Join curator Jen Thum for an exploration of works in the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine. Thum will share insights about the museums’ medical humanities program for radiologists—on which the exhibition is based—and what can be gleaned through close looking.
Join program assistant Shirley Hunt to explore the role of recorded music in Nam Jun Paik’s audiovisual work Electronic Opera #1. An accomplished musician and independent scholar, Hunt will share insights into the history, cultural context, and interpretation of musical material used in the creation of this artwork.
Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge
Join the artist Alia Farid for a tour of Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis and a discussion of the artwork Chibayish, 2023. Chibayish is part of a larger group of works that Farid has developed since 2018, focused on the impact of extractive industries on southern Iraq and Kuwait's ecological and social fabric.
Join curatorial assistant Casey Monahan to explore how investigating the verso (reverse side) of a painting can sometimes help construct the history and provenance of a work. Monahan will share how details such as labels, numbers, and other elements that are normally “unseen” are essential for curators as they research and catalogue works in the collections.
Which colors did ancient Greek and Roman artists use, and how have we discovered their choices? What is polychromy, and how does it influence our understanding of the ancient world? This talk explores both the overt and covert colors within our ancient art collection, with a special emphasis on Greek vase paintings, marble sculpture, and Roman wall paintings.
How wild, really, is Albert Bierstadt’s wilderness in Rocky Mountains, "Lander’s Peak"? Curatorial intern Saffron Sener will discuss this American landscape.
Our galleries are full of stories—this series of talks gives visitors a chance to hear the best ones! The talks highlight new works on view, take a fresh look at old favorites, investigate artists’ materials and techniques, and reveal the latest discoveries by curators, conservators, fellows, visiting artists, technologists, and other contributors.
Join staff as they discuss and activate this experimental device from 1930 by László Moholy-Nagy, a Bauhaus pioneer.
Artists "double" their visual worlds by creating artworks within artworks. Curator Miriam Stewart will explore how these artists create intriguing interactions between painter, subject, and viewer.
Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge
Join the artist and educator Evelyn Rydz for an afternoon of conversation and collective artmaking within the exhibition Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis, on view September 18–December 16, 2023.
The exhibition presents artworks that tell alternative stories of water experience in the context of climate change, while encouraging viewers to appreciate the multivalent meaning of water and their own relationship to it. Rydz has repeatedly observed the increasing impacts on natural and cultural ecosystems throughout her various field...
Join curator Sarah Laursen for a closer look at artworks in the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024). The exhibition explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Laursen will share how these two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—have had a lasting impact on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts.
Join curatorial assistant Casey Monahan to explore how two 19th-century ceramic vessels tell different stories of the United States. One vessel is made by enslaved potter David Drake and shows us both the artist’s agency and the lack of it. The other vessel is a presentation vase created for the U.S. centennial; it includes narrative imagery intended to evoke a shared American identity after the Civil War.
Join Ph.D. candidate and graduate student teacher Sarah Eisen for a closer look at a work from the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine, on view from September 2 to December 30, 2023. Eisen will share insights about a grave marker from ancient Greece and will encourage participants to reflect on the role of empathy across time and place.
Join curator Laura Muir for a closer look at portraits from Timm Rautert’s photographic series Germans in Uniform (1974), which are included in the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine, on view from September 2 to December 30, 2023. Muir will share insights about the series and encourage participants to reflect on the role uniforms play in constructing our professional identities and the way we relate to others.
Join us for a discussion with Bosco Sodi about his sculpture installation Origen, which marks the first outdoor public art display for the Harvard Art Museums. Mary Schneider Enriquez, former Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museums, will talk with Bosco Sodi about his practice, the ideas central to Origen, and the placement of his work outside as well as in galleries featuring Buddhist sculpture and funerary art.
Join curator Sarah Laursen for a closer look at artworks in the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024). The exhibition explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Laursen will share how these two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—have had a lasting impact on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts.
Join curatorial fellow Sarah Lieberman for an exploration of works in the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine, on view from September 2 to December 30, 2023. Lieberman will share insights about the museums’ medical humanities program for radiologists—on which the exhibition is based—and what can be gleaned through close looking.
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge
Join us for an Artist Talk and Opening Reception to celebrate the opening of This Machine Creates Opacities: Robert Fulton, Renée Green, Pierre Huyghe, and Pope.L.
Artist Pope.L will present an artist talk that touches on his project Corbu Pops, which was originally commissioned for the Carpenter Center’s level 1 space in 2009. Various installation elements of this pivotal work have been restaged for This Machine Creates Opacities.
Following the conversation, there will be a reception and community dinner in the sunken terrace on Level 1...
Join Jen Thum and Caitlin Clerkin for a conversation about a recently refreshed display of ancient Egyptian reliefs from tombs, which places the spotlight on ancient people and processes, as well as provenance.