News from Around the Art World: March 19, 2018
'She persisted': New Edgewood show celebrates women who made art anyway. For a new show in Edgewood College’s jewel box gallery, one woman simply took the art off her walls.
Sawkins is both the primary collector and the curator for “nevertheless, she persisted,” a show of prints made by contemporary female artists. It opens this week in The Stream, Edgewood’s fine arts building, with a reception on Friday. It will run through May 14, the end of Edgewood’s spring semester.
By Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times
Art Institute of Chicago Names Melinda Watt Chair and Curator of Textiles
Melinda Watt will be the new chair and curator of textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago.
At the Art Institute, Watt will oversee the museum’s holdings of more than 13,000 textiles and 66,000 sample swatches, which range from 300 B.C. until today. Among the collection’s focuses are Pre-Columbian textiles, 16th- and 17th-century English needlework, American quilts, and 20th-century fiber art.
BY Maximilíano Durón, ARTnews
Interview with Yesomi Umolu
Yesomi Umolu is interested in applying her multi-disciplinary expertise (with stops in architecture school, practice, and the elite contemporary art curatorial class) and globe-trotting personal and professional background to a biennial that speaks to an equally wide range of public audiences.
“The biennial is for and of the city of Chicago, as well as being a big international platform, so our ability to translate ideas to a broad range of publics is super important,” she says.
By Zach Mortice, Architectural Record
Masterpiece Rental: My Life in the ‘American Gothic’ House
Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”painting (and all of its parodies) may be legendary, but most people don’t realize that the little white farmhouse in the background is real — that it’s located in Eldon, Iowa (pop. 900), that it’s owned by the State Historical Society, and that, until recently, it was a private residence. There are only a handful of people who can say they’ve lived “inside” his masterpiece painting.
I am one of them. And it was a wild ride.
By Beth M. Howard, The New York Times
Arts-Focused Field Trips May Boost Standardized Test Scores, New Research Finds
Most people would probably say enjoying a colorful Matisse painting at a museum is the polar opposite of filling in test bubbles using a grey 2H pencil. But new research backed by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA suggests that frequent art-related field trips by students may actually be a catalyst for significantly higher standardized test scores in both English and math. The surprising connection runs counter to previous studies, which found engaging with the arts had little to no impact on academic performance in other subjects. The recent research, directed by University of Arkansas professor Jay P. Greene, followed two groups of randomly selected 4th and 5th graders. Students in the first group took three field trips to the Woodruff Art Center in Atlanta, while those in the other group only attended one.
By Eli Hill, Artsy Editorial