Essays on Artists & Acquisitions
Art and Transformation: Professor Nancy Macko’s Decompositions
Nancy Macko, Odalisque, 2020. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist. When we throw something away, where does it go? Nancy Macko’s Decompositions, a photographic series featuring her vegetable compost, posits the idea that nothing is disposable. As temporal items start to lose their color and shape, they seem to be decaying. But in fact, putrefaction marks a […]
Read More
Cara Romero’s Native Theater
An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Cara Romero is a contemporary artist creating photographs that speak to Native American identity. In a theatrical style, Romero’s photographs explore the history and representation of Native existence, counteracting the inaccurate and offensive portrayals common throughout academia and popular media.
Read More
Building an Archive of Resistance with Dominique Moody and The Dream Window
An oeuvre that has spanned over 50 years, Dominque Moody’s work has centered the cultivation of freedom through self-agency, housing, mobility, and practice—so much so that she adopted the term assemblege (purposefully spelled with an e to separate the term from Eurocentric ideas) to define her approach. A self-described nomad, Moody is familiar with the […]
Read More
Art & Ecology in the Anthropocene | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kate MacDowell
As English-teacher-turned-ceramicist Kate MacDowell knows, there are many ways to tell a story. MacDowell synthesizes her taste for poetic allegory and her fascination with scientific case studies to create pieces that tell the story of human impact on the natural world. In this […]
Read More
Replanting: Seeds of Change | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Crystal Morey
Crystal Morey’s latest series, RePlanting, features porcelain sculptures that explore the interconnection and precarious balance between humans, flora, and fauna. While her work focuses on weighty topics, such as endangered species and climate change, her pieces are imbued with whimsy and hope for a more consciously interconnected future. Morey’s sculpture, Scrub Jay and Deer, was […]
Read More
The Power of Porcelain | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kieko Fukazawa
Banner designed by Cecelia Blum SC ’24 Kieko Fukazawa uses clay to fuse ancient craftsmanship with contemporary commentary. Her recent series, Peacemaker, uses delicate porcelain to pay homage to the many victims of senseless gun violence in the United States. In this interview, she shares her thoughts on the universality of social issues, her upbringing […]
Read More
Conduit Between Artist and Audience: An Experience with Jenny He
As you enter the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, to your left, you will find the Spielberg Family Gallery, home to the first room within the Stories of Cinema, an ongoing exhibition that spans the first three floors of the museum. Here, museum-goers are invited to view a multi-channel […]
Read More
Tara: A Powerful Feminine Force
The presence of Tara in the Buddhist pantheon over the centuries, both as a bodhisattva and as a female buddha, has offered a sense of inclusivity to many female practitioners.
Read More
Highlights of the Collection, Oliveira, Everts, and Marini
These artists employ the recurring motif of bodily distortion to express postwar trauma.
Read More
Gilded Dharma: A Japanese Lotus Sutra
These sutra fragments are so sacred and artistically refined that they often rank among the most highly treasured objects in temple, museum, and private collections.
Read More