WORN TO BE WILD

Our Reputation Precedes Us:
We Throw a Pretty Good Party

Different times, different yearnings, and different issues all addressed in the same way with the same thing. That's what's at the heart of our upcoming exhibition on the art of the black leather jacket.

From military aviators to motorcycle enthusiasts to movie and music stars, the black leather jacket has been a siren of cool for decades. And now it gets the serious treatment it has long deserved—a full-blown exhibition at an art museum.

Worn to Be Wild: The Black Leather Jacket opens to the public one week from tomorrow and opens to Museum Members one week from tonight with a big after-hours party.

You can email rsvp@chrysler.org to RSVP, and if you're not yet a Member, you have time to sign up. You'll have a chance to pull that jacket out of closet and meet the friends you haven't met yet. Expect live rock 'n' roll, a cash bar, a free talk by the show's curator from the Harley-Davidson Museum, and even a couple of really boss bikes.

The mailed invitation mentioned "festive attire," which is, to be clear, pretty much anything, and lower in this email you'll find a picture from our last big Members' party. Feel free to come to a museum wearing a black leather jacket. It's also important to note that faux leather jackets are not only acceptable, in many ways to many people, faux leather is better.

To summarize the details: 6–10 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 2, Members-only, cash bar, music by the Bartones, and an easy RSVP (acceptances only) by email. If this party motivates you to become a Member, take comfort in knowing your investment supports free admission for all, art education for children, and the careful conservation of priceless works of art that must be maintained forever.
 

GLASS STUDIO CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

Family-Friendly Fun: News
on Openings to Make Your Own
Blown Glass Pumpkin

These little beauties are turning out to be quite popular. Creating these Halloween decorations, which are about four inches in size, takes around an hour and a half, and thanks to help from our Studio Assistants, it can be accomplished by children as young as five.

The sessions are so popular they're sold out for this upcoming weekend, but fear not. We've got a full slate of openings for October, and we bring it up here because we expect the openings to go fast. Pumpkin Patch sessions will be held through October 26 on Saturdays and Sundays, generally at 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m.

Other upcoming classes include:

• An easy, one-day, introductory class in kilnworking is on tap for Saturday, Oct. 4. Look for Introduction to Fusing: Flat Design in our online reservation system.

• A one-day introduction to flameworking workshop begins at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5.

• On Thursday, Oct. 9, we'll have two no-experience-required introductory classes starting at 7 p.m. One is in blowing a glass paperweight and the other is in flameworking, where you'll learn the basics by making beaded jewelry.

• Our next one-day workshop in stained glass will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8.

For a complete list of available classes, click here.
 

A REPORT FROM THE GALLERY HOSTS

Ask a Stupid Question Day: Sept. 30

A holiday that deserves more attention and respect was started by people who deserve more respect—teachers. On the theory that there is no such thing as a stupid question, a day to promote and reward curiosity was established by teachers back in the '80s. It's generally celebrated on Sept. 28, but when that date falls on a weekend, it's held on the last school day of September.

We surveyed our Gallery Hosts on this topic, and they reported these FAQs, which aren't necessarily stupid:

Are these the real works of art?
Yes. That's why we're such an impressive museum for our sized market.
Where's the Mona Lisa?
Well, we're not quite that impressive. The Mona Lisa is in the world's most-visited art museum, The Louvre, in Paris.
Is this a car museum?
Our namesake was the son of the auto company founder, but he was out of the car business by the 1940s.
Does the sarcophagus have a mummy in it?
No, the mummy was stolen by tomb raiders. Looters pried it open, stole the treasures inside, and it's been empty ever since. Look closely at the lid and you'll see the repaired damage.
What do the hieroglyphs say?
Even highly trained experts can disagree. We have two ancient Egyptian pieces now on view that used to be one single, joined piece. It was originally thought the "sentences" continued across the crack, but upon expert review, we fixed that as part of our recent renovation, expansion and re-interpretation.

If you haven't visited in a while, free up some time for a visit next Tuesday. It's shaping up as the best day of the year to ask questions.
 

MUSEUM CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

Exhibitions, Talks, and One Highlight Inspired by the Virginia Stage Company

Our thanks to all who turned out for yesterday's Norfolk Society of Arts lecture. The NSA is a great supporter of the Museum, and membership is open to all Museum Members. The next lecturer, on Wednesday, Oct. 15, will be an expert on Cubism, Harry Cooper of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. We'll have a new Cubist exhibition opening the day before his talk, Fractured Lens.

• Next Thursday is the third Thursday of the month, and that means free art fun for pre-schoolers. Our Tickle My Ears program begins at 10:30 a.m.

Virginia Stage Company have turned a theater stage into a mountaintop for K2. Thoroughly inspired, we're offering a special curator-led tour Saturday, Oct. 4, from 2–3 p.m. that highlights the most glorious mountaintops in our collection. Our Brock Curator of American Art, Crawford Alexander Mann III, will lead the tour. The VSC show runs through Oct. 12.

• We currently have three special exhibitions on view, the kid-friendly Celebrating Smokey Bear, an adult-oriented photography exhibition, Larry Clark: Tulsa, and a stunning exhibition of glass art, Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova.

• Next month we'll open the exhibitions Worn to be Wild and Fractured Lens, as already noted. Opening Oct. 21 is a must-see for fans of American Romantic landscape painting, Thomas Cole's Voyage of Life.

• Every day we're open, the Glass Studio offers a free glass art demonstration at noon. At 1 p.m. every day in the Museum, we hold an informal tour we call a Gallery Talk. If you've never heard our docents before, they are thoroughly trained and really good.

• Every Saturday and Sunday we offer free afternoon talks and tours at our Historic Houses on East Freemason Street near MacArthur Center. Things get underway at 1 p.m. at the Moses Myers House and at 2 p.m. at the Willoughby-Baylor House.

DETAILED ABOVE: Salvator Rosa, The Baptism of the Eunuch, oil on canvas, ca. 1660. Click the detail to see the full image enlarged.
 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Two Tastes of the Orient, 48 Years Apart

A major exhibition is opening up the road next month at the VMFA in Richmond. In honor of Forbidden City: Imperial Treasures from the Palace Museum, Beijing today our wayback machine travels to March, 1966, and the opening reception for the Chrysler exhibition Art From The Orient.

We're always struck by the white-glove social traditions of the day, and the Navy band is a nice touch, but what strikes us most of all is how different this looks from our last opening affair.

If you think you might enjoy seeing the Virginia Museum show with fellow Chrysler Members, we've got a special road trip to Richmond planned for Nov. 6. Watch for details in the October events calendar mailer, coming soon to a mailbox near you.
 

THIS WEEK IN ART NEWS

Five-Year-Old Art Critics and a Chance to Buy Jackson Pollock's Old Apartment

We start with the adorable video linked above. It's a response to British artist Jake Chapman's declaration that it's a total waste of time to expose children to modern art. Elsewhere in the art world:

• Here's a year-old article gaining new legs. From Vulture.com, a look at Neo-Mannerism, the "ever-expanding assembly of anemically boring, totally safe artistic cliches squeezing the life out of the art world." As Jerry Saltz asks: "If art comes from everywhere and everyone thinks differently, why does so much of what we see these days look the same?"

• Thanks to a new exhibition in London, here's an opportunity to bring up the work of a corporate lawyer turned artist. The preferred medium of Nathan Sawaya is Lego bricks.

• Would you expect to see an art story in a publication called Courthouse News? You will when it concerns photographic negatives allegedly made by Ansel Adams.

• If you have an extra $1.25 million lying around, Jackson Pollock's old apartment is up for sale.

• And finally, there's a new documentary out on a notorious art forger. It's a story told with skill by The New York Times.
 

REFRIGERATOR ART

Powerful Politics of Identity
From an Artist Named Smith

Tomorrow is Native American Day in many parts of the United States, a holiday that dates back to a California holiday signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1968. A handful of cities and states substitute a day for indigenous peoples instead of celebrating Columbus Day, which moves the date into October, but the fourth Friday in September is the wider celebration.

We honor the holiday with a work now on view in Gallery 224, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People). This 1992 mixed media work has 31 objects chained above a massive three-panel canvas—a mix of toys and souvenirs (tomahawks and headdresses) with sports memorabilia from teams such as the Braves, Redskins and Indians. The canvas is dotted with news clippings from the weekly newspaper of her home reservation in Montana and overlaid with symbolic blood and an iconic canoe.

Prior to the 500th anniversary of Columbus arriving in North America, Smith executed a series of eight such works for what she called a non-celebration. The entire series was exhibited here in 1993 to a positive reception. She works in a style of combination work as produced by Robert Rauschenberg in the 1950s that is powered and infused with the politics of identity.

In the years since, she's been a guest lecturer and visiting artist at universities and museums around the world. Still working today, she had a solo exhibition in New York City last year. Born in 1940 on the Flathead Reservation, she overcame family issues, prejudice and poverty to get a college degree at age 36 and a masters at age 40. Among her inspirations was her great-grandmother, a noted beadworker.

DETAILED ABOVE: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), oil and mixed media on canvas, 1992. Click the detail to see full image enlarged.
 

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