Allen Memorial Art Museum

Allen Memorial Art Museum Oberlin College 87 North Main Street Oberlin, Ohio 44074 (440) 775–8665 www.oberlin.edu/amam

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 8, 2013

Allen Memorial Art Museum to Host Renaissance Symposium, April 25-26

Oberlin, OH - The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) at Oberlin College will host a two-day symposium on the theme of “Religion, Ritual, and Performance in the Renaissance” on April 25-26, in the museum’s grand King Sculpture Court. Free and open to the public, it will be held from 11 am to 6:30 pm on Thursday, April 25 and from 9 am to 5 pm on Friday, April 26. On Thursday from 6 to 6:30 pm the day will conclude with a musical performance by Oberlin students, relating to choral manuscript leaves on view at the museum, and on Friday at 5 pm a public reception will be held at the completion of the talks.

The symposium is held in conjunction with the AMAM’s year-long theme on “Religion, Ritual, and Performance”; multiple exhibitions relating to that theme, from cultures around the world, have been on view at the museum since August 2012 and will continue until summer 2013. One, “Religion, Ritual, and Performance in the Renaissance”, comprises important paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from the AMAM and the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) collections. The exhibition and symposium were made possible in part by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as part of the Yale University Art Gallery Collection-Sharing Initiative.

Presenters at the symposium include Oberlin College faculty members from the Art, English, History and Musicology departments, three Oberlin students who were selected via a competitive process, faculty from Case Western Reserve University, Washington & Lee University, Miami University of Ohio, and Ohio State University, as well as staff from the AMAM, the YUAG, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and ICA-Art Conservation.

The two days promise to be exciting ones, and the public is warmly invited to attend. Presentations will range widely on topics related to medieval, Renaissance and baroque art, literature, history and music, as well as pilgrimage and religious practice. For a detailed schedule, please visit the museum’s website at: http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/renaissancesymposium.html.