Shots from the Opening Reception

Some pictures of the student-curators with their projects at the opening reception for re:View, which happened this past Saturday.  The intervention will be up until April 17; admission is FREE.

Los Angeles Times article

Amazing piece about the exhibition in the Los Angeles Times this morning! Gerrick Kennedy, a Times' reporter, spent a great deal of time at the Fisher Museum during the actual "interventions," talking to student-curators, the professors and artist Susan Silton -- and his article is a thoughtful and well-informed look at the project and its place within the curatorial world. Some choice quotes:

"We wanted them to develop a constant consciousness that everything you see in museums is choreographed." -- Richard Meyer

"Going into the class it felt really experimental. . . . I didn't know anything about curating. It's an art form within itself." - Jayme Wilson

Read the full article here on the Los Angeles Times Web site.

re:View Installation Complete

The wall text is up, and we're windex-ing the display cases.

Throughout re:View there is a consistent presence of this color of blue, so that the interventions can be easily identified.

The wall labels for re:View have a similar blue band across them, and the intervention brochure has a band around it too.  Look for an update about the design of the brochure next week.

re:View open tomorrow!

- Francisco Rosas

TOMORROW: "Museum of Ideas"

WHAT: The Contemporary Project and the USC International Museum Institute present a symposium exploring the value of placing ideas -- as well as art objects -- on public display. Leading thinkers in contemporary art and curatorial practice will construct a free, one-day-only "Museum of Ideas" at USC.

ALSO: "Museum of Ideas" coincides with the opening of re:View. A free lunch reception and curator-led tours will take place between 1 and 3 p.m. at the Fisher Museum.

WHO:
• Julie Ault, artist and author
• Carol Duncan, art historian and critic
• Helen Molesworth, chief curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
• Connie Wolf, director and CEO, Contemporary Jewish Museum

Moderated by Selma Holo, Richard Meyer and Britt Salvesen, Department Head and Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography and Department Head and Curator of Prints and Drawings, LACMA.


More info here. Hope you can make it!

Reconstruction: Wall stencils

The show opens tomorrow!

Reconstruction: Painting

Lauren and Jayme filling in outlines of jesters and leprechauns on the floor of the gallery.

Retrieve: New Room, New Meanings

Spring break has just come to a close, and it’s now the final week before re:View opens. Though we’ve been progressing well with the storage display, I have a bit left to accomplish…





Here’s what was settled in the past week: finishing the fabric “wall,” spray painting the “metal racks,” (which, many cans later, are now a very convincing silver), gathering more accurate dimensions of the space, and finalizing my layout of the paintings.

I had to figure out how/where each piece would fit together within the wall décor, and to attempt to create a balanced display—by no means an easy task, and add to that the fact that my physical layout on paper was not to scale!

Now to retrieve each work from storage and hang the pieces where I’ve planned, beginning today: nine works have been freed from storage, one at a time, and are now propped against the walls of our newly constructed “storage,” awaiting their proper display. The very presence of color instantly transformed the white cube, so I anxiously await the finished result!

This entire process has given me a lot to think about. I think about my goal in making this display a “de-curation.” In recreating storage I tried not to put too much of an aesthetic eye toward deciding which painting will hang next to which. Still, the display could never have been executed without a plan—not only must everything fit together, but it seems more striking if they contrast one another.
I also think about my own relationship to these stored artworks. Since I’ve been working so closely with the permanent collection, the Art feels less…inaccessible? I’m not sure if this is quite the right word, so I’ll try again: It’s a rare experience to be able to raid storage, to physically handle the ‘sacred’ artwork (in white gloves), to truly see each piece originate from the same place, only to garner ‘meaning’ or ‘importance’ once inside the museum.
As these works travel a very short distance from the storage room into Quinn Wing, it’s amazing to think how their meanings will change/evolve upon inclusion in the exhibition. On the eve of the public display of my chosen landscapes, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve become a part of their story.
--Raylene Galarze

Retrieve: White glove treatment

Raylene -- rocking white gloves -- as she carries paintings from the storage room to the gallery.

Hanging the banner

Susan Silton's banner commissioned for the show went up today, outside the Fisher Museum facing Exposition Blvd. and the Natural History Museum. Frankie was a natural on the ladder.

Reproduce: In the gallery

Top: Jayme. Bottom, from left: Richard, Selma, Jayme and David. The hand-painted reproduction of Return to the Fold by Charles Emile Jacque (unframed, next to the 19th-century original) was painted from the Norton Simon Museum's version of the Jacque painting, and there's a major difference: it's missing a chicken.

Reconsider: Display Cases

David (red hoodie) in the Fisher Museum courtyard building display cases. From his last post:

". . . the photographs will be shown in display cases, laid flat, positioned throughout the gallery. While they are still “under-glass” (actually plexi), it is my hope that viewing them off the walls, not framed as singular works, will signal their alternate existence as objects of tourism and commerce verse their confusion as “art.”"

Beginning Reconstruction

Now that I had images of all of the mural segments from The Jinks Room, it was time to assemble them in the correct order.  This meant more than just organizing the segments from left to right; reconstructing the room meant knowing where columns, doorways, windows, and a large fireplace were located in the room.

I had seen some archive photographs of the murals in situ, but could not determine definitely the correct arrangement of the room.  That was until I went through the museum files on The Jinks Room again.

I found in a conservation report (which was written before the murals were removed from Anoakia) a detailed list of which mural segments were located on which walls.

North Wall:

Monk with Jester & Leprechaun, Jester & Leprechaun, Procession with Couples 

East Wall:

Jester, Procession with Reluctant Cat

South Wall:

Feast with Friar, Dance with the Fairy Queen, Procession with Reluctant Monk
(segments separated by columns)

 

On the west wall there was only one segment, Jester with Baton, which seemed strange to me because if there was only one segment on this wall that meant there was a lot of empty wall space.  But further on in the conservation report it said that the west wall was mostly made up of windows.  This was unexpected since The Jinks Room was located in the basement of the mansion, and I had automatically assumed there wouldn’t be any windows in this room.

Now that I have the correct organization of the mural cycle I can start installing silhouettes of the mural segments in the galleries.  Installation started this week!

- Francisco Rosas

Le Monde Blog

The Le Monde blog "Lunettes Rouges" linked to us and gave us a shout-out in a review of a Master's curatorial student exhibition at the University of Rennes:

"Their colleagues at the University of Southern California are rehanging the museum's collection."

Reconsider: Photographs In (and Out) of the Museum

This intervention is concerned with how America chose to depict the national landscape across alternate historical moments. In addition to displaying artist books by Ed Ruscha (see previous post), late 19^th and early 20^th century photography will be exhibited from the California Historical Society archive in Special Collections at the USC Doheny Memorial Library. Specifically, the majority of images are from an extensive photography collection within the CHS’s holdings assembled between 1860 and 1930 by relatively unknown photographer C. C. Pierce. 

The collection includes images taken by Pierce but also numerous works by other western photographers. Some of the most well known images within the collection to be shown in the intervention are by George Fiske, whose photographs of Yosemite were widely distributed tourist items sold in the national park at the end of the 19^th century. In fact, an advertisement for Fiske’s studio was featured in Galen Clark’s 1910 tourist guidebook The Yosemite Valley: its history, characteristic features, and theories regarding its origin. In addition to Pierce and Fiske, the intervention will also utilize images by photographer Adam Dove (who I have been able to find no information on), as well as other anonymously produced pictures.

 George Fiske, Galen Clark on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, ca.1900, Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library

Advertisement for Fiske's Studio in The Yosemite Valley (1910)

Reproduce: Mommy, where do Jacques come from?

Throughout the creative process the location of where our Jacque was being created was quite ambiguous. Most of us had heard horror stories about reproduction paintings being out sourced to China where the artists are treated as...let's just say "starving artists," literally. When we received a biography of our Ocean's Bridge artist we learned that he was from China, leading us to imagine our hand painted masterpiece being conceived in China under sweatshop-like conditions.

However, on the Ocean's Bridge website there is a whole section dedicated to showing the prospective customer "the studio." According to their Web site their studio is "Located at the foot of a mountain yet just 200 yards from the beach, we've 20,000 square feet of studio space spread over three different European-style buildings." The description is supplemented by photographs of lush landscape and beautiful buildings.

I am by no means saying that Ocean's Bridge is one of the reproduction painting sweatshops mentioned above, but when our Jacque arrived this week the return address (Hong Kong, China) did make us question the journey of our Jacque.

Remember: Day one of Filming

Day one of filming was a success. Five hours of tape, one Kleenex box, and countless memories later, Grace and I managed to wrap filming three of our six interviews for the project.

Marti and Sue, two of our interviewees, were already waiting, snapping photos of themselves in front of the Jinks Room murals in various poses mimicking the figures in the murals. Both brought folders, documents, Anoakia memorabilia, and photographs to share. They each told their respective stories, shared memories and reminisced about different wild things they did together years ago– both on and off the record.

Both told stories about sneaking back into Anoakia after its closure in the 1990s, and both regretted not having a grand sleepover at the mansion, which was believed to have been the home of several legendary ghosts! The interview was an emotional process for both of them – both Marti and Sue shed tears for their nostalgia for Anoakia, and explained how important the school was to them and how they hoped it would carry on in the future through our memories. Both women were wonderful to work with and provided a ton of new information about Anoakia.

Bede, our third interviewee, was a student at Anoakia from the 3rd to the 5th grade. He provided interesting perspective into how his experience of the murals had changed from when he was a child to his current experience as an adult. He was kind and very thoughtful, and we’re also thankful for his help.
By the end of the day, we had a ton of new material to work with and a pretty sound idea of the direction in which to take our film. We’re excited for day two, and will give more updates in the near future. That’s all for now!

Retrieve: Pre-Installation, Pre-Retrieval

After several weeks of planning the display of storage and searching for the necessary materials, the concept really seems to be coming together. Today, the Quinn Wing is still a white cube; chairs and other materials are taking temporary residence here before we begin installing. Tomorrow should begin the physical intervention...

Attempting to reveal what's inside storage along with the room itself will involve two main things: re-creating faux metal racks on the walls and constructing a partition to shorten the wing. Working with Fisher's Chief Preparator Richard, we were able to find a lightweight barrier fencing to mimic the metal racks on which stored paintings hang. This bright-orange will soon get some much-needed paint treatment!

To shorten the space, we found fabric to serve as a temporary backwall; the plan is to hang some paintings here after it has been put up and reinforced from behind. Hopefully there is enough material...

I'm still working on visualizing the entire layout -- though the first steps will involve these details of construction, soon will come the time for physical retrieval. Along with picking up ordered materials and ensuring the gathering of other supplies, this week has included visiting storage to hand-measure each framed work (everything must fit in the "new" space!). Next up -planning the hanging of paintings!

But before departing to this next stage, I will say that finding the materials initially was not easy -- the fencing in particular was hard to find, and it seemed that waiting on out-of-state shipping might pose unneeded setbacks. Yet, after a little searching, we found everything locally downtown...Just another reminder that L.A. really is our laboratory.

--Raylene Galarze

Reconstruct: Filling in the Missing Pieces

The Jinks Room mural segments in the Fisher Museum’s collection are only six of the original nine that made up the cycle. The three other segments have remained with the family that donated the segments to USC. Lucky for me some of those mural segments are still in the area.

I was put in touch with Mrs. Mary Regis, the daughter of Lowry B. McCaslin the original donor of the Jinks Room murals to the Fisher Museum. Mrs. Regis is conveniently located in Pasadena, just a short trip north from USC. Never having visited a museum donor before, I was feeling nervous about making a good impression on her. It turns out there was no reason to be nervous; Mrs. Regis invited me very warmly into her home and spoke with me enthusiastically about Anoakia and the Jinks Room.

There on the wall of Mrs. Regis’s sitting room were two Jinks Room segments. One had a single figure of a sinister-looking jester. The other had a jester, a leprechaun and a fairy. This segment was fascinating because the cover for the lightswitches of the room was still attached to it—a reminder that these mural segments were once in a functional room of an estate. And low and behold along with the switch cover, Mrs. Regis also had original light fixtures from the Jinks Room, which were displayed alongside the mural segments.

It turns out that Maynard Dixon not only painted the murals in the Jinks Room (as well as a mural cycle feature Native Americans now in the California State Library), but also designed light fixtures for this room and throughout the entire Anoakia estate! Mrs. Regis even had a book of Dixon’s original designs for the fixtures with directions for fabricated by Tiffany and Co. Mrs. Regis said Dixon even designed doorknobs for the Jinks Room that had little jester heads on them!


Something that Mrs. Regis did not have in her house was the last mural segment. This segment is with Mrs. Regis’s sister. Luckily the museum had photos of this last segment on file so that we could develop a silhouette of this segment.

Going through the museum’s files on the Jinks Room I found an archive photograph of the last mural segment in its original setting. The lone figure of a jester was situated between a doorway and a large craftsman style fireplace. Now I have images of all the mural segments and can begin to reconstruct the Jinks Room.

Next week’s update will be on the creation of the silhouettes, which will be featured in the Reconstruct portion of the intervention.

- Francisco Rosas

Selma in Christian Science Monitor

Selma Holo, one of the professors behind this blog and "intervention" project, was quoted today in the Christian Science Monitor about Los Angeles museums such as LACMA planning exhibits to honor the bicentennial of Mexico's independence and the centennial of its revolution: "This kind of comprehensive look gives Mexico the respect of having a civilizational series of curves, not just a modern history but one that goes way back and really represents a huge cultural moment in the history of the world," Holo said. Holo is director of the Fisher Museum and the International Museum Institute at USC.