See the witty comedy "Off the Map" at
the Purple Rose Theatre, 137 Park St A R TSWWednsday
Sat. with matinees at 3 p.m. Sat. and 2
p.m. Sun. Tickets are $10-$20. June 18, 1997
Art museum exhibits contribute to local cultural life
By Anitha Chalam and
Anna Kovalszki
Daily Arts Writers
Art. Three letters, a thousand possi-
bilities. And here in Ann Arbor, now as
well as in coming months, those who
dare can experience every possibility.
One place to begin is the School of
Art. It is sponsoring a faculty show
titled, "Artists Teaching Art: Works by
the University of Michigan Art
Faculty," through mid-August at the
University Museum of Art. It gives
students who are unfamiliar with the
art school a chance to see the creative
geniuses who teach there. As exhibi-
tions go, this show is particularly
interesting, as diverse in media as it is
in subject matter. From paintings, to
sculptures, to movies, to talking
chairs, this show is unprecedented in
the amount of variety on display.
The faculty show is just one of a
few'special exhibitions going on right
now at the Museum. Currently on dis-
play on the main floor are two more
exhibits: "The Museum Collects:
20th-Century Works on Paper II," a
small but interesting show, and
"Through the Looking Glass:
Sculpture by Fred Sandback," a work
in string, affectionately dubbed "the
invisible installation." True enough,
the thin yarn used by Sandback cre-
s- ates a subtle effect as he outlines the
planes of the apse walls, but the con-
cept of defining planar space can be
appreciated. Both the Sandback instal-
lation as well as the 20th-century
works on paper shows can be seen
through September.
Special exhibitions run for approxi-
mately two months at a time, and there
are 13 temporary shows each calendar
year. For the upcoming year, exhibi-
tions have already been planned. Of
particular interest are two displays.
First is the Lannan Foundation exhibi-
tion, which commences at the end of
a June. The Museum of Art was recently
offered a number of works, which
arrived in mid-May, from an organiza-
tion in California. The artists included
in this aift all vimnrtanidt aditions
to the Museum's already significant
collection, second largest in the state
of Michigan, and include everything
from small prints to large outdoor
sculptures.
But of greater interest, perhaps, is
the Monet exhibition planned for
January 1998. This exhibition centers
around the painting by the
Impressionist artist Claude Monet,
which hangs on the main floor, "The
Breaking Up of the Ice, Vetheuil." The
date of this painting denotes a critical
time in the life of the artist, one
plagued by depression over the death
of his wife as well as his lack of suc-
cess in the art world. It is also the peri-
od in which Monet begins to paint in
series. The show will include 12 paint-
ings from the Museum's permanent
collection, as well as 11 more, which
will come from museums around the
world.
For those who come into the
Museum and wonder where the
ancient Greek and Roman art resides,
the answer lies across the street, at the
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Since
many of these
pieces have
been recovered Art. Three
from site exca-
vations, they a tousai
are equally as
suited to a p sb t
museum of
archaeology as
to one of art.
Though much smaller than the
Museum of Art, the Kelsey Museum
also boasts an impressive collection.
Currently on temporary display is an
Egyptian exhibition focusing on gen-
der, as informative as it is beautiful.
The display complements the larger
Egyptian collection, as well as the
other permanent gallery, which fea-
tures reliefs and statues from the
ancient western world. This Egyptian
exhibit, aptly titled "Death in Ancient
Egypt - Preserving Eternity," pro-
vides visual experiences from this
ancient civilization in the form of jew-
elrv a coffin and a mummy of a voung
child, as well as ancient reliefs with
hieroglyphic writings and everyday
artifacts.
A smaller exhibit, titled "A Taste of
the Ancient World," shows food prod-
ucts and objects from the small agri-
cultural community of Karanis in
Roman Egypt, which dates back to
the 1Ist-5th century AD. "A Taste of
the Ancient World" was organized by
undergraduate students in the spirit of
the fall 1996 LSA theme semester,
"Food." The show contains vessels as
well as food, such as cardamom seeds.
The Karanis excavation is of particu-
lar significance for the Kelsey
Museum, as it was headed in 1924-35
by Francis Kelsey, the professor of
Latin for whom the museum is
named.
A noteworthy upcoming Kelsey
exhibition is the "Sepphoris in
Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture"
show, which opens in early September
and runs through the fall semester.
The exhibition, which is organized by
the North Carolina Museum of Art,
will be jointly run with the
University's own
art museum, and
will highlight
works discov-
ered at the
Zippori archaeo-
logical site in
Israel, which
was once a pros-
perous city
where people of varied religious
backgrounds lived peacefully. The
display will- include jewelry, coins,
ritual and secular objects, and archi-
tectural fragments, including a large
mosaic. The exhibition will feature
maps and models, as well as a video
and interactive computer program. In
addition, the Kelsey will showcase a
related exhibition of photos, note-
books and objects from the
University's own excavation of the
Sepphoris site in the 1930s.
Of course, art isn't limited to muse-
ums. As stated, there are a thousand
nossibilities. and Ann Arbor has
i
s
explored many of them. For example,
by taking a walk around campus on a
nice day, students can view the
University's impressive collection of
public sculpture, including the Raoul
Wallenberg memorial near Rackham.
North Campus, in particular, is rich
with a variety of interesting sculpture,
including "Wave Field" by Vietnam
Memorial artist Maya Lin. In addition,
there are a number of galleries and
cafes around town that display the
work of local artists, such as
University Museum of Art proprietor
Mark Nielsen. Nielsen's own show,
"Me and Robert Wood at Uncle Art's
Jazz Cafe,' opened June 13 at the
Matrix Gallery on Miller Avenue.
Art-related movies play once a week
(twice a week in the fall) at the art
museum. And who can ignore the Ann
Arbor Art Fair, which runs this year
from July 16 to 19? Some say the Art
Fair is more about crafts than art, and
many students remark that it is one of
the most annoying times of the year,
because it usually coincides with sum-
mer class midterms. But these same
students are also forced to admit that
there is always something interesting
to see, and that there are usually good
sales at many of the campus-area
stores.
In the spirit of technology, art can
also be accessed online. Both the
University Art Museum and the
Kelsey Museum have their own web
sites (www.umich.edu/-umma and
wwtsw.umich.edu/-kelseydb, respec-
tively), and a little surfing yields a
number of other art-abundant sites
well.
For those with cars, or those who
can con their friends into driving them,
nearby Detroit offers its Institute of
Arts, the fifth-largest museum in the
country, which has an amazing collec-
tion and an awful lot of space in which
to display it. The museum is bigger
than campus galleries, and thus its
shows, such as its upcoming
"Splendors of Ancient Egypt," w h
runs from July 16 to January 4 of Wt
year, are larger. This Egyptian show is
extremely important, as it is the first
display of its kind to come to a
Midwestern venue since the King Tut
exhibition in the '70s. The show will
take place in 18 galleries, in more than
19,000 sq. ft. of gallery space, and will
include mummy cases, jewelry, wall
carvings and ceramics.
Though the Detroit Institute of As
is impressive, what's on campus is
ily accessible for the automotively
challenged. The art in Ann Arbor may
not be the be all, end all, for art as we
know it, but hey, it's pretty impressive.
All you gotta do is open your eyes and
look.
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