Final Destination - Indianapolis

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

Greetings from the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), where colleague Eva Fognell and I are installing our traveling exhibition, Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection, at its last venue in this 2-year long tour. The IMA has a collection of over 50,000 works of art from a variety of cultures and periods in art history. It also features traveling exhibits such as our own. Situated in the midst of 152 rolling acres, which include a nature park, mansion and gardens, the museum is a lovely place to install an exhibit.

Once again we are working with a topnotch crew to unpack our collection and get the objects in place. Every venue has given us a new way to think about the collection and how to present it. David, the designer here at IMA has chosen wonderful colors and layout for the gallery to offset and compliment the objects.

Tips from the road

By Chris Rossi, Associate Curator of Exhibitions

After packing and installing our traveling exhibition, Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection  six times I've picked up a few things. Curator Eva Fognell and I like to think that by the time we finish the tour we may have perfected installing and packing the 111 American Indian objects we have been traveling.

At each venue we have had the pleasure of working with talented preparators who have taught us a few new tricks about art installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art staff tipped us off on new ways to coat and pad our brass mounts.

Minneapolis Museum of Art staff introduced us to the use of magnets for hanging textiles. That technique was just the thing for installing the unframed canvasses by Awenheeyoh Powless in the 8th Contemporary Iroquois Art Biennial: 4 Artists Under 30 exhibit now on display at the Fenimore Art Museum:

Our last venue, the Dallas Museum of Art, ended with preparator Mary drawing a level mark on one of our more difficult to hang mounts. A seemingly simple act, but we have struggled for ages to get the Box and Border robe consistently hung at just the right angle. All we were waiting for, apparently, was a fresh perspective from a kind colleague at another venue:

We have one more stop in our tour. I am looking forward to meeting the staff at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and have no doubt they will add something new to my toolbox!

Dallas, Here We Go!

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

On to the 3rd stop of the national tour of Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection – the Dallas Museum of Art!

When I left Cherry Valley to go to Albany to catch a plane for Dallas, it was snowing! When I arrived in Dallas, I was greeted with sun and a glorious 80F! It is amazing how different the world looks when the sun is shining. Green trees and flowers lined the highway into Dallas. I arrived a few hours before I could check into my hotel so I decided to walk around and familiarize myself a bit with the neighborhood that will be my back yard for the next week.

As I was walking down the street, I saw a very colorful sign announcing that I was near the museum:

I kept walking down the street and came to an entrance:

I kept walking around the block – and there was another entrance:

Somehow neither looked like the main entrance of the museum so I followed the street and around another corner, and there it was! A HUGE frontlet looking at me. Maybe the biggest banner I have ever seen!

Very fittingly, facing the entrance is a glass mosaic by the artist, author, art historian, ethnologist and caricaturist - the multitalented Miguel Covarrubias. It is called Genesis, the Gift of Life. An amazing piece of art:

It is many years since I last read The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent - Indian Art of the Americas; North America: Alaska, Canada, the United States. Maybe looking at this mosaic every day for a few weeks will inspire me to go back to his writings.

I hope to report more from Dallas in the next few weeks as the exhibit goes up and programs and opening events take place.

Opening Festivities for Art of the Native Americans: The Thaw Collection, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

By: Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

Fenimore Art Museum’s traveling exhibition, Art of the Native Americans: The Thaw Collection, opened at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) on October 24, 2010. Eva was there to celebrate and train teachers and docents. Here’s here recap of the opening events.

From teacher’s education programming and docent training to the opening day event this was one of the most inspiring, impressive and fun series of events I have been part of in a museum setting. The audiences at the MIA were wonderful, energetic, very interested and very grateful that they had a chance to see the magnificent collection. It was a successful, well-executed, and exciting weekend and the MIA had certainly put an extraordinary amount of their resources behind our exhibit.

On Thursday October 21st the museum hosted a 4-hour program for K-12 teachers. Four hundred thirty seven teachers were registered for the program that focused upon the exhibition and its themes. The museum had developed an extensive curriculum guide available on CD as well as on-line for in-class teaching. The teachers were also toured through the galleries. The teachers were asked to rank their experience that day and an overwhelming majority rated their visit to the exhibit as the best part of the program.

Thursday evening was also the MIA’s 3rd Thursday event when the museum is open from 5-9 pm. Live rock music bands, art making, dancers and performers were everywhere. The museum was very busy with people of all ages, including teenagers and 20- and 30-somethings. The gallery was open to members and there was a large audience in the gallery all evening long.

On both Friday and Saturday Joe Horse Capture (the MIA’s Associate Curator of Native American Art) and I conducted training sessions for museum docents. Over the two days at least 80 people participated in our tours. Their enthusiasm was truly amazing. Many had spent considerable time familiarizing themselves with the objects in the exhibition prior to the training sessions.

Representatives from the Twin City Press (St Paul), Star Tribune (Minneapolis), as well as NPR and St. Paul Magazine toured the exhibit on Friday. They all asked in-depth questions and were very impressed by the exhibition. This was later reflected in the superlative reviews that appeared in the Sunday editions of their respective papers:

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/art/105479213.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

http://www.startribune.com/galleries/105205549.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2010/10/native-american-art-is-alive-and-beautiful.shtml

On the last day, Sunday, a brunch event for 150 invited guests officially opened the exhibit. Later I presented a lecture, Masterworks in Native American Art. Throughout the day there was a museum-wide celebration featuring free art activities, story time, music and entertainment.

Photos by Eva Fognell and Joe Horse Capture

Installing the Thaw Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

By Eva Fognell, Curator of the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art

On October 24th, the Fenimore Art Museum's traveling exhibition Art of the Native Americans: The Thaw Collection will open at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Yesterday, Associate Curator of Exhibitions, Chris Rossi, and I spent our first day at the museum and we got a good start on unpacking and installing the objects. It is so exciting to walk into another museum's prepared galleries and see their vision for the Collection in regards to layout and design.

The first picture, above, is from the Northwest Coast section of the exhibition, with our Potlatch Figure in the foreground.

The other gallery shot was taken while the crew was installing a large photomural depicting the Grand Canyon in the Southwest section of the exhibition.

When we went out for lunch I took the opportunity to take a picture of the entrance to the Target Galleries, where the exhibition is being installed.