2014-15 COVER IMAGE: JACKSON POLLOCK, LUCIFER (1947) IN THE ANDERSON COLLECTION AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY Arts District Presenters 2-5 Moving In Arts Connections Across Campus 6-11 Departmental Highlights 12-15 Student Initiative 16-17 Stanford’s art and art history faculty and staff spent the summer moving to the arts district. The Campus Impact 18-19 McMurtry Building, the new home for the Depart- Academic Arts Departments & Programs 20-21 ment of Art & Art History, welcomed students the Arts Centers, Institutes & Resources 22-23 first day of the fall term in 2015. Curricular Innovation 23 Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, along with Student Arts Groups 24-25 the executive architect Boora Architects, the Reflections | Stephen Hinton 26 100,000-square-foot space unites the making and Looking Ahead 28-29 studying of art under one roof with a bold archi- tectural gesture: the “making strand” (in zinc) Support for Stanford Arts 30-31 2014-2015 started with a bang! On September 21, 2014, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University opened its doors and one of the finest private collections of postwar to contemporary wrapping around the “studying strand” (in stucco) Arts District 32-33 art in the country found a new home on Stanford’s campus—in a beautiful new building designed in an interlocking embrace. The building’s inno- by Ennead Architects. vative spaces present multiple opportunities for exhibitions, performance and programs. The Stanford Arts Initiative, launched in 2006, marked a commitment to making the arts fun- damental to a Stanford education and to the university’s offerings for our community. Thanks The building allows the department to increase to this commitment, we have added new faculty positions, new fellowship opportunities for graduate students, and new arts programs for every Stanford student, including a general course offerings in art practice by 35 percent over education breadth requirement in “Creative Expression.” the next two years, responding to student de- mand. Studios and classrooms are outfitted with The new facilities in our arts district work to further this mission. Bing Concert Hall (2013), the new equipment, including high-end digital pro- Anderson Collection at Stanford University (2014) and the McMurtry Building for the Department jectors, 3-D scanners and printers, laser-cutting of Art & Art History (fall 2015) all connect our campus and community around the arts, further technology, a CNC router, and digital printmaking research and teaching, and contribute to the creative vitality of the university. They join the increasingly dynamic Cantor Arts Center, our active arts departments and programs, and numer- technology. ous other campus partners in creating a new era in the arts for Stanford. The pages that follow offer a few highlights. I invite you to discover more at http://arts.stanford.edu. With all best wishes, “ “IF YOU WANT A QUICK SEMINAR ON THE STATE OF ARCHITECTURAL ART, AND DON’T FEEL LIKE Matthew Tiews HOPPING ON A PLANE TO NEW YORK OR LOS ANGELES, THE MCMURTRY IS CLOSE AT HAND. Associate Dean for the Advancement of the Arts WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT IS THAT WHEN DESIGN TRENDS MOVE ON, STANFORD ART STU- 1 DENTS WILL STILL BE WELL SERVED.” – JOHN KING | SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE “I DON’T THINK IT’S MY IMAGINATION THAT THE WORKS HERE PLAY OFF OF ONE ANOTHER IN LIVELIER, SOMETIMES WITTIER WAYS THAN MUSEUM WORKS OFTEN DO; IT FEELS LIKE THERE’S Anderson Collection in Action A SYNERGY TO THE ENTIRE COLLECTION, WHICH IS MAYBE ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING THE COLLECTORS HAVE AN EYE. THE ANDERSONS HAVE GIVEN THE The Anderson Collection at Stanford University opened in September 2014. This was a major milestone for the arts at Stanford: one of the finest collections PUBLIC A GREAT GIFT.” of modern and contemporary American art was on the university’s campus, – BRUCE HANDY | VANITY FAIR opening up amazing opportunities for teaching, research, and engagement MOHR VISITING ARTIST BASIL TWIST PERFORMS with the community. The quality and span of the collection make it a masterful IN THE ANDERSON COLLECTION. HE TAUGHT THE resource for American art history. Stanford faculty members use the collection THEATER & PERFORMANCE STUDIES COURSE “PUPPETRY WITH A TWIST.” to teach classes formerly taught through books and slides. It is also an incred- ible offering to the community: programs around the collection in its first year here include student-generated events, as well as films, panel discussions, art- ist talks, and in-gallery conversations. Highlights from the collection’s first year included painter Wayne Thiebaud’s par- ticipation as the inaugural Burt and Deedee McMurtry Lecturer; a screening and panel discussion of !Women Art Revolution by the prominent artist and filmmak- er Lynn Hershman Leeson; and a gallery performance and talk by internation- ally recognized puppeteer Basil Twist, this year’s Mohr Visiting Artist, who was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2015. 2 3 The Cantor Celebrates a Gift The Demo CANTOR ARTS CENTER Logotype, Final October 2, 2012 “THE DAWN OF THE DIGITAL AGE, IN MUSIC AND WORDS” One of the largest collections of work by Ameri- litical conditions of the historical era in which he can artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) in any produced this important work,” said Connie Wolf, – JOHN MARKOFF | museum belongs to the Cantor Arts Center, and it the John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor. NEW YORK TIMES went on view for the first time in 2014. Lawrence is an acclaimed figurative painter of the 20th cen- One of the primary reasons that the Kaydens’ tury and a leading voice in the artistic portrayal of Lawrence collection ended up at the Cantor is be- the African American experience. The exhibition, cause Stanford is a teaching institution. “That was THE DEMO, A MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGAN- Promised Land: Jacob Lawrence at the Cantor, A hugely important to my father because both he ZA BASED ON DOUGLAS ENGELBART’S Gift from the Kayden Family, gave the collection and my mother were university professors in addi- HISTORIC 1968 DEMONSTRATION OF EARLY new life through scholarship, teaching, and pub- tion to being physicians,” said Joelle Kayden, MBA COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY, PREMIERED AT lication. ’81. “He felt that Jake wasn’t as celebrated and STANFORD’S BING CONCERT HALL. recognized as befitted the quality of his work and The collection of 56 works (five paintings, 11 his importance as an African American artist. Giv- drawings, 39 prints and 1 illustrated book) was ing the collection to Stanford means it will live on.” Stanford Live’s world premiere of The Demo at Bing unique hybrid of music, media, and performance. ried performances of chamber, choral and orchestral given in 2014 by Dr. Herbert Kayden and his Concert Hall took as its starting point a pivotal mo- music with an international conference on the cul- daughter, Joelle, in memory of Dr. Gabrielle H. Honoring the Kaydens’ entwined commitments to ment in Silicon Valley’s history: Douglas Engelbart’s The project was part of Stanford Live’s new “Live tural history of 18th-century artistic patronage, and Reem, the donors’ wife and mother, respective- both art and education, the exhibition planning in- 1968 demonstration of pioneering technology for Context” series, which connects world-class perfor- The Nile Project, a performance by musicians from KEMI LIJADU, ’17, (LEFT), AND ly. Herbert Kayden died in August 2014. cluded a course for undergraduate students taught personal computing. Engelbart’s egalitarian vision mances to the deep intellectual and artistic resources eight Nile River Basin nations that was paired with TEBELLO QHOTSOKOANE, ’16, by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, the Cantor’s Burton for how technology could expand human intelligence of the university. Other Live Context projects included conversations about geography, sustainability, and VIEW THE EXHIBITION PROMISED LAND: The collection, exhibition, and accompanying and Deedee McMurtry Curator of Prints, Drawings, was reimagined as a technology-rich stage work: a “Haydn: Patronage and Enlightenment,” which mar- international politics. JACOB LAWRENCE AT THE CANTOR DURING STUDENT NIGHT. scholarly publication with essays by Stanford fac- and Photographs. This intensive introduction to ulty, researches and curators make Stanford and Lawrence’s career and curatorial and art historical the Cantor “a leading resource for students and practices enabled 12 students to design the gallery scholars to study Lawrence and the social and po- layout and write exhibition texts. 4 5 INTERDISCIPLINARY INSTALLATION ARTIST MATTHEW RITCHIE DELIVERS A PUBLIC LECTURE AS PART OF IMAGINING THE UNIVERSE: COSMOLOGY IN ART AND SCIENCE. In 2014 Stanford acquired the Denis Condon Col- lection of Reproducing Pianos and Rolls, a pri- vate collection of more than 7,500 rolls and 10 The Player Piano Project player pianos — among the most important of its kind. Player pianos — those self-playing pia- nos popular in the early 20th - century — have an important role in music history. Rolls in the Con- don Collection include major composers playing their own music — Saint Saëns, Busoni, Bartók, Mahler, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Gershwin, and Joplin. “Imagining the Universe: Cosmology in Art and Science” brought together scientists, artists, and In the wake of the Condon Collection acquisition, humanists to explore the nature of the universe. THE PLAYER PIANO PROJECT BRINGS Stanford also received two other collections of Organized by an interdisciplinary consortium TOGETHER