The Grapevine

JOB: Chief Curator (including African American Art collection), University Museums @ University of Delaware

Deadline:  March 1, 2017

Pay Grade: 32E

Reporting to the Director of Special Collections and Museums, the Chief Curator performs the following responsibilities:

  • Envision and implement an innovative exhibition program that supports the university’s educational mission and curriculum and enhances the University of Delaware’s standing as a cultural center. Collaborate with the Director and members of the Special Collections staff in development of long-range exhibition plan. Develop and oversee exhibition budgets.
  • Identify and recommend realizable exhibition ideas. Curate exhibitions for Old College Gallery and Mechanical Hall Gallery, and manage curatorial efforts of faculty, graduate students, museums staff, guest curators as well as incoming exhibitions. Oversee installation design and successful implementation.
  • Ensure excellent program communications. Write and edit a range of texts in conjunction with exhibitions, including but not limited to essays, labels, promotional texts and grant proposals. Oversee all exhibition publications, both print and electronic.
  • Identify area collectors and donor prospects and funding opportunities and develop relationships beneficial to the museums.
  • Provide leadership for University Museums department including supervision of 3.5 FTE positions and participation on the Library Management Council

Qualifications: 

  • Ph.D. in art history or related field and a minimum of five years curatorial experience in a museum setting or a master’s degree in art history or related field with 8 or more years curatorial experience in a museum setting.
  • Subject expertise and curatorial experience related to the strengths of the collection:  American art, 1900 to the present (including African American art); photography, prints and drawings
  • Substantial experience providing leadership and supervision.
  • Demonstrated creativity and success in presenting diverse collections of art in a manner that engages students and supports the curriculum.
  • Proven experience as a team leader with excellent interpersonal skills.
  • Highly developed organizational skills with ability to work independently and as part of a team.
  • Outstanding oral and written communications skills.
  • Desire to work with and engage students, faculty, donors, and members of the public.
  • Familiarity with Past Perfect and WordPress preferred

General Information:

The recent merger of Special Collections and Museums at the University of Delaware Library brought together diverse collection of art, with special strengths in American art of the 20th century (especially prints, photographs and work by African American artists), European prints, Inuit art, Pre-Columbian art and minerals, with books, manuscripts, broadsides, periodicals, pamphlets, maps and ephemera from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Art exhibitions in Old College Gallery and Mechanical Hall Gallery, mineralogical exhibitions in Penny Hall, and exhibitions in the Morris Library engage students, scholars, the UD community and the general public. Collaborative initiatives and programming with students, faculty and departments across campus foster diversity and enhance interdisciplinary research and teaching. Additional information about Special Collections and Museums is available online at: http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/ and http://www.udel.edu/museums.

To Apply: Include cover letter and resume, along with the names and contact information of three employment references, in a single document, following University of Delaware application instructions at http://www.udel.edu/udjobs/.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Employment offers will be conditioned upon successful completion of a criminal background check. A conviction will not necessarily exclude you from employment. The University of Delaware is an Equal Opportunity Employer which encourages applications from Minority Group Members and Women. The University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination can be found at http://www.udel.edu/aboutus/legalnotices.html

How Ya Like Me Now?

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Last week The Guardian reported on this ridiculously dumb blunder (a euphemism for what it really was).

Richard Dyer, more than twenty years ago, wrote about the position of whiteness as the norm, and this incident reminds us that theories trickle down at variable rates.

Hard not to think of David Hammons’ bitingly incisive  How Ya Like Me Now? (1988), a piece that generated its own complicated response. As is the case with so many Hammons’ projects, How Ya Like Me Now?  seems to speak to our moment, too.

CFP: 4th International Colloquium on Latinos in the US — Abstracts due Jul. 19, 2017

Casa de las Américas (Havana, Cuba) will be the site for a meeting (Oct. 16-20, 2017) focused on the theme “Socialization of Latinos in the United States: Education, Religion and Mass Media.”

The meeting intends to produce a thorough debate regarding the socialization processes that influence the relationships between migrants and their children in American society.

Participants will reflect on the perspectives Latinos in the United States as social subjects immersed in new socialization spaces that create formal educational processes that constitute breakpoints in the establishment of American society while being at the same time participants of informal processes that are substantiated by other socializing agents such as religions and their institutions; and the media and social networks on the Internet. Music and sports are areas that we also want to highlight in order to make them objects of analysis.

 

The Colloquium, consistent with the goals of previous meetings, will create a space of action with the presence of people of Latin American and Caribbean origins who are linked to the arts, literature and social sciences and humanities.

The following are proposed as central themes:

  1. Socialization of Latinos in the United States.
  2. Educative processes for Latinos in the United States as it relates to undocumented students and informal educational spaces.
  3. Public sphere, image and representation of Latinos in mass media.
  4. Music and socialization.
  5. Religions and their institutions as spaces for socialization of Latinos in the United States.

In addition, one of the working sessions will be dedicated to discussion of the history of Cuban emigration to the United States, the insertion of Cubans and Cuban Americans in the Latino communities, and the influence of the new scenarios in Cuba-U.S. relations. Furthermore, tribute will be paid to the life and work of the Cuban artist Ana Mendieta.

ABSTRACTS AND PAPERS

Scholars interested in taking part in the Colloquium may submit individual papers or panels. In either case, the following guidelines should be followed:

  • An abstract of no more than 250 words should be submitted before July 20th, 2017 with the title and name of the author and institution of origin.
  • The conference papers will not exceed 15 pages (double-spaced) which is equivalent to 20 minutes of oral reading.
  • Participants should bring along with the printed text of their presentations, making use of the international standards for notes, citation and bibliography, and the original text in digital format on a flash memory drive or a CD- ROM.RECOMMENDATIONS

    To facilitate your transfer and stay in Cuba, please contact your travel agent or:

    CASA DE LAS AMÉRICAS
    3a y G, El Vedado, La Habana, 10 400, Cuba,
    Telephone: (537) 838-2706/09, ext. 129. Fax: (537) 834-4554

    Emails: latinos@casa.cult.cu; http://www.casadelasamericas.org

 

Instruccíon en español

 

 

Opportunity for Historians of 19th and early 20th-century African American Architecture and Material Culture and Louisiana History and Culture

Betty Reid Soskin is the granddaughter of Louis Charbonnet (1869-1924), architect and builder of Corpus Christi Church and School in New Orleans.  Ms. Soskin has information and memorabilia about her grandfather that she would like to share with reputable researchers of 19th and early 20th-century African American architecture and material culture, and/or Louisiana history and culture.

Initially, a creator of ornamental iron work, Louis Charbonnet became an engineer, inventor and millwright.  His New Orleans business establishment dates to 1893.  After St. Louis School was destroyed in a 1915 storm, Charbonnet drew plans for its reconstruction and supervised the project.

To learn more, contact Ms. Soskin cbreaux@earthlink.net

Also see Betty Reid Soskin’s blog!

louischarbonnetsr

Photo of Louis Charbonnet Sr. at “The Charbonnets” homepage

New ACRAH website feature!

The Association of Critical Race Art History (ACRAH) is excited to announce a new feature on our website: a bibliographic resource devoted to issues of race, ethnicity, art, and visual culture. Please visit Bibliographies to view.

In conjunction with the launch of this resource, a series of reading groups are being organized in New York, the Bay Area, Washington D.C., and Boston. The primary purpose of these groups are to give area scholars an opportunity to discuss key texts pertaining to the visualization and representation of races and the project of racialization in art and visual culture. If you are interested in participating in an established group, or would like to start a group in your area, please visit Reading Groups for additional information.

 

 

 

 

REF: Portrait of Aubré Maynard by Yun Gee

In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, the Museum of the City of New York is exhibiting a portrait of Dr. Aubré de Lambert Maynard, by artist Yun Gee. Dr. Maynard is best remembered today for his role in helping to save Dr. King life’s after an assassination attempt in […]

via Profiles in Freedom: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Dr. Aubre Maynard, and Yun Gee — MCNY Blog: New York Stories

FEL: Appel Fellowship @ Delaware Art Museum

Delaware Art Museum Appel Fellowship for 2017

The Delaware Art Museum is pleased to announce the project for the 2017 paid Alfred Appel, Jr., Curatorial Fellowship. The fellowship pays $3,500 for approximately two months of work, on site, at the Museum to be served between April and September 2017. The application is due March 1, 2017.

For details, please see our website: http://www.delart.org/about/opportunities/#fellowship.

The 2017 Appel Curatorial Fellow will assist in the planning and development of three exhibitions that focus on documenting the Civil Rights Movement. The trio of exhibitions will be on view in the summer of 2018 to mark the 50th anniversary of the riots and occupation of Wilmington, Delaware, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Museum will be hosting an exhibition of Danny Lyons’ photographs for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (1963–64). A second exhibition features drawings of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1956) by Harvey Dinnerstein and Burton Silverman. In addition, the museum is commissioning a contemporary artist to work with images of the 1968 riots in Wilmington.

The Appel Curatorial Fellow will work closely with Margaret Winslow, Curator of Contemporary Art, and Heather Campbell Coyle, Chief Curator and Curator of American Art.

The Great Man in “Patriots Day”

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I’ve been interested in response to Patriots Day, which I’ve not yet seen. Separate from the New York Times review by Glenn Kenny, a feature penned by the Times’ New England Bureau Chief Katharine Q. Seeyle offers the sense that Bostonians have their criticisms of the movie. Among them is the composite character played by Mark Wahlberg. To me, this popular response registers as a critique of the Great Man theory, a notion that’s been under scrutiny in Europe and North America since the nineteenth century.

Wahlberg’s image is being used to promote Patriots Day and this conceptual image is as well. The latter deserves more study than I can give it here. But, as we start a new academic semester this week and next, maybe this ad would be a good one to give to students of visual cultural studies.

CFP: Art of the Latinx Diaspora @ Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies (JOLLAS)

CFP: Art of the Latinx Diaspora

Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2018

The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies (JOLLAS) seeks contributions for a special issue on the Art of the Latinx Diaspora. All media, periods and geographies are eligible, and contributors are encouraged to think broadly and innovatively about the ways in which the Latinx diaspora and its cultural production are framed. Scholarship from all art-related disciplines, including Art History, Curatorial Studies, Art Education, etc. is welcome. Technical and quantitative methodologies are invited.

Interested parties are asked to submit a full draft manuscript (10-20 pages in length, notes and images included), in MSWord compatible and PDF format to arduran[at]unomaha.edu by 15 March 2017. Submissions will be peer-reviewed.

For more information, please visit:
http://jollas.org
http://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/ollas/index.php

About JOLLAS:
The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies (JOLLAS) is an interdisciplinary, international, and peer reviewed on-line journal housed at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The journal seeks to be reflective of the shifting demographics, geographic dispersion, and new community formations occurring among Latino populations across borders and throughout the Americas. The journal emphasizes the collective understanding of Latino issues in the U.S. while recognizing the growing importance of transnationalism and the porous borders of Latino/Latin American identities.
The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies welcomes quality scholarship from relevant academic disciplines as well as from practitioners in the private and public sectors. JOLLAS is receptive to scholarship coming from a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. All research should be understood and examined from a transnational perspective.

JOLLAS’ Mission:
To publish academically rigorous scholarship with real-world applicability to the understanding of Latino/Latin American peoples and critical issues.

All inquiries should be directed to Adrian R. Duran, Associate Professor, Art & Art History, University of Nebraska at Omaha, arduran@unomaha.edu

John W. Mosley’s Mid-20th Century Photos of Black Philadelphia 

Check out @hyperallergic’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/hyperallergic/status/813744006114971648?s=09