DIA eNews February 2016
In This Issue

Director's LetterDirector's Letter

 

After my years of study and work in Europe, I came to America in 2004 eager to immerse myself in a new culture, which I associated with an open mind, freedom of expression, and the idea that if one works hard opportunities present themselves. Looking back, I can safely say that America has been very generous to me: it gave me a family, a flexible way of being, professional opportunities, and many other treasures. Furthermore, while in this country I have learned many inspiring lessons, but the one that has struck me the most is that American society is naturally philanthropic. I have witnessed how those who have been successful in their lives understand their civic responsibility to give back to the community in which they flourished. Giving back means helping charitable institutions, bringing people together, fighting inequality, and many other actions focused on creating a better and just society. The DIA, in this sense, exists as a result of the generosity and vision of many individuals, stands as a monument of philanthropy, and aims to be an agent of change in our community.

 

Philanthropy is not only providing tangible gifts but is also the giving of time, love, and support. Sometimes all these types of charity occur at once. I like to define our extraordinary volunteers as the DIA's "intangible gold." Their work is a pure act of generosity, an example of civic commitment. Last month, one of our very own such volunteers, Elizabeth Verdow (left), was celebrated across the country. She was an art teacher in the Detroit Public School system and had served as a volunteer in the DIA shop for nineteen years. Elizabeth passed away in 2014, leaving the DIA $1.71 million.

When we announced her gift, many of her former students posted comments on our Facebook page attesting to Elizabeth's extraordinary personality: "She embraced everyone's unique creativity. What a woman. What a legacy." The social feedback excitement was remarkable, and I imagined her dedicated perseverance in saving and the extraordinary act of kindness it was to donate this lifelong effort, in one moment, to the DIA. I was also amazed by her confidence in supporting an institution that she had witnessed navigate some somber and uncertain times. I wonder what would have happened with her bequest if the DIA had been forced to sell its collection as a result of the city's bankruptcy.

Elizabeth devoted her gift to strengthen the operating endowment and to purchase contemporary paintings and sculpture. Although she did not request recognition for her contribution, the DIA has established the Elizabeth Verdow Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, which will appear as a credit line in all the labels that accompany newly acquired works. This will ensure she is perpetually remembered, and the new art in the galleries will beautifully crown her extraordinary gift.

This philanthropic act is tremendously inspiring and has brought another dimension to that striking lesson I learned when I first came to America. We do not need to be millionaires to give back to the community. Each of us can make a difference. Elizabeth proved this with "intangible" and "tangible" gold. We all wish she was still with us so we could personally thank her.

Salvador Salort-Pons Signature
Salvador Salort-Pons
Director

Detroit Institute of Arts

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Exhibitions

30 AmericansFifty Years of Collecting
Detroit Institute of Arts' Friends of Prints, Drawings and Photographs Anniversary Exhibition

Through June 18, 2016
Schwartz Gallery of Prints and Drawings

The works in the exhibition entered the collection through various means, with many purchased in honor of a special occasion or in memory of a devoted art lover. Since the 1990s, outgoing auxiliary chairs have been honored with an acquisition in their name, and members have been extremely generous in raising funds in memory of departed fellow members, friends, and relatives.
 
Sailors' Holiday, 1932, linoleum cut; Lill Tschudi, Swiss. Museum Purchase, Graphic Arts and Photography General Fund in memory of Ellen Sharp
Portrait of the Eternal, a palladium print by Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, was made with Graphic Arts Council (GAC, a forerunner of the current Friends of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs) Purchase Funds in honor of Barbara Goldsmith, GAC President from 2005 to 2007. A gelatin silver print by William E. Dassonville (above) was a acquired through the Forum for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs (FPDP) Purchase Fund in honor of Leonard Walle, FPDP president from 2009 to 2011.
Hendrik Goltizius's four engravings of the Four Disgraces from 1588 were acquired through the Alan, Marianne, and Marc Schwartz Fund in honor of the DIA's 125th Anniversary. The clever positioning of the Disgracers, with each figure in the same pose but seen from a different angle, contributed to the historic popularity of Goltzius's prints.
When longtime curator of prints, drawings, and photographs Ellen Sharp retired in 2002, a small number of prints by artists of London's Grosvenor School of Modern Art, who were among the first to explore the then-new medium of linoleum for printmaking, was acquired in her honor. Not included in that group was a work by Lill Tschudi. Further tribute was paid to Sharp and her love of relief prints when a work by Tschudi (above left) was acquired after Sharp passed away in 2014.

Above: San Francisco Waterfront, ca. 1925, Gelatin silver print; William E. Dassonville, American. Museum Purchase, Forum for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Purchase Fund in honor of Leonard Walle

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Detroit Film TheatreDetroit Film Theatre

 

Melvin Van Peebles

Music and film come together on Friday, February 26, when director, writer, actor, and composer Melvin Van Peebles joins Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber to perform the music from his film Sweet, Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, followed by a screening of the 1971 movie that helped launch the "blaxploitation" genre.

When first released, Sweet, Sweetback was rated X by the Motion Picture Association of America, but Van Peeples knew his intended audience--young, urban African Americans--and turned the rating to his advantage, boasting "This is the movie the Man doesn't want you to see. Rated X by an all-white jury!"

Music begins at 7 p.m. in the DFT auditorium with the movie showing at 9:30 p.m. One ticket covers both events.

 

From the animated short Sanjay

There's still time to catch the Academy Award Nominated Short Subjects before the Oscars are handed out on Sunday, February 28. The shorts demonstrate a level of quality and technical ingenuity comparable to feature-length films but are much more difficult to find at the local multiplex. The animated (left) and live-action shorts are shown in one sitting with an intermission between the two. This program is a perennial favorite and some dates have already sold out. Early reservations are strongly recommended.

Short documentary films are shown twice on February 4 and February 6. For a description of the nominated films, check the DFT website.

For more DFT information, including dates and times, or to purchase tickets, click here.

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New on ViewBlack History Month

Music, films, storytelling, art-making workshops, and a lecture are all part of Black History Month activities at the DIA.

 

African American musicians are the featured performers for much of February's Friday Night Live and Sunday Music Bar presentations. Mike Monford and his trio fill the air with jazz on Friday, February 5. The classical crossover duo of baritone Jean Bernard Cerin and pianist Veena K. Kulkarni fuse art, folk, world, and religious idioms with their rigorous western classical training to create new sounds exploring music from around the globe on February 12. The Mighty Third Rail, a hip-hop poetry trio, and the innovative PUBLIQuartet join forces for a sci-fi narrative that questions the nature of change in a world consumed by technology on February 19.On Sunday afternoons, alto saxophonist Mike Monford, drummer Gayelynn McKinney, or jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Wendell Harrison can be found in Kresge Court.

 

 

The weekend of February 26 through 28 features two films at the DFT: Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song, preceded by a performance of the film's soundtrack by Van Peebles and Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber on that Friday and The Amazing Nina Simone (left), a singer whose iconic style and musical artistry were both loved and feared for her outspoken vision of African-American empowerment, on Saturday and Sunday.

The younger set can enjoy storyteller Shanta as she blends poetry, chants, and the sounds of African instruments into tales of empowerment, peace, healing, and self-discovery. Family members of all ages can create an Asafo flag or African thumb piano to take home at drop-in art-making workshops (no advance registration necessary) Friday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. and Sundays, from noon until 4 p.m.

 

 

The Friends of African and African American Art has awarded its 2016 Alain Locke Award for scholarship that advances African American art to Jeffrey C. Stewart, professor of Black Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and chair of the Black Studies Department, who will discuss his groundbreaking work on Locke's importance to the study of the Harlem Renaissance in a lecture on Sunday, February 21 at 2 p.m.

Finally, check out the Museum Shop for a selection of Black History Month themed books or items made by local African American artists.

For all Black History Month programming, click here.

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Valentine's DayValentine's Day

Show your affection for your sweetheart this Valentine's Day with a leisurely coffee and classical music in Kresge Court or by purchasing a little something from the Museum Shop. Or show your love for the DIA by participating in our Hearts for Art weekend.

 

The music of Johannes Brahms (left) fills Kresge Court in a performance of his Liebeslieder waltzes, a collection of love songs for voices and four-hands piano. The musical presentations, at 1 p.m. & 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 14, are held in conjunction with the Detroit Symphony's Brahms Festival.

Give your loved ones a heartfelt gift for Valentine's Day. The DIA Shop has sweet somethings including jewelry and jewelry storage, kitschy frames and decor, whimsical books, and other goodies. The shop is open during museum hours or shop online anytime and get free gift wrapping on select Valentine's Day purchases. See details at DIAshop.org.

There's even a Valentine's activity for the kids with a demonstration by Detroit multimedia artist Donald Calloway, who shows some of his colorful works of art and helps visitors create monotype heart prints.

From Friday, February 12 through Sunday, February 14, show your love for the DIA by placing a red or white foam heart in front of your favorite work of art. Get a heart when you enter the museum, available free at the ticket desks, and then drop it on the floor by the work you love the most. You're also encouraged to take a snapshot of your favorite artwork (no flash, please) and share it on social media with the hashtag #heartsforart. Last year's somewhat surprising winner was the Egyptian mummy.

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News and NotesNews and Notes

 

A Taste of Things to Come
Get a taste of things to come at this lecture on "The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals," the subject of a future prints and drawings exhibition. Like today's Rose Bowl Parade or Mardi Gras activities, festivals in early modern Europe (1600-1800) were times for exuberant parties featuring large-scale edible monuments made of breads, cheeses, meats, sugars, and fruit. Marcia Reed, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, discusses the place of these elaborate and expensive creations in court festivals, banquet settings and dessert buffets on Saturday, February 6, at 2 p.m.

New Gallery Name
In recognition of a $5 million grant from the William Davidson Foundation, which will go to the museum's endowment, the DIA is naming the recently unveiled Ancient Middle East gallery the William Davidson Gallery. The gallery showcases objects from the ancient Arabian Kingdom as well as from the empires of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Rome.

Davidson left a singular mark on the community and the glass industry through his company, Guardian Industries, one of the world's largest manufacturers of fabricated glass. The DIA is planning to include a section in the newly named gallery on the production of glass in the ancient Middle East region, and has begun conversations with the Israel Antiquities Authority to obtain loans of remarkable glass and ceramics. Glass making is a natural fit for the gallery, which has a section dedicated to the exploration of innovations, inventions, and technologies (stone-carving, ceramics, writing, and metalworking) that emerged in the ancient world.

More than a Million
The DIA has welcomed one million visitors from Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties since the tri-county millage passed in 2012. As a benefit of the millage, the museum provides complimentary general museum admission for residents of the three counties, representing $5.7 million in admission value to tri-county residents. Other millage benefits include free school field trips and bus transportation, curriculum and professional development opportunities for educators, senior programs with free transportation, DIA Away, County Days, and other community-partnership programs.

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Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48202
www.dia.org
313.833.7900

Comments or questions about the newsletter? Please contact us: comments@dia.org 

ADMISSION
$12.50 adults
$8 seniors (62+)
$ 6 youth (6-17)

The museum is free for members and residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties
Contact the Membership HelpLine at
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