ANNUAL REPORT 2018 Studio Programs is a bridge to learning for students to engage with exhibitions and the collection. In this workshop, held during the Wanderlust exhibition, students created their own installation in response to artist Marie Lorenz’s installation in the Richard Meier atrium 2 | DES MOINES ART CENTER (see cover photo). Thank you for your support of the Des Moines Art Center. Your generosity enables our ongoing efforts to be a center of cultural life in Greater Des Moines and beyond, making it possible for us to develop new ways to engage our growing audiences. We invite you to visit often to create, to imagine, to feel, and to dream. The Art Center experienced numerous successes In response to our evolving community, the in 2018. Thanks to member and donor generosity, staff and board created a new positioning statement we enjoyed record-breaking fundraising efforts, (below) for the organization, which will direct our enhanced engagement in our member groups, energies in to the future. The goal of this positioning thought-provoking exhibitions (several of which statement is to articulate and guide our inclusion traveled to other museums around the country), efforts. Many challenges await us in these endeavors. major press coverage, explosive growth in our We are working internally to evaluate where we are studios — especially in providing scholarships to now and where we need to evolve to reach our MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR AND THE BOARD PRESIDENT AND THE BOARD FROM THE DIRECTOR MESSAGE individuals in need — positive new directions in our goals. We have a long way to go; however, we are docent program, and new art acquisitions, including headed in a more equitable direction. two major works for the Pappajohn Sculpture Each of our endeavors helps us fulfill our Park — Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin (L), 2014 and mission to engage diverse local and international Ai Weiwei’s Iron Tree Trunk, 2015. audiences with the art of today, while adding to the cultural record. We, along with the entire staff and board of trustees, thank you — our community of participants and supporters — for your ongoing DES MOINES ART CENTER support of our efforts. POSITIONING STATEMENT We could not be the organization we are today without your participation. The Des Moines Art Center believes in the power of art to inspire personal, political, and social transformation. Jeff Fleming Jim Wallace We commit to exhibit and explore thought- DIRECTOR PRESIDENT provoking modern and contemporary art. BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2016–2018 We connect people and art by offering opportunities for feeling, imagining, dreaming, and creating. We promote curiosity and embrace critical and empathetic thinking with a spirit of openness. We strive to be a welcoming and equitable cultural resource for all. ANNUAL REPORT 2018 | 3 4In the| DES Spirit MOINES of Louise ART Noun CENTER Throughout 2018, member and donor support EXHIBITIONS allowed the Art Center to create and present major exhibitions responding to diverse contemporary approaches to art making. These exhibitions took both artists and museum Sultry Night: visitors off-site to explore the landscape of the Selected Works by Grant Wood city of Des Moines; provided new interpretations March 30 – June 24, 2018 of works in the Art Center’s collections; focused John Brady Print Gallery on critical social and cultural issues; and Sultry Night featured a suite of 19 lithographs presented an aspect of an artist’s oeuvre in Wood completed for the Associated American a major museum exhibition for the first time. Artists, and, in addition, the rarely seen Sultry Projects like In the Spirit of Louise Noun created Night painting, on loan from a private collection new partnerships with the local chapter of in Wisconsin. This marked the first time the The Links, Incorporated, a not-for-profit painting had been publicly exhibited in Iowa. corporation of black women leaders and the Young Women’s Resource Center; while Sterling Yayoi Kusama Ruby: Ceramics was the first museum show to March 30 – July 22, 2018 investigate the artist’s ceramic works. Blank One Gallery All exhibitions were organized by the Yayoi Kusama celebrated the Art Center’s Des Moines Art Center unless otherwise noted. collection of the artist’s work—four sculptures, and Pumpkin (L), a recent addition to the Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park. 1967– 2017 February 17 – May 13, 2018 In the Spirit of Louise Noun (photo left) Anna K. Meredith Gallery June 9 – September 2, 2018 Co-organized by the University of Buffalo Anna K. Meredith Gallery Art Galleries and the Des Moines Art Center This exhibition celebrated one of Des Moines’ This 50-year survey exhibition considered themes most inspirational and transformative civic and of action and exploration outside of the studio cultural leaders. In the course of her extraordinary and how artists engage this theme in various life, Louise Noun led the way — restructuring city ways, including walking, cartography, land use, government, protecting civil liberties, advancing endurance, and the consideration of public feminist causes, guiding the Des Moines space. The exhibition brought together regional, Art Center from its very origins to become a national, and international artists that focus world-class art institution, and energizing the on actions in and with the landscape through philanthropic landscape of our community. various practices. ANNUAL REPORT 2018 | 5 EXHIBITIONS The exhibition honored Noun’s legacy within the Iowa Artist 2018: Jen Bervin Art Center and was inspired by the 40th October 19, 2018 – January 27, 2019 anniversary of the Young Women’s Resource I. M. Pei Building Center, of which Noun was the leading founder. Iowa Artist 2018 premiered River by artist and PHOTO PAGE 4 / BRITTANY BROOKE CROW poet, Jen Bervin. River maps the Mississippi from the headwaters in Lake Itasca, Minnesota Sterling Ruby: Ceramics to its delta south of New Orleans, Louisiana. June 9 – September 9, 2018 Over the course of 12 years, the artist sewed I. M. Pei Building the 230 feet-long curvilinear sculpture by hand The Art Center was the first museum to organize in thousands of reflective, silver sequins. She a exhibition investigating this artist’s ceramic calculates that it took the same amount of time works. The show then traveled to the Museum to sew each section of the river that it would of Arts and Design, New York. to walk the real one—the scale of the “map” PHOTO OPPOSITE / BRITTANY BROOKE CROW was one inch to one mile. This Woman’s Work The Art Students League Of New York June 29 – October 7, 2018 November 13, 2018 – February 3, 2019 John Brady Print Gallery John Brady Print Gallery This print exhibition explored images of women This exhibition featured works on paper and working, throughout history, highlighting the prints from the Art Center’s collection by more different ways male and female artists portray than 20 artists who either attended classes their subjects and their actions. at the Art Students League, taught there, or both. A select number of works were on view Neo Rauch: for the first time, or had not been shown in Aus dem boden / From the Floor more than two decades. September 29, 2018 – January 6, 2019 Anna K. Meredith Gallery Co-organized by the Des Moines Art Center and the Drawing Center, New York This was the first exhibition in the United States of drawings by Rauch, one of the best-known artists from the Leipzig School in Germany. 6 | DES MOINES ART CENTER ANNUALSterling REPORT Ruby: Ceramics 2018 | 7 Art Center founder James D. Edmundson imagined a world-class museum in Des Moines, and provided for the building of it in his will, along with the acquisition of artwork appropriate to it. The Art Center has accessioned more than 5,500 works of art since then, including 81 in 2018, two of which were major additions to the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in downtown Des Moines. Purchases included major works of photography, 1 YAYOI KUSAMA (Japanese, born 1929) Pumpkin (L) 2014, fabricated 2018 SELECTIONS FROM THE NEW ACCESSIONS sculpture, ceramics, video installations, mixed- Bronze / 94 7/8 × 92 1/2 × 92 1/2 inches, 3306.9 lbs. media, prints and drawings, and works on paper. Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Purchased Gifts came from a variety of sources, including with funds from John and Mary Pappajohn, 2018.6 funded acquisition endowments, the Des Moines PHOTO PAGE 9, BELOW / RICH SANDERS, DES MOINES Art Center Print Club, and generous donors. DEANA LAWSON (American, born 1979) Wanda and Daughters 2009 JORDAN WEBER (American, born 1984) Inkjet print on paper Chapels (series) 2017 Frame: 36 × 45 × 1 3/4 inches Marble, earth (Charleston, SC Emanuel African Image: 34 1/2 × 43 3/4 inches Church shooting), wood, plastic packaging, and resin Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; 24 × 24 × 4 1/4 inches Purchased with funds from the Kyle and Sharon Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Krause Family Art Acquisition Fund, 2018.7 Purchased from Director’s Discretionary Fund, 2018.1 WALTON FORD (American, born 1960) DOROTHEA LANGE (American, 1895–1965) Nila 2000 White Angel Breadline 1933, printed under the Lithograph on paper photographer’s supervision, c.1950s –1960s Frame: 47 1/2 × 33 3/4 × 2 inches Photographer’s Berkeley stamp, in ink, on verso Sheet: 45 1/2 × 31 5/8 inches Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Sheet: 13 7/8 × 11 inches / Image: 13 3/8 × 10 1/2 inches Gift of Steven J. and Keely Rosenberg, 2018.13