Faculty News
Professor Ivan Gaskell delivered his paper “Joys and Sorrows of Museum Storage” remotely for the June 9–10 symposium, What Can Museum Anthropology Do in the 21st Century? at the Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich. This paper was in conjunction with the second year of his visiting fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Study of the Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich. Gaskell also published “America’s Virtues,” a review of Glenn Adamson’s Craft: An American History (2021), Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 85, 2022, pp. 422-426.
At the end of September, associate professor Aaron Glass gave a paper entitled, “What is a Mask? Indigenous Ontologies of Carving and Kinship,” at Yale University’s conference, Surrogates: Embodied Histories of Sculpture in the Short 20th Century. In August, he published the article, “‘Ethnology as an Epic:’ The Modern Cinema of Edward S. Curtis and the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw,” co-authored with Brad Evans and Colin Browne. (Getty Research Journal, No. 16: 67-90, 2022) Glass and Hadley Jensen (PhD, ‘18) published an obituary for their friend and friend of BGC, Ira Jacknis, who passed away last year. It is in the journal Museum Anthropology.
Congratulations to assistant professor Freyja Hartzell (MA ‘04), who received one of 56 grants from the Graham Foundation, awarded to projects that expand contemporary understandings of architecture. Funded projects by 81 individuals include established and emerging architects, artists, curators, designers, filmmakers, historians, and writers. The Graham Foundation received nearly 500 submissions from all over the world.
Deborah Krohn’s upcoming exhibition, Staging the Table in Europe 1500–1800, was included in a preview of food-related exhibitions in the New York Times article, “Bread, Pastrami, and Cocktails: Museum Shows Focus on Food.”
Professor emerita Michele Majer presented a masterclass on Threads of Power for University of Glasgow professor Lesley Miller’s MA and PhD students in dress and textile histories and textile conservation. Majer also lectured on Staging Fashion for New York University professor Elizabeth Morano’s course, Nineteenth-Century Fashion.
Professor Caspar Meyer published a chapter entitled “Domesticating the Ancient House: The Archaeology of a False Analogy” in an edited volume on housing in the ancient Mediterranean world. On September 26, he gave a lecture on ‘Beazley the Craftsman’ at the 50th-anniversary conference of the Beazley Archive at the University of Oxford.
The New York Times quotes director Susan Weber as an expert on audience development for single-focus museums in the article, “More Money Can Mean More Museums, Just Look at Florida”. In April, Weber was quoted in the NYT article, “In Florida, It’s ‘Go West’ for Art Donors and Patrons,” on the significance of the kunsthalle museum as an approach that “serves the function of bringing art to the community.”
Fellow News
The New York Times featured Fields of the Future Research Fellow Charisse Pearlina Weston in the Fine Arts and Museums special section piece, “Interpreting Racial Justice: Two Exhibitions at the Queens Museum Address Efforts to Create a More Equitable Society.” The article explores her show, of [a] tomorrow: lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust, on view at the Queens Museum through March 5.
Student News
PhD candidate Caroline Elenowitz-Hess was quoted in “Avant Apocalypse Is What Happens When Maximalism Meets Mad Max” in the May 2022 issue of Elle. She spoke at Unravelling Threads: Tracing and Transforming Violence and Trauma through Fashion, hosted by the London College of Fashion and the Courtland Institute of Art. She also gave the kick-off talk for “Fashion as Art,” held at the Fralin Museum at the University of Virginia on September 22. Her lecture was titled “Catwalk as Canvas: The Interwoven Worlds of Fashion and Art.” Launched in 2019, Fashion As Art is an annual event series engaging the community with art and fashion.
Congratulations to PhD candidate Deena Engel, a co-editor of the forthcoming book Conservation of Time-Based Media Art, published by Routledge in early November. This project is the “first book to take stock of the current practices and conceptual frameworks that define the emerging field of time-based media conservation, which focuses on contemporary artworks that contain video, audio, film, slides, or software components.”
Congratulations to PhD candidate Emma McClendon for accepting a tenure-track position as assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John’s University.
PhD candidate Sarah Scaturro spoke out over the ethics of wearing a historic costume following Kim Kardashian’s appearance at the 2022 Met Gala wearing an archived 1960s dress of Marilyn Monroe’s. Scaturro commented for the LA Times and discussed the incident with fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes for BBC 4.
PhD candidate Kate Sekules gave a paper and taught a workshop on October 7 at the biannual Winterthur Needlework Conference. Sekules spoke remotely for the Dress and Textile Specialists Conference (UK) on October 21 and will speak at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting on November 4 in New Orleans.
Alumni News
Congratulations to Sonya Abrego (MA ‘09, PhD ‘16), who will launch her first book, Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture. Don’t miss a reading and brief discussion with Dr. Hazel Clark (The New School) Friday, Nov 18, at 6:30 PM, in the Katie Murphy Amphitheater. No RSVP is required.
Antonia Behan (MA ‘14, PhD ‘21) hosted the Craft History Workshop with BGC doctoral candidate Colin Fanning in Spring 2022. Join the workshop mailing list to be notified about upcoming talks and future calls for participation.
Congratulations to Julie Bellemare (PhD ‘21) on her new appointment to Curator of Early Modern Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass. Says Bellemare, “I am excited to join the curatorial team as we embark on the project of re-envisioning the 35 Centuries of Glass Galleries, and I look forward to bringing even more inclusive and diverse perspectives on the Museum’s exceptional collections of early modern glass.”
Cassandra Celestin (MA ‘18) recently completed a short film entitled Water & Wall that had its German premiere on May 29 at the Fracto Film Encounter following the world premiere earlier this year at the London Short Film Festival. “The film is a mosaic of material remains and landscapes of the Dutch settler town lying beneath Manhattan’s current financial district, an entanglement of things past and present.”
Nicole Dee-Collins (MA ‘20) was one of two keynote speakers at the Costume Society’s (UK) annual conference on October 22. She presented her paper, “Depicting and Demystifying the Regency Dandy: An Analysis of Dandy Caricatures and the Masculinity ‘Crisis’ Post-Waterloo.” Her 2020 BGC qualifying paper provided a foundation for new additional research.
Congratulations to Jessa Krick (MA ‘03), who joined Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts as the director of Interpretation, Collections, and Archives at the Rosen House. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Rosen House was built between 1929 to 1939 by Walter Rosen and Lucie Bigelow Dodge Rosen.
Eva Labson (MA ‘08) was promoted to general manager and head of the Antonio Ratti Textile Study and Storage Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Congratulations Eva!
Congratulations to Sarah Lichtman (MA ‘03, PhD ‘14) for her recent appointment to associate professor of design history and dean of the School of Art and Design History and Theory in the Parsons School of Design at The New School.
Alum Casey Mathern (MA ‘13), director of the William Paterson University Galleries, has co-curated the exhibition A Durable Thread: The Silk Road from China to America, on view in the Ben Shahn Center for the Visual Arts now through December 2. Additionally, Textile Arts from Guizhou, China, will be on view in the Shahn Center from October 17–December 2. These exhibitions were supported by a two-day international symposium, Across Time and Space: The Silk Road and the Silk City at William Paterson University, October 26–27, 2022, devoted to placing the Silk City of Paterson, New Jersey, on the global and historical Silk Road.
Jorge Rivas Pérez (PhD ‘18), curator of Latin American Art at the Denver Museum, was quoted in a New York Times article entitled “Demoting the Conquest: How the Denver Art Museum Kicked Columbus out the Door.”
Darienne Turner (MA ‘17) curated the exhibition Arctic Artistry at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), where she is the assistant curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas. The exhibition is on view now through May 14, 2023.
Emily Zilber (MA ‘07) is an independent curator and consultant for CraftNOW Philadelphia, which will host its annual symposium on November 11. CraftNOW’s 2022 symposium and programming will center on the theme “Public | Private” and explore continually evolving concepts of shared versus personal space. The keynote speaker will be Michael Lewis, architectural critic for the Wall Street Journal. To learn more about CraftNOW, please visit https://www.craftnowphila.org.
