UMass Amherst Department of History of Art and Architecture

12/20/2020

How Scientists Use and Abuse Portraiture

Alumna of our MA program and professor at Amherst College, Yael Rice, recently co-authored a piece with Prof. Drimmer. Check out "How Scientists Use and Abuse Portraiture" at the link below!

https://hyperallergic.com/604897/how-scientists-use-and-abuse-portraiture/

Many scientific studies assume that the features of painted faces are the facts of the flesh-and-blood countenances to which they refer. This assumption is not only false; it is preposterous.

12/07/2020

Spotlight Peru: Creating a New Visual Language: Art in Colonial Peru

If you missed Prof. Gómez's recent webinar with the Institute of Hispanic Culture of Houston, worry not, for the recording is here! Watch her webinar, "Creating a New Visual Language: Art in Colonial Peru" at the link below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq9d2Cfsk-0&feature=emb_title

An introduction to the art of colonial Peru, focusing on works that show how Andean, Spanish, and West African people and traditions created a new visual lan...

12/06/2020

Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

Our newsletter has been pushed back a little bit, which means we can still accept news items from alumni! Fill out the form with any news, updates, or information you'd like featured in the newsletter. PLEASE NOTE: If you already filled out the form before, the form has changed, and we need everyone to either fill out the form again or edit their response.

https://forms.gle/MeGeXZrLrex5oMwj8

Create a new survey on your own or with others at the same time. Choose from a variety of survey types and analyze results in Google Forms. Free from Google.

12/04/2020

Seeing the Bigger Picture on Public Memorials to Women

Did you see Prof. Sonja Drimmer's last piece on the #MeToo Medusa? Looking for another piece on monuments? Or just need something to read this weekend? Check out Prof. Drimmer's newest op-ed for Hyperallergic here: https://hyperallergic.com/601877/seeing-the-bigger-picture-on-public-memorials-to-women/

Recent works, including monuments to Mary Wollstonecraft and Medusa, demonstrate that it’s not that women have a problem with public monuments; it’s that public monuments have a problem with us.

11/24/2020

Alumni News Intake

Attention all alumni! We are in the middle of preparing our next departmental newsletter, and we would love to share news from you all! If you have any news, updates, or highlights you would like to share with the alumni community, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/Tj5hSgzPS1pT1kwh9

We will be taking responses until Friday, December 4, 2020, so you have plenty of time!

Many greetings from Amherst! All of us here very much hope that you and your family are surviving these very difficult times as well as can be expected. The Department of History of Art and Architecture is now conducting all classes and other business remotely, and we expect to continue in this mode...

11/10/2020

Join us this Thursday, November 12 from 5:30-7:30 PM EST for Success Stories!

Join at https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/96037201290?pwd=L2RZcjhyZVppeXRDSlNkbU56V1MwQT09

11/04/2020

The Medusa #MeToo Monument Doesn’t Serve Sexual Assault Survivors

Check out Prof. Sonja Drimmer's article about the New York Park Commission's Medusa sculpture, co-authored with Erin Thompson.

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/medusa-metoo-sculpture-art-history

The statue embodies is the long historical pattern in which male competition plays out in the exploitation of female suffering.

10/21/2020

Professor Sonja Drimmer will be speaking at the Medieval Club of New York this Friday! Click here to learn more and to RSVP: https://www.umass.edu/arthistory/event/livery-badge-serviceable-object-service-economy

10/15/2020

Come see the department's Walter Denny this Wednesday, October 21 at 4PM!

More information here: https://www.umass.edu/arthistory/event/wedsat4denny
Register to attend here: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEudu2grzgpHdPlNb4_UbpHtWwzYn7GU-Lf

09/30/2020

Join our department's own Ximena Gómez on Monday, October 5th via Zoom in conversation with Martha Fuentes-Bautista!

09/14/2020

Did you miss our very own Christine I. Ho and Karen Kurczynski in their recent CHI Salon, Constellations of Modernism: Writing New Art Histories?

Worry not! The event's recording is posted here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15o2SjSIOI0oiWU2Pr5a1TYxygQQn7ORi/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again to all the wonderful speakers!

09/02/2020

To kick the semester off, we are excited to invite everyone to attend Constellations of Modernism: Writing New Art Histories!

Join us over Zoom on Wednesday, September 9, at 4:30pm
for conversations with Niko Vicario, Karen Kurczynski, Christine I. Ho, and Alex Dika Seggerman via Amherst College's Center for Humanistic Inquiry!

This CHI salon brings together art historians teaching or who have previously taught at the five colleges whose recently published books explore modern art from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Through brief presentations and conversation, these authors will reflect on how to write the history of modern art from multiple locations.

Niko Vicario is an assistant professor of art and the history of art at Amherst College and author of Hemispheric Integration: Materiality, Mobility, and the Making of Latin American Art (University of California Press, 2020).

Karen Kurczynski is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of The Art and Politics of Asger Jorn: The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up (Routledge, 2014) and Reanimating Art: The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe (Routledge, 2020), and curator of the exhibitions Human Animals: The Art of Cobra (UMCA and NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, 2016) and Expo Jorn: Art is a Festival (co-curated with Karen Friis Herbsleb, Museum Jorn, 2014).

Christine I. Ho is Associate Professor in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and author of Drawing From Life: Sketching and Socialist Realism in the People’s Republic of China (University of California, 2020).

Alex Dika Seggerman is Assistant Professor of Art History at Rutgers University-Newark, and author of Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt between the Islamic and the Contemporary (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).

Cosponsored by the Center for Humanistic Inquiry and the Arts at Amherst Initiative.

Find out more at the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/327391135072489

Register to attend here: https://forms.gle/hqHMMMtNyFtYCTUL6

05/18/2020

Check out this great virtual experience from the RISD Museum!

Join us for a virtual gallery talk and poetry reading on Thursday May 21, 6:30-8:15pm stemming from upcoming exhibition, It Comes in Many Forms: Islamic Art from the Collection(https://bit.ly/2AxFGlE), which explores the diversity of Islamic art around the world and across centuries. Following the digital tour with Tayana Fincher, Nancy Prophet Fellow in Costume and Textiles, enjoy a poetry reading by local creatives in the Muslim diaspora.

Indian, Marwar, Equestrian Portrait of a Raja, Gift of Catherine and Ralph Benkaim

05/15/2020

Congratulations to our Department Assistant Regina Bortone de Sá on receiving the Distinguished Graduate Staff Award! 👏 Read more here: https://www.umass.edu/arthistory/news/regina-bortone-de-s%C3%A1-wins-distinguished-graduate-staff-award

05/15/2020

Solar farms, power stations and water treatment plants can be attractions instead of eyesores

Check out this new article by Professor Meg Vickery on the intertwined history of infrastructure, nature, and aesthetics! 🌿

Are facilities that produce necessities like energy and clean water doomed to be ugly? Not when artists and landscape architects help design them.

05/13/2020

On Monday May 11th, graduate students and faculty held a virtual toast to celebrate the end of the year and cheer on members of the graduating cohort! Congrats everyone! 🎓

05/12/2020

University Museum of Contemporary Art

We are saddened to note the passing of Avital Sagalyn. The UMCA was proud to host her first-ever museum exhibition in the fall of 2019, and our staff became friendly with Avital and her family. Our love and condolences go to Michelle, Adine, and Dan Sagalyn, and their entire family. Avital, a longtime Amherst resident, died peacefully at home with her family around her.
This photo, taken at the exhibition opening in October, shows Avital with UMass Art History students Natalie Richards (’20), Elizabeth Filshtinsky (’19), and Nicholas Fernacz (’20), who co-curated the exhibition “Avital Sagalyn: A Life of Exploration.” Photos by Ben Barnhart.

05/12/2020

Working on Your Quarantine #BeardGoals? Here's Some Masterful Facial Hair From Art History to Inspire You | artnet News

In case you're running out of ways to keep yourself busy...

From Michelangelo's Moses to Ingres's Jupiter, here's some truly mythical facial hair from art history, to inspire your quarantine beard.

05/11/2020

Even though the semester has ended, graduate students are continuing to plan for next year's Mark Roskill Symposium! Here's a screenshot from last week's Zoom planning session. Stay tuned for more news! 🌱
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#arthistory #umass #umassamherst #symposium #graduateschool

05/09/2020

Will Coronavirus Forever Change the Chemical Compositions of Artworks?

An interesting look into the conservational side of artwork, and the impacts pandemics can have on the objects themselves:

The Art Institute of Chicago’s head of conservation discusses how to sanitize galleries and keep artworks safe.

05/08/2020

Congratulations to our graduating seniors, and to everyone finishing up the semester! 👏 Be proud of yourself for all the work you've done, especially in these difficult times.
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#umass #umassamherst #arthistory #graduation #commencement

05/06/2020

Missing museums? Us too. We're looking forward to the future where we can all be like Natalie Richards BA '19, pictured here enjoying the "Van Gogh for All" exhibition at the Springfield Museums last semester!

05/05/2020

The Yorkshire Museum

Looking for a laugh? Check out this Twitter Thread of museums taking part on the Yorkshire Museum's #CuratorBattle for the #SassiestObject! Did your favorite museum participate?

If you have Twitter - our curator battle has just kicked off for #SassiestObject!

"IT'S TIME FOR #CURATORBATTLE💥This week’s theme is #SassiestObject!✨

We're starting with this bust of Emperor Constantine The Great. He won the throne, reunited the #Roman empire, AND named a city after himself.

It's even in his name. He knows he's worth it.

CAN YOU BEAT IT?"

Check it out now > https://twitter.com/YorkshireMuseum/status/1253606632673738752?s=20

05/04/2020

With the academic year coming to a close, let's reflect on some great moments of the year as well as celebrate our graduating seniors! Pictured here at the opening of the exhibition "Architecture Across the Globe: The Photographs of Walter Denny" are curators Sarah Hurtig, Nicolette Joma, and Julia Bender. 👏
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#arthistory #seniors #architecture #photography #umass #umassamherst

04/30/2020

The Clark

Watch the video linked here to see graduate alumna Keely Kempster Sarr MA '19 take part in The Clark's new virtual programming, Clark Connects!

Keely Kempster Sarr, Coordinator of Family and Community Programs, tells the story of The Chariot of Aurora, painted by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Chariot of Aurora, c. 1734, oil on canvas. The Clark, 1955.876: https://bit.ly/3eotR0E

04/29/2020

With Flying Colors

"Horace Pippin, American Modern" by Anne Monahan MA '98 has recently been reviewed by the New York Review of Books! 📚 Click the link here to read more about the book, and the related exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

There is nothing ‘naive’ about Horace Pippin’s art.

04/27/2020

Take some time away from the stress of the last week of classes and check this out!

The end of the year is almost here! With finals coming up, find some time to unwind. #ThisWeek at the UMCA, discover our Online Project Space, a showcase for a variety of Art History classes. You can also visit the online exhibition “Circles, Triangles and Squares: Revisiting Abstraction,” curated by Kim Carlino. Find both exciting features on the UMCA website.
#museumfromhome #MuseSocial #UMCA #WhyILoveMuseums #MuseumExhibition #ArtCanHelp #UMCAFromHome #SCERF
(🖼: Papo Colo “Ecstasy,” Le Gamin’s “Boy With A Dog,” and Sean Green’s “Light Fraction.”

04/24/2020

Sonja Drimmer, “Wars of the Roses and the Court of Public Opinion”

A recent episode of the National Humanities Center's podcast, Discovery and Inspiration, featured our own Associate Professor Sonja Drimmer! Follow this link to listen to her talk about her research in "Wars of the Roses and the Court of Public Opinion".

The 15th-century Wars of the Roses between Yorkist and Lancastrian factions often summon images of royal intrigue and courtly splendor. Whether it is one of Shakespeare’s plays or a more scholarly acc

04/24/2020

Kotaku

Another reason to study art: to catch virtual forgeries in your favorite video games!

Who does this guy think he is, Larry Gagosian?

04/23/2020

The Clark

While the museums are closed, look to social media for new ways to connect with the art around you! The Clark has been sharing lectures on their YouTube channel, take a look:

It’s Tuesday night, and that means it’s time for another Research and Academic Program lecture! Enjoy this fascinating talk from 2015 Beinecke Fellow Spyros Papapetros on “The Prearchitectonic Condition: Architecture Before Architecture.”

04/21/2020

University Museum of Contemporary Art

Help UMass students in need with the MinuteFund’s Student Care and Emergency Response Fund (SCERF). This is a very tough time for many UMass students. Even when financial aid covers tuition expenses, students are often left to cover the cost of other necessities. Many students work to cover living expenses, but living on a tight budget or encountering unforeseen expenses can threaten their ability to remain in school and graduate. Plus, many students are currently seeing a loss of income due to the pandemic. This situation may push students into economically precarious circumstances and many students will be forced to make difficult choices that could derail their student goals of earning a university degree. Anyone wishing to support students who may need financial assistance to weather these changes may do so through https://minutefund.umass.edu/project/20457.
#museumfromhome #MuseSocial #UMCA #WhyILoveMuseums #MuseumExhibition #ArtCanHelp #UMCAFromHome #SCERF

04/16/2020

Congrats to Nicholas Fernacz BA ‘19, whose paper "The Theatrics of Place: 18th c. Fantasy and George III at the Great Pagoda at Kew" is being published in this year’s coming edition of the UMass Undergraduate History Journal! 👏 Read more on our website: https://www.umass.edu/arthistory/news/nicholas-fernacz-ba-%E2%80%9819-paper-be-published-2020-umass-undergraduate-history-journal
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Image credit: Heinrich Josef Schütz, A View in Kew Gardens of the Alhambra and the Pagoda, 1813, aquatint with watercolor, 35.9 x 43.8 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY.
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#umass #umassamherst #arthistory #undergraduatehistoryjournal

04/15/2020

Kara Walker’s Tate Modern Fountain to Be Taken Apart and Recycled

How are artists and museums adapting to closings due to COVID-19? Here's a look into how Kara Walker and the Tate Modern are working through it:

The artist had expressed hope that the monumental installation might live on in some form, but it will not.

04/13/2020

Newsletters | History of Art and Architecture | UMass Amherst

Now available on our website: the annual department Newsletter! Follow this link and click "Spring 2020" to read the latest updates from faculty, alumni, and current students.

The Department of the History of Art and Architecture's annual Newsletter includes information on the activity of the department, current students, and alumni. Learn more by accessing current and previous newsletters as a PDF below.

04/10/2020

Check out this great feature!

Happy #FeatureFriday! As the weather gets warmer, we hope everyone is enjoying time outside. “On the Road from Artifacts at the End of a Decade” is a 1980 collage by the makers Visual Energy (April Greiman and Jayme Odgers). How do you imagine your “on the road” trip?
#museumfromhome #MuseSocial #UMCA #WhyILoveMuseums #ArtsExtensionService #MuseumExhibition #ArtCanHelp #UMCAFromHome