FREE PROGRAMS AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUMS FALL 1999

The programs listed below are free and open to the public. For more information on these and other programs, please call (617) 495-4544.

LECTURES

New Evidence for the Early Cycladic Period on Amorgos
Lila Marangou, professor of classical archaeology, University of Ioannina
Monday, October 25, reception 5 p.m., lecture 6 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway

Cosponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston Chapter, and the Cycladic Art Foundation’s Alexander Papamarkou Lectureship Program.

Terry Winters and Peter Schjeldahl: A Conversation
Thursday, October 28, 6–8:30 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, and Fogg Art Museum, 32 Quincy Street

To celebrate the felicitous short-term loan of three major new paintings by Terry Winters currently on view in the Fogg, we have invited Peter Schjeldahl—New Yorker art critic, former Village Voice senior art critic, contributing editor to Art in America, poet, and faculty member of Harvard’s Department of Visual and Enviornmental Studies—to engage Terry Winters in a conversation about his recent paintings. The paintings from his series Graphic Primitives were shown earlier this year in London.

The conversation will begin at 6 p.m. in the Sackler lecture hall, followed by a reception in the Fogg courtyard and the opportunity to view the Winters paintings in the Fogg.

Toward a New Museum
Agnes Gund, president, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Thursday, November 4, 6 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway

Agnes Gund will speak on her involvement in the recent expansion at MoMA, addressing the need for all museums to reassess the scope of their activities and consider expansions, both physical and programmatic, as we enter the new millenium.

Objecthood and Theatricality
Thursdays, October 7, November 18, and December 16, 6 p.m.
Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street

In conjunction with the exhibition Contemporary Approaches to Still Life at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies’ fall curricular thematic exploration of "Objecthood and Theatricality," a series of free lectures will be presented.

October 7 Michael Fried
November 18 Ross Bleckner
December 16 Richard Artschwager

SYMPOSIA

Art, Empire, and Tradition: The Ottoman Achievement
Friday, October 8, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway

This one-day symposium will bring together scholars from around the world who will explore the richness of the Ottoman artistic heritage as evidenced in calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, painting, and architecture. The symposium has been organized in conjunction with the exhibition Letters in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sak&Mac245;p Sabanc&Mac245; Museum, Sabanc&Mac245; University, Istanbul.

Speakers include Walter Denny, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; M. Ugur Derman, Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul; Heath W. Lowry, Princeton University; Louise Mackie, The Cleveland Museum of Art; Gülru Necïpoglu, Harvard University; and J. Michael Rogers, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Picturing History in the German Tradition:
New Thinking on Hanne Darboven and Her Contemporaries
Saturday, October 23, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway

Contemporary German art has become well known for its recurring attempts to engage history, especially the troubled and catastrophic history of its own culture. American audiences are familiar with artists such as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, and the various ways in which they have invoked and addressed historical and political events of recent times. A series of both established and younger scholars will here offer new perspectives on this generation of artists, with particular attention to Hanne Darboven’s very different, but no less challenging strategies for coming to terms with the past, for opening her art to time and history.

Please call (617) 495-2317, or check our website at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu for more information.

SEMINARS

Light Converstion: Seminars with Contemporary Photographers
Mondays, October 18, November 15, and December 13, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Agnes Mongan Center, Fogg Art Museum, 32 Quincy Street
Space is limited.

These intimate seminars offer the opportunity for a limited audience to interact with contemporary artists.

Rose Marasco creates images that explore the history and rituals of women’s work by photographing household objects that she collects outside their context, so that an ironing board appears at a seaside or a rolling pin balances perfectly on a boulder.

Bonnie Porter strips the photographic process down to its most basic light-gathering elements, creating bold abstract images that depict geometric planes of color and shadow, and play with notions of how we perceive form and space.

John O’Reilly constructs enigmatic photographic montages that present provocative juxtapositions of imagery culled from the history of visual culture, through which the artist comments on autobiographical, social, religious, and sexual issues.

October 18 Rose Marasco
November 15 Bonnie Porter
December 13 John O’Reilly

Close-Up: Study Room Collections in the Busch-Reisinger Museum
Sarah Miller, 1998–2000 Werner and Maren Otto Curatorial Intern
Saturdays, November 27 and December 11, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Busch-Reisinger Museum Study Room
Space is limited.

Close-Up is an ongoing series of informal talks, introducing the riches of the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s Study Room collections. The Study Room offers all visitors access to prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, artists’ books, and other light-sensitive works that cannot regularly be displayed in the galleries.

This fall’s presentations highlight a mode of looking that the Study Room makes possible: unusual juxtapositions of central and northern European artworks from different styles and periods. The first explores how the visual arts have participated in expanding the boundaries of theatre and performance in the 20th century; the second examines a range of portraits as they embody visions of modern identity. The Busch-Reisinger Study Room is also open to the public every Tuesday through Friday, 2–4:45 p.m.; no appointment necessary.

November 27 Performance/Art: Visual Engagements with Theatre
December 11 Modern and Contemporary Portraiture

LITERARY EVENTS
An Evening with the Author: Simon Schama
Monday, November 15, 6-–8:30 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, and Fogg Art Museum, 32 Quincy Street

In celebration of the exhibition Lifeworld: Portrait and Landscape in Netherlandish Prints, 1550–1650, and of Simon Schama’s new book Rembrandt’s Eyes, the Harvard University Art Museums is pleased to host a lively conversation between Professor Schama and William Robinson, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, followed by a private viewing of the exhibition and a reception with the author.

Schama brings to life the extraordinary tale of Rembrandt’s formation as an artist, at the heart of which was his consuming obsession with the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. Schama takes the reader into Rembrandt’s paintings, exploring their genesis and the way in which the vision of "Rembrandt’s eyes" became a stunning form of storytelling through revolutionary brushwork and radiant color.

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History, Columbia University, and former professor of history, Harvard University. He is the prize-winning author of five acclaimed books and an art critic and essayist for The New Yorker.

Harvard Book Store Author Series
September 21 and October 20, 6 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway
The Harvard University Art Museums join the Harvard Book Store in presenting the first in a series of evenings with authors.

Tuesday, September 21
Simon Winchester
Simon Winchester will present and read from his latest work, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. When Professor James Murray, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, finally meets Chester Minor, a prolific contributor to the Dictionary via correspondence for over two decades, he discovers that his colleague is not only a masterful wordsmith but is also a murderer, clinically insane, and locked up in one of England’s harshest asylums for criminal lunatics.

Wednesday, October 20
Nicholas Lemann and Howard Gardner
A discussion will take place with Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, and Howard Gardner, professor of education and codirector of Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of Intelligence Framed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century.

In a remarkable synthesis of vibrant storytelling, vivid portraiture, and thematic analysis, Lemann reveals the secret history of a 50-year-old utopian social experiment, an effort developed by James Conant, president of Harvard University, and Henry Chauncey, head of the Educational Testing System, to use intelligence testing to create a democratic elite. Professor Gardner’s book is a state-of-the-art report on how the landmark theory of multiple intelligences is radically changing our understanding of education and human development.

The Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums comprise the Fogg Art Museum (founded in 1891, opened in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (founded in 1902, now housed in Werner Otto Hall), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (opened in 1985). The Straus Center for Conservation is located in the Fogg. Through their collections and professional practice programs, as well as a wide array of special exhibitions, scholarly programming and publications, loans, and educational initiatives and programs, the Art Museums serve Harvard University as a catalyst for instruction and scholarship, as a training ground for future academic art historians and museum professionals, and as a general resource for its diverse and growing national and international audiences.

The collections of the Art Museums consist of more than 150,000 objects in all media, with works ranging from antiquity to the present and from Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas (Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs) and are comprehensive within their areas. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a unique resource in terms of breadth and quality, and are enhanced continually through gifts and acquisitions. Together, they comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.

The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Closed national holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free to children under 18 and to all individuals on Saturday mornings, 10:00 a.m.-–noon, and all day on Wednesdays.

For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. All groups of 8 or more must schedule in advance. Please call (617) 496-8576. Web site: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. The Harvard University Art Museums are supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.