SAAM Stories

American Art's latest exhibition is Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow. Eye Level sat down with the show's curator, Joanna Marsh, to talk about the artist and his artworks.

This post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Begun in 1993, Ask Joan of Art is the longest-running arts-based electronic reference service in the country. Question: Duane Hanson's sculpture Woman Eating is dated 1971, but the magazine on the table where she sits is only a few years old. Why is this?

Who doesn’t love sipping coffee and looking at art while enjoying the sounds of local musicians? Sunday, November 7 marked the beginning of a new Luce Foundation Center Art+Coffee performance series, aka Luce Unplugged, which we hope will encourage visitors to do just that!

Installation artist Sarah Sze gave an enthusiastic talk the other evening at the McEvoy Auditorium at American Art, as the third and final speaker of this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series in American Art.

Alexis Rockman was one of the first contemporary artists to build his career around exploring environmental issues, from evolutionary biology and genetic engineering to deforestation and climate change. His new exhibition bring together 47 paintings and works on paper from his early works in the mid-1980s to the present.

It's Wayne Thiebaud's 90th birthday.

This post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Question: I was visiting the Renwick Gallery's Grand Salon and wanted to know why the works were displayed so differently from the other gallery exhibits?

Boston Globe photography and arts critic, Mark Feeney, presented his lecture "Four Photographers on Three Wheels: William Eggleston's Tricycle and Before" at American Art's McEvoy Auditorium the other night, as the second speaker of this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art.

"Welcome, all you fans of small bodies of water," John Gossage said, as he took to the stage of the McEvoy Auditorium for a spirited discussion of his work The Pond with Toby Jurovics, American Art's curator of photography.

It's Halloween! And we've got our own personal ghosts inhabiting the halls and galleries of American Art. We're holding our final Ghosts of a Chance scavenger hunt on Halloween.

Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs assistant here at American Art, spoke with Doc Scantlin and Chou Chou from the Imperial Palm Orchestra about their upcoming performance at Take 5!

his post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Begun in 1993. Question: I have noticed several statues such as Hiram Powers's Eve Tempted that appear to have holes bored in them. What caused the holes and why are they not repaired?

On October 23 the 21st Century Consort performs its first concert of its season at American Art. The concert is inspired by the museum's Norman Rockwell exhibition, Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

Last month the American Art Museum received a commendation for Art Signs OnLine from the international JODI Awards which recognize innovative uses of digital media to make museums, galleries, libraries, archives, and heritage venues more accessible to disabled people. Susan Nichols, Chief of Education at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, tells us about the genesis of the program.

For your own sketching epiphany sign up for our next Draw and Discover program. The workshop runs every Tuesday from 3-4:30pm in the Luce Foundation Center, third floor. Check the online calendar for special workshops like this one.

Erica Hirshler, senior curator of American paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, kicked off the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series in American Art with a spirited look at John Singer Sargent. His painting, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit—a seven by seven foot masterpiece that has earned pride of place in the MFA as well as in Hirshler's heart—was the jumping off point for a look at Sargent's portraits that ranged from the seemingly innocent (as in the case of the Boit's) to the scandalous Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau).

One hundred sixty people came to American Art on September 18th to participate in the launch event for our new alternate reality game, Pheon. First, each participant answered three questions to determine whether they would be playing as Knaves or Staves. How would you respond?

"I hate to see the show go. It seems like yesterday that it opened. But when you think about it, the Fence was only up for two weeks!," George Gurney, deputy chief curator at American Art, told me last week when we were speaking about the closing of the exhibition, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence.