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Loved this exhibition!

As CMA’s Director, I frequently travel to meet with colleagues, preview exhibitions that will be coming to our own museum, and check out artists or shows that we’d like to bring to Columbus. It’s also great when I get to go to shows that have borrowed works from our collection. We lend more than 25 works a year to shows around the world (Ok, in all honesty, I only get to visit the works that are nearby. We lent a work to China this past year – no I didn’t get to go). One of the benefits of those “frequent flyer miles” is that I get the chance to experience an incredible range of exhibitions. One of my recent favorites is a fantastic tintype show that I toured at New York’s International Center of Photography.

It was fascinating to see the lowly tintype being treated as a serious art form. The pieces in the exhibition range from the very serious and staid to wild and quirky pieces reflecting an incredible sense of humor. Vernacular photography, that is, photographs created by both amateurs and commercial photographers who captured their own world, is a passion of mine.

I’ve collected cabinet cards, photographs usually taken by professional photographers and mounted on a card measuring 4 ¼ inches by 6 ½ inches, and who knows, maybe someday my collection will become part of the Museum’s collection. Cabinet cards offer a fascinating glimpse back in time. They, like the tintype before them, helped to democratize photography and portraiture.

For centuries, portraits were exclusively for the aristocracy and wealthy. They were used to commemorate moments in time, extol status and wealth, and sometimes even to secure a marriage contract. They were also expensive. In the nineteenth century, daguerreotypes, the earliest form of photography, sprang forth and forever changed the world of portraiture. Photographers, often traveling from town to town, set shop and everyone rushed to be the first to take part in this newfangled technology. Daguerreotypes, though not cheap, were inexpensive enough to allow for more people to have a portrait of themselves.

The daguerreotype produced only one “photo.” Technological advances led to the development, right here in Ohio I’d like to add, of the tintype, which was actually printed on iron, not tin. Introduced in 1856, the tintype, “provides a startlingly candid record of the political upheavals that occurred during the four decades following the American Civil War, and the personal anxieties they induced. The tintype studio became a kind of performance space where sitters could act out their personal identities, displaying the tools of their trade, masks and costumes, toys and dolls, and props of all sorts.” (From the ICP Press Release about America and the Tintype)

I encourage you to see this fascinating show.  If that’s not possible, be sure to stop in and check out the fantastic daguerreotypes in our Objects of Wonder from The Ohio State University.

In the aftermath of Ike

So, our big exhibition of the fall opens in just two days and our staff (especially the curators, registrars and preps) are working round the clock to make sure all is good to go. We lost three days of installation last week when Ike kindly decided to give us a shortened work week. I've been able to sneak a peek in Objects of Wonder from The Ohio State University and it is AMAZING. What started as an exhibition of about 400 objects (already huge) has grown to more than 600 (closer to 700 last I heard). My favorite thing thus far is the Wunderkammer room, you really have to see it to understand. Be sure to visit the web page to learn more about the exhibition.

So, what do Museum staffers do when they aren’t working???

They make great art of course! Take a look at some of the most recent submissions to the annual staff art show on view now in our Nationwide studio.

Busy, busy, busy

Obviously I haven't updated this blog in awhile, but it isn't for a lack of news here at CMA. We are busy preparing for our Objects of Wonder from The Ohio State University exhibition here this fall, gearing up for the Art Ball and Art Fusion and looking forward to the Paul Shambroom, Murray Jones, and Tim Lewis exhibitions also happening in a few months, whew!

Anyhow, Objects of Wonder, truly, it's like getting to nose through your neighbors house and finding all the fun, quirky, interesting things they've tucked away for generations. Only this neighbor has more than 300 different collections and WOW! Besides a giant, fossilized, "man-eating" clam, we're also going to have Woody Hayes'  film projector and John Glenn's flight manual from his space voyage, Archie Griffin's Heisman, a beautiful wedding gown made from a German parachute, and more than 450 other objects whose stories will intrigue and amaze you.

Be sure to check back for more information, I promise to update...

Musings from Chile

Merilee Mostov, CMA's Manager for Creative Initiatives, recently spent one week in Chile as part of a cultural arts exchange through the Ohio Arts Council’s International Program. As an arts educator at the Columbus Museum of Art, she was asked to work with the directors and programming staff of Teatro del Lago, a new cultural and educational performing arts center in Frutillar, a lakeside town in southern Chile. She spent one week touring schools, galleries, and libraries in the region to better understand the role of the arts in this region. She and the staff shared ideas and worked to develop arts educational strategies that will be implemented through Teatro del Lago. Merilee shares some thoughts from her trip below:

Always go left and look down. Those are the two most important things I learned while visiting Chile last week during a cultural exchange sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council. My pre-trip Google searches and stacks of guidebooks on Chile did not prepare me for the most important rule in Chile -- the “Go Left Rule”. The “Go Left Rule” goes like this -- when greeting anyone - friend, business acquaintance, or relative -- lean in to your left, brush right cheeks and give a swift air kiss. I knew I was going to like the Chilean people after my first one-sided greeting. In France, I’m never quite sure how many cheeks it will take for a proper and polite greeting. Depending where you are in France it could take 2, 3 or even 4 cheeks before the greeting is over and I have whiplash. In Chile, it is simple and consistent. I like that.

The other thing I didn’t gather from my pre-trip reading was the “Look Down Rule”. The “Look Down Rule” means this -- always look down because you may trip over a stray dog or even worse-- the piles left by stray dogs. Stray dogs are everywhere in Chile – in the newer business districts of Santiago and in the quaint lake side villages of the south. In poor communities and wealthy communities. Stray dogs are curled up by park benches, under parked cars, outside your hotel room and under your table at an outdoor cafe. It is not unusual to see stray dogs walking confidently down city sidewalks. Where are they going? I wonder. The weird part is that the stray dogs are not mangy, undernourished, teeth-barring canines. They are mostly cute, docile and considerably plump. Who is feeding and bathing these creatures, I wonder? I admit that in one week I saw many signs that Chile is on the fast track to economic, political and cultural progress. But I believe that this beautiful country tucked in the Andes has got to clean up its stray dog crisis if it wants to be taken seriously by its neighbors up north. So, if any motivated young college students are looking for an alternative spring break project next year – head down to Chile please, and set up some dog shelters.