labels_V4

 

Additional collection connections:

Essential Characteristics of Baroque Art

Council of Trent and Catholic Reformation

 

Research resources:

Barberini: CARAVAGGIO (MICHELANGELO MERISI) (MILAN 1571 – PORTO ERCOLE 1610): Judith Beheading Holofernes

Biography of Caravaggio on The Art Story

Biography from the National Gallery, UK

From Khan Academy, a great article that discusses his influence: Caravaggio and Caravaggisti in 17th-Century Europe

The story of Beatrice Cenci (mentioned by Rachel)

Sebastian Schütze, Caravaggio: The Complete Works (Taschen)

Catherine Puglisi, Caravaggio (Phaidon)

Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life (Farrar Straus & Giroux)

Guilio Mancini, Lives of Caravaggio (J. Paul Getty Museum)

Rosella Vodret, ed., Caravaggio The Complete Works (Silvana Editoriale)

Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred & Profane (W. W. Norton & Company)

Related books of interest:

Letizia Treves, Artemisia (National Gallery of London)

Mary D. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi (Princeton University Press)

Ludovica Rambelli’s Malatheatre Theater Company Caravaggio staging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIeyulbiB0A&t=11s

 

Religious Literacy Workshop: Cultural Fluency Spring 2023

Part 1 of our Spring 2023 cultural fluency training was the lecture by Dr. Jeanne Kilde, Director of Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota, on March 30, 2023. Here is a link to the recording:

Religious Literacy Workshop: Developing Your Practical Toolkit for Talking about Religious Art with the Public

Dr. Kilde provided some handouts for this session:

Religious Diversity in Minnesota Timeline (1)

Religious Diversity Overview of US Religious Landscape Final (1)

Here is a PDF of Dr. Kilde’s slides:

PPT FINAL-MIA Religious Literacy for Guides (1)

If you attended in person, you filled out a feedback form after the lecture. so you do not need to complete any extra feedback. We were able to record your attendance at the event.

If you were unable to attend, please watch the recording, then take a minute to fill out this brief feedback form to receive attendance credit for the session:

Feedback form for Part 1 of training: Religious Literacy Workshop

 

Safety and Security training with Ross Guthrie

Here is the video of our safety and security training with Mia’s Director of Security, Ross Guthrie:

Safety training with Ross Guthrie 3.15.23

Here is the procedure that Ross discusses in his talk, including the list of safe places on each floor, in the facilities lockdown update:

Facilities Lockdown Procedure Updates revised 7.16.18

A separate message is being sent to ask guides to join the museum’s Omnilert system. This system sends emergency alerts as well as weather closures to your cell phone. If you miss the deadline included in that message and wish to be part of the Omnilert system, contact Kara and Debbi directly.

Miao textiles and silver jewelry/hats

From Wikipedia: According to the 2000 censuses, the number of ‘Miao’ in China was estimated to be about 9.6 million. The Miao nationality includes Hmong people as well as other culturally and linguistically related ethnic groups who do not call themselves Hmong. These include the Hmu, Kho (Qho) Xiong, and A-Hmao. The White Miao (Bai Miao) and Green Miao (Qing Miao) are Hmong groups.

Here is something I found about the silver hats on display: Silver Ornaments of the Miao Ethnic Group
And an exhibition by the Bowers Museum, on Miao silver: https://www.bowers.org/index.php/current-exhibition/miao-masters-of-silver

A short video:

Miao Textiles at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts