"Conversation" now online!

On April 18, 2009, the UIMA invited donors and interested members of the public and UI community to attend a "Conversation about the Future of the UI Museum of Art" with UI President Sally Mason, Executive Vice President and Provost Wallace Loh, Senior Vice President and University Treasurer Doug True, and UI Foundation President and CEO Lynette Marshall.

We understand that some of you may not have been able to attend the event. If you are interested, you may visit the UIMA website to read more about the event and download the handout for the day, a typed transcript of the event, or an MP3 recording.

--Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

A couple random things: Michelle Obama's Speech on the Arts and Marcel Duchamp

The First Lady gave this speech a while back, but I just recently re-found the text of the speech on Lee Rosenbaum's blog.

I particularly like this quote: "From the beginning of our nation, the inspired works of our artists and artisans have reflected the ingenuity, creativity, independence and beauty of this nation. It is the painter, the potter, the weaver, the silversmith, the architect, the designer whose work continues to create an identity for America that is respected and recognized around the world as distinctive and new."

Also, just read about this exhibition on Marcel Duchamp and chess at the St. Louis University Museum of Art.* Sounds awesome! I hope to get a chance to go this summer. I'm huge Duchamp fan. Did you know that the UIMA has a work by him commonly called Boit-en-valise (pictured)? It has mini-versions of a lot of his other works in a little suitcase. Word is it will be on display in the UIMA's Richey Ballroom Gallery when it opens in the fall...

--Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

* A previous version of this post mistakenly listed the Duchamp exhibition as occurring at the St. Louis Art Museum.

UIMA Volunteer Reception

We here at the UIMA are incredibly gratefully to our volunteers, who spend hours helping us plan events, lead school tours, and much more! So, last Wednesday we hosted a gathering to honor those volunteers at the Iowa Memorial Union's South Room.
Seen here are Alan Swanson, who serves on the UIMA Members Council, Pamela White, UIMA Interim Director, and Barbara Eckstein, UI Interim Associate Provost for Academic Administration. More photos from the event are available on the UIMA Facebook page (search for Iowa Art to add us as a friend!), and will soon be posted on flickr (I'd do it now, but I've exceeded my monthy limit...)

--Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

Des Moines Register article

Michael Morain has a great article featuring the UIMA in this past Sunday's Des Moines Register. Make sure you check out the photographs on the right side.

Lee Rosenbaum has also been busy blogging over at Culture Grrl about her visit to the Midwest. For those of you who missed her lecture on daccessioning, look for a video posted to this blog sometime tomorrow!

--Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

e-newsletter note

If you're on our e-newsletter list, you may have noticed its abscense from your mailbox the past few weeks. We've run into some technical difficulties -- apparently, our header images have disappeared into cyber-space somehow, and we're on a mission to recover them. I hope to find them soon and get an e-newsletter out next week. Thanks for your patience!

--Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

Museum 2.0 blog

Drew Schiller, who's on the UIMA Members Council, recommended I check out this blog, Museum 2.0, by Nina Simon. I really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd pass it along. I thought this post on the intersection of physical museums and their new media technology was really interesting. After begin inspired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art's online efforts and a speech by director Max Anderson, Simon says she was disappointed to find the museum itself was, well, like any other museum. "I felt like I had met someone online, someone sexy and open and intriguing, and then on our first date that mystery museum turned out to be just like all the others," she says.

For the UIMA, the problem of cyber-space existence and physical existence is further complicated by our lack of a discreet museum building of our own. So our website, in many ways, becomes even more important: as a resource for scholars looking to learn about our collections and especially as a go-to place for updated information on where those collections are physically located at this time, how to access them, and where to go for events. But an online museum is never going to be a replacement for the real thing...What do you think? Have you ever experienced what Simon was talking about -- loving something online and then hating it in real life? What about the opposite -- a wonderful thing in person that had a disappointing online precence? What things do you like to see online? What things really annoy you?

-- Maggie Anderson, UIMA Marketing and Media Manager

Video feature: "A Legacy for Iowa"

Here it is! I've been busy here at the UIMA learning how to use our new video technology. I'm excited to post the first video, a feature of the Museum's exhibit "A Legacy for Iowa: Pollock's 'Mural' and Modern Masterworks from the University of Iowa Museum of Art" on display now until August 2, 2009 at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa. These shots were taken at the exhibit opening on April 19. If you haven't seen the exhibit yet, hopefully this will motivate you to head over there and see it yourself!

As we add more videos, you'll be able to see them all on the UIMA's YouTube channel. We'll also be adding a special place on the UIMA website for you to find them, as well as uploading them to the UIMA Facebook page and onto the Art Matters blog.

Over the summer, we plan on posting more video features on the exhibit, including spotlights on many of the paintings. Also, we'll be posting a highlight video from Lee Rosenbaum's talk soon!

--Claire Lekwa, UIMA Marketing and Media Intern