嘿嘿视频

Museum celebration honors the past, looks to the future

STUDENT INVOLVEMENT

The groundbreaking program opened with three students, describing how they are contributing to the museum's development:

Ben Castle 鈥 I am working on the new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by working with other art history students to explore new ways to engage younger and more diverse audiences for the arts by experimenting with new curatorial techniques. Our first experiment, the Davis Art Salon, brought students and community artists together. When the new Shrem opens you will find me in the galleries. I鈥檒l be working on using new technologies to gather public opinion so that all visitors to the museum can become exhibition curators.

Arielle Hardy 鈥 I am working on the new Shrem Museum by helping to manage 嘿嘿视频鈥 Fine Arts Collection. I鈥檝e received art off the truck, I鈥檝e pulled art for classes to view and I鈥檓 working with my fellow students to research unknown treasures in our collection. When the new museum opens you鈥檒l find me in the collection classroom. I鈥檒l be caring for artworks and preparing for more students to have access to this amazing resource.

Erin Dorn 鈥 As I finish my master鈥檚 thesis in art history, I have been able to gain professional experience by working on the new Shrem Museum. I am working with an artist to organize his collection and I am preparing my first exhibition drawn from a local photography collection. When the new museum opens, you鈥檒l find me in the indoor-outdoor art studio and the community education space. I鈥檒l be touring high school students and working with undergrads on hands-on art-making workshops. We want the museum to inspire creativity, and already we鈥檙e developing ideas for programs that will excite our fellow students.

Ben, Arelle and Erin 鈥 Together we are making the Shrem Museum today so that it can be a vital addition to the university of tomorrow.

鈥淐oach鈥 Rachel Teagle rallied her 鈥渋ncredible team鈥 Saturday (March 1) 鈥 artists, students, faculty, alumni, staff, community members, philanthropists, architects, lighting experts and contractors 鈥 for the next phase of creating the university鈥檚 art museum.

鈥淥K, friends, we have some work to do,鈥 said Teagle, wearing a hard hat, before she and percussion-playing members of the 嘿嘿视频 Samba School led more than 500 people out of Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, and across the street to the groundbreaking ceremony for the $30 million Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the campus鈥檚 south entry.

Teagle, the museum's founding director, and her excited entourage made one stop along the way, on the Mondavi Center plaza, to admire former art professor William T. Wiley鈥檚 Gong, and to hear him strike the massive piece. The museum's development, Wiley said, "is just beautiful, for the community, the students, for art, for life."

Two other esteemed art emeriti joined Wiley at the Saturday afternoon program: Manuel Neri and Wayne Thiebaud. The three lead donors, Napa winemaker Jan Shrem and his wife, arts patron Maria Manetti Shrem, and longtime 嘿嘿视频 benefactor Margrit Mondavi, also attended.

The groundbreaking culminated a two-year process that included workshops on campus and in the community, to brainstorm museum plans; an international design competition that led to a 29,000-square-foot series of interconnected interior and exterior spaces under a 50,000-square-foot 鈥淕rand Canopy鈥; and extensive collaboration with faculty and students who will use the new museum for teaching, learning and creating.

To show what they鈥檝e been doing and continue to do for the museum鈥檚 development, dozens of faculty members and students presented displays inside and outside the Mondavi Center鈥檚 Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby. The participants came from design, art studio, art history, creative writing and the California Lighting Technology Center.

Design students Alexis Agoustari and Hydie Pavick showed a cardboard prototype of their "Porcupine Chair," which could end up in the museum. "It's incongruous, right?" Agoustari asked. "A chair with pointed slats ought to be uncomfortable and impossible. We are making it possible and comfortable."

The "Porcupine Chair" fit nicely with Teagle's declaration to the Jackson Hall audience: "It is my objective to intrigue you, cajole you and excite you enough that you will choose to join our museum team as each in our own way we set out to tackle the dynamic process of creating a new museum.

鈥淒efining the new museum requires the vision and dedication of many individuals who are willing to come together to pursue something new.

鈥淟uckily for us, this kind of innovation happened before at 嘿嘿视频,鈥 she said, referring to art department founder Richard Nelson and the faculty he assembled in the 1950s and '60s, people like Wiley, Neri and Thiebaud, 鈥渆ach with dramatically different ideas and approaches, so that together they could build an art department that quickly became the top of its field.鈥

Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e able to break ground because some great people have laid a firm foundation. It all started with teaching 鈥 a commitment to exploration and teaching in the arts.鈥

That commitment continues in the new museum鈥檚 mission, said Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, and in its layout 鈥 with prominent spaces designated for working studio and classroom space. 鈥淧rogrammed into the museum鈥檚 DNA is the belief that all who enter become students again,鈥 she said.

In 鈥淎rt in the Making,鈥 a video played during the program, Katehi talks about a colleague who once asked her: 鈥淲ith sciences we discovered nature, with engineering we discovered technology, (but) what is the role of art?鈥

鈥淎nd I thought,鈥 Katehi recalls, 鈥渨ith art we discover ourselves.鈥

Jan Shrem also appears in the video: 鈥淔or a future student I would say that like myself I began with art illuminating my life and showing me a road from which to partake and to benefit from. And that road has shown me that it has so many riches, and so many directions, so many facets, that it truly made my life happy and successful.

"And I would recommend every student to approach art as a beginning or as an inspiration for their future and for their education.

鈥楧reams coming true鈥

The speakers thanked the Shrems and Mondavi for their gifts, Chancellor Katehi for her commitment to the project and Dean Owens for hers in shepherding the long-planned museum to reality. Owens also credited Chancellor Emeritus Larry Vanderhoef, who, in his inaugural address in 1994, pledged that 嘿嘿视频 would have a performance center (鈥渢his wonderful Mondavi Center鈥), an art museum and a music recital hall.

鈥淚t took a while, but all three dreams are finally coming true,鈥 Owens said to a round of applause.

Katehi described the 鈥淕rand Canopy鈥 as an 鈥渙utward symbol of our ambition to emphasize artists who are exploring new concepts and new approaches, crossing disciplines to include performance, music, theater, dance and science at times, and in many other areas of style, of course, and creativity, just as the founders of the Department of Art and the Fine Arts Collection did more than 50 years ago.鈥

Back then, Owens said, 鈥満俸偈悠 was a sleepy farm campus in the middle of the Central Valley, (and) you have to admit it, a very unlikely place for what would happen.鈥

Nelson鈥檚 eye for talent proved to be exceptional, Owens said. 鈥淗e was able to bring to 嘿嘿视频 a collection of then little known artists with diverse philosophies, and he gave them a mandate to teach and the freedom to create.

鈥淏y defying preconceived notions of art and challenging expectation of material and form, the art department developed a style, an attitude that was distinctly Davis,鈥 Owens said.

鈥淎s we celebrate this new beginning, let me say loud and clear, the Shrem Museum is a museum that knows where it came from. It honors the past and the community that gave it such a great beginning.鈥

Online

news release (March 1, 2014)

 

 

 

Media Resources

Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu

Primary Category

Tags