THE ANNEX

Only two more days until the much-anticipated Student Late Night! In preparation for the craziness that will occur this Thursday night from 8-11PM throughout the Museum, members of the Student Programming and Advisory Council gathered last night to paint The Rock in UMMA’s honor. 

In case you live under a rock (ha ha), The Rock is one of University of Michigan’s most beloved icons. It sits on the corner of Washtenaw and Hill, and is painted by any daring group of people who want to show their Michigan spirit. 

Drive by and check out our work on The Rock before another layer of paint goes up and let us know what you think! We can’t wait to see you on Thursday night for a night of art, music (by local WBCN DJs), food, scavenger hunts, and much more!

Dedicated SPAC member Katharine gets up close and personal painting the rock back to the color nature desired…a cool grey.

Jackson Pollock-inspired!

Our beautiful work basking in the next day’s sunset.

Get an Insta-view of the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, MI. Use the #UMMAmuseum tag to share your photos with us! Admission: Free. 

UMMA’s Student Programming and Advisory Council is recruiting for 2013-14! University of Michigan graduate and undergraduate students are welcome. Applicants must be able to serve for three semesters. Please send a resume and letter of interest to SPACapplicants@umich.edu by Friday, March 15, 2013.

Interview by Elisabeth Wilson

Name: Amee Spondike
Title: Associate Director of Development, Individual and Corporate Giving

Can you please briefly describe your job here at the Museum?

I collaborate with the museum staff and various university departments to facilitate individual and corporate giving, which supports exhibitions, programs and the endowment. Essentially, we do a lot of interpersonal communication in development, mixed with some strategic social engineering.

How long have you been employed at UMMA?

I started working at UMMA four years ago, just before we re-opened after the addition and building renovation.

What do you enjoy most about working at UMMA?

I really enjoy working with a variety of people. I love hearing about donor’s connections to the museum and art, as well as working with people throughout the university. I especially enjoying visiting people in their homes and seeing how they live with their art.

How did you get into museum development?

Like most development professionals, it is not a career that I trained for or even expected to find myself in. I went to art school in NY and studied photography. During and after graduate school I worked for a runway photographer and from there was swept up into the world of fashion. I worked for several Italian designers, and really enjoyed it, but found that it lacked substance. During that time I was also volunteering for my local community garden in Brooklyn and started to volunteer for the Trust for Public Land to help write grants for other local gardens while I went back to school to study landscape design and architecture. Writing those grants, but mostly talking to the gardeners, proved to be really enjoyable and meaningful. It all came together after that. I was able to use my skills to support the art I love.

What advice would you give to students who want to pursue a career in museum development?

Seek out internships and pursue other opportunities in which they can enhance their communication, project management, and networking skills.

Do you have a favorite work of art in the museum?
The Helen Frankenthaler painting that hangs in UMMA’s Vertical Gallery. I love the physical scale and fluidity of her work, how it feminizes abstract expressionism.

What’s coming up at UMMA that you’re especially excited about?

There will be some big changes to a few of our gallery spaces soon that will enhance the way we look at our collection. I also love parties, so I’m looking forward to the next UMMA After Hours, coming up on March 14.

If you weren’t working here at the UMMA, what would you be doing instead?
I’d be a boutique florist with loads of free time to do Pilates and visit art museums.

What is something surprising about you that most people might not know?

Most people do not know that I was born in Iceland. 

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Fun! Thanks for the interview Amee!!

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Behind the Scenes at UMMA is a monthly series of interviews conducted by members of UMMA’s Student Programming and Advisory Council (SPAC) with UMMA staff members. The goal of these interviews is to provide a “Behind the Scenes” look at who works at UMMA and what they do. Stay tuned for the next installment of this series next month!

TODAY at 5:10 pm at the historic Michigan Theater, located at 603 E. Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, this program is free of charge and open to the public.

Drawing on African and Western traditions, Ghanaian artist El Anatsui experiments with a range of humble materials, including wood, ceramics, paint and found objects,to create powerful works that comment on cultural exchange, translation, globalization, and impermanence. In addition to exhibitions throughout Africa, his work has been shown in Europe, the United States and Japan as well as at the Venice, Havana and Johannesburg biennales. His sculpture is held in numerous public collections around the world, including the Metropolitan museum of Art, the National Museum of African Art, and the Smithsonian Institution. Anatsui continues to live and work in Nsukka, Nigeria, but maintains close connections with his native Ghana.

El Anatsui will be interviewed by longtime colleague and University of Toronto Professor Elizabeth Harney.

With support from the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and in conjunction with the exhibition, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and on view at UMMA through May 5, 2013.

umichsocial:

Uncommon Campus: Burton Memorial Tower and Carillon

When we saw LSA’s video Uncommon Campus, we were eager to do a little discovery of our own around the UMich campus. Our first stop is arguably one of the most recognizable landmarks in Ann Arbor: The Burton Memorial Tower and Carillon. 

DID YOU KNOW? 

You can see the recitals for yourself from the observation deck (Up 8 floors, then 2 flights of stairs) any day from 12-12:45, while enjoying the views of Ann Arbor from 120 feet above campus.

Click HERE to read more and REQUEST A SONG!!

Find out on Tuesday, February 5

4-5pm: View the exhibition El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, in A. Alfred Taubman Gallery I at UMMA

5-7pm: Roundtable discussion, in the Helmut Stern Auditorium (Lower Level at UMMA)

This roundtable event, offered by UMMA in collaboration with the Africa Workshop series of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) and the African Studies Center (ASC), brings together an exciting collection of scholars for a lively discussion of the myths and misconceptions that abound regarding the category “African art.” Coinciding with the arrival at UMMA of a major retrospective exhibition of Ghanaian-born artist El Anatsui, this panel discussion will address how perceptions and misconceptions about art from Africa relate to the work and reception of contemporary African artists and their interaction with the global art world.

UMMA is pleased to present the following panelists: UM Associate Professor David Doris (History of Art and DAAS), the author of Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-aesthetics, and the Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria; Nii Quarcoopome, Curator of African Art and head of the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Indigenous Americas at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the author of Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500 to Present; and University of Toronto Professor of Art History Elizabeth Harney, the author of numerous books on contemporary art from Africa, including In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960–1995.

The internationally renowned artist El Anatsui was born in Anyanko, Ghana on February 4, 1944, and currently lives and works in Nigeria. He is widely known for monumental wall sculptures made from discarded bottle tops, and is recognized as one of the most original and compelling artists of his generation. 

The retrospective exhibition When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, on view now at UMMA, presents the largest compilation of Anatsui’s works ever assembled. Including massive wall pieces and large-scale floor installations, the exhibition spans four decades and encompasses work in wood, ceramic, and metal, as well as drawings, prints and paintings. 

Did we mention that EL ANATSUI IS COMING TO ANN ARBOR TODAY?!?! 

Stay tuned as UMMA Student Programming and Advisory Council (SPAC) member Mylan Kimbrough will post an interview with El later this week.

AND - Don’t miss the opportunity to see him in person this Thursday, Feb. 7 as he is interviewed by longtime colleague and University of Toronto Professor Elizabeth Harney as part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series, at the Michigan Theater at 5:10pm.

Click HERE to download more information about upcoming programs related to this exhibition, including screenings of the documentary film, Fold Crumple Crush: The Art of El Anatsui (2011, 53 min.) 

Image: Anatsui and Awu Nsukka, Photo by Susan Vogel, Courtesy Icarus Films