museum

Art historian Gannit Ankori to lead Rose Art Museum

By Jaime E. Love 4 weeks ago

Gannit Ankori, an art history professor at Brandeis University, will become director and chief curator of the Rose Art Museum, a position she’s held on an interim basis since July.

Ankori will step into the permanent role Jan. 1.

“I’m pleased that Gannit will be leading the Rose at such a critical time when so many arts and culture institutions are struggling to remain open and relevant,” Brandeis president Ronald Liebowitz said in a statement. “Her deep devotion to the museum, scholarly acumen, curatorial expertise, and proven capacity to lead and inspire makes her the ideal choice.”

Ankori, a scholar who’s written widely on identity and the arts, said that as director she hoped to transform the museum into an antiracist, anti-colonial institution.

“I have been working with the Rose team to reimagine the museum as a welcoming and vibrant nexus for art, communities, and justice,” said Ankori, a Jerusalem

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Giant mural marks 30th anniversary of St. George Art Museum

By Jaime E. Love 3 months ago

From staff reports, The Spectrum & Daily News
Published 9:45 a.m. MT Nov. 3, 2020

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In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the opening of the St. George Art Museum, officials were set to feature two documentary films and complete a new mural inspired by those films along the museum’s wall on Tuesday.

The mural, the work of two artists featured in one of the two films from the 2020 DOCUTAH International Documentary Film Festival,  will create and reveal a new mural inspired by those films, “Alice Street” and “Prophets, Teachers & Kings.”

From 11 a.m. to

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Silver City Museum to host virtual bilingual story and art events

By Jaime E. Love 3 months ago

From Staff Reports, Silver City Sun-News
Published 7:00 a.m. MT Oct. 22, 2020

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SILVER CITY – Throughout November the Silver City Museum combines literature, culture, art and entertainment to present a series of bilingual virtual readings — perfect to capture the imaginations of all ages with important lessons on diverse cultures and traditions — as well as a virtual art exhibition.

Events kick off at 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1 with a bilingual reading of “The Spirit of Tio Fernando/El espiritu de tio Fernando” by Janice Levy. The story will be read in English and Spanish by local artist, youth leader, and shop owner Diana Ingalls-Leyba, and spiritual medium and Día de los Muertos expert Nena Benavidez. In the story, young Nando meets the spirit of his deceased Tio Fernando, for whom he is named. Sign up at www.silvercitymuseum.org or at the Zoom

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The Museum Lockdown Culture

By Jaime E. Love 4 months ago

What’s happening to the museum world? I was a museum director for ten years and a curator for years before that. Sometimes I shake my head in bewilderment and chagrin.

The biggest museum scandal in my time, bigger than the Gardner theft (13 works of art stolen, and to this day never recovered, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), is the museum lockout culture that developed during the COVID-19 hysteria. I’ve written about this many times, but it bears repeating and embellishment since there’s so much fallout.

There’s the strangest new dynamic in museums these days. I think it’s infecting the entire not-for-profit world, too. They’re absorbing the ethos of public-school teachers’ unions.

I like teachers. I taught for years. In my hometown, little Arlington in Vermont, our teachers are fantastic. They didn’t want to abandon their students, most poor and special-needs kids, in March. The COVID hysteria, though,

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