| The Snite Museum of Art takes great pride in collaborating on an important symposium in celebration of artist George Rickey--Abstraction in the Public Sphere: New Approaches, September 25 and 26, 2009. This conference is a collaborative project of the Snite Museum of Art; American Studies; and Art, Art History and Design. It is made possible by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame and the Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art.
The conference brings together a range of scholars to open up new perspectives on public abstract sculpture. The event is held in the Snite Museum’s Annenberg Auditorium and keynote speakers include Nan Rosenthal, author of George Rickey and former senior consultant for Modern and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and curator of 20th-century art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Mary Miss, world-acclaimed artist who bridges the disciplines of sculpture, architecture and landscape to comment on the environmental and social history of public spaces.
New scholarship was commissioned through a call for papers that initiated new approaches to post-war and contemporary abstract sculpture, particularly as it relates to a public audience and public space. Some papers directly address the production of Rickey, others address the legacy of kinetics as a sculptural language, kinetic art and audience participation, movement and mobilization, or broader themes of industry, the machine, and interactivity.
Click here for a PDF of the conference schedule.
Three nearby hotels are:
The Morris Inn (located on campus)
The Inn at St. Mary's
Ivy Court
Related Exhibitions:
In Innovation: George Rickey Kinetic Sculpture, five partners—the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County, South Bend Museum of Art, Notre Dame's Snite Museum of Art, 1st Source Bank, and the George Rickey Foundation/Estate of George Rickey—have joined forces to bring a rich range of Rickey-related resources to the local community during 2009 and 2010.
The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County will place five large-scale Rickey sculptures in downtown South Bend for a year, beginning September 26, 2009. These works will be within easy walking distance of each other, creating a “Rickey Trail” through the heart of the business district. For more information visit the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County at www.cfsjc.org/Rickey/
The South Bend Museum of Art will mount a major Rickey exhibition, featuring 77 paintings, drawings, and sculptures that explore the artist's life work. The exhibition will run from September 26, 2009 through January 10, 2010.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 is also Art Beat, South Bend's annual outdoor arts festival. The creations of local visual, performing and culinary artists can be enjoyed by strolling the downtown streets from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.artbeatsouthbend.org.
The symposium described at the top of this page builds upon the promised gift of twenty George Rickey sculptures and maquettes to the Snite Museum of Art (George Rickey Sculpture Archive) and the promised gift of his business, engineering and scholarly archive to Notre Dame Archives. The sculptures are on display in the Entrance Atrium and courtyard of the Snite Museum of Art and will convert to gifts and remain on view after the symposium concludes.
Catalog:
The Museum published its catalog of the sculpture archive, Passages of Light and Time: The Artistic Journey of George Rickey, written by ND graduate intern Shannon Kephart, in conjunction with the symposium. It is available as a Friends of the Snite membership incentive at the $55 level or above.
Click here for more information on the Rickey Symposium. |
