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First years enjoy a tour of the museum (photo: Jonathan Blake)
The Museum regularly issues press releases about current and upcoming exhibitions and programs as well as recent acquisitions, gifts, staff appointments, and other news. Below you’ll find a list of current and past news articles, while the links to the left will provide the latest information about the Museum’s programs as well as details on past news and events.
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The First Commandment for museumgoers — thou shalt not touch — has been suspended this week for 13 Middlebury College art-history students. They’re drawing with crayons on a wall of the college’s Museum of Art. What would usually be considered totally transgressive behavior is actually an essential act in regard to the centerpiece of a show titled “Linear Thinking: Sol LeWitt, Modern, Postmodern and Contemporary Art from the Collection.” The students in Middlebury professor Edward Vazquez’s course on minimalism are completing a LeWitt wall drawing in accordance with instructions from the artist’s estate. Read the full story in Seven Days.
“Looking at the photos, you might decide they reflect the scarring of a gorgeous landscape. You might also be struck by the sharp color and dramatic angles Burtynsky extracts from the quarries and tell yourself he’s not showing a scarring of the landscape, but instead he’s pulling back the curtain to reveal Vermont’s inner beauty. Stare at the photos long enough and you’ll probably bounce between those two views several times.” Read the full story in the Burlington Free Press.
Linear Thinking was conceived in conjunction with several spring courses in the History of Art and Architecture. It includes prints and one sculpture by artists in the museum’s collection as well as a temporary wall drawing by Sol LeWitt (1928–2007). LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #394, which was first conceived in 1983 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux in France, is on loan to the museum from the artist’s estate and will be installed during the week of February 25 by students in Professor Edward Vazquez’s course “Minimalism: Art, Objects, and Experience.”
In February the Middlebury College Museum of Art will open Nature Transformed, an exhibition which takes as its starting point a remarkable series of photographs by pioneering, internationally celebrated artist Edward Burtynsky. The show, which was previously mounted at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, will be on view through June 9.
On the occasion of this year’s national presidential election the Middlebury College Museum of Art has mounted an exhibit of twenty political cartoons—and one bronze sculpture—created by the noted political cartoonist Patrick Bruce “Pat” Oliphant (b.1935). The exhibit features ten caricatures, acquired by the museum in 2010 and never previously exhibited, which provide historical insight into issues that preoccupied Americans during the thirty-sixth through forty-third presidencies—i.e., from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush—as well as ten caricatures pertaining to the current election which are on loan from the artist himself.
In honor of the recent visit by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to Middlebury and to celebrate Vermont’s connection with Himalayan culture, Middlebury College is hosting an exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art. Contemporary Jewels: An Offering presents eleven works by five artists of Tibetan heritage—Tenzin Norbu, Dorje Sherpa, Tsherin Sherpa, Tenzing Rigdol, and Palden Weinreb—all of whom were granted residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson.
On September 13 the Middlebury College Museum of Art opens China Modern: Designing 20th Century Popular Culture, an in depth exploration of 20th century Chinese advertising images, mass media, graphic and product design that demonstrates how political ideologies and cultural values are transmitted through everyday objects.
The Middlebury College Museum of Art will reopen on Tuesday, September 4, with a fall exhibition highlighting three luminaries of American photography: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand, along with lesser-known artists in their circle. Camera Work: Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, and Company was organized for the museum by Charles A. Dana Professor of History of Art and Architecture Kirsten Hoving and students in her 2011 course “Camera Work: Alfred Stieglitz and Photography.”
As the Middlebury College Museum of Art approaches its twentieth anniversary, it has become apparent that portions of its original sprinkler system need to be replaced. Because this is a complicated process that affects numerous spaces, the museum will need to be closed for the entire summer beginning on May 14.
This February, responses to urban, natural, and economic environments by contemporary sub-Saharan African artists will be on view in a thought-provoking exhibition at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. From appropriated waste materials turned into site-specific installations and sculptures to eerily compelling photographs of ravaged and degraded environments, Environment and Object • Recent African Art will include works of art that scrutinize man-made environmental disasters, natural resource problems, deforestation, and other ecological issues.