The Addison Reopens Tuesday, September 4th

As our deadline approaches for reopening the museum after our August break, Preparators are scrambling to install artwork, Curators are polishing their text for their wall labels, Registrars are condition reporting the incoming loans, and Educators are finalizing their tours and curriculum packets. The museum may look quiet outside, but the staff is bustling within. I thought I'd post a few images of the galleries to give our readers a sneak preview of what's to come.

Three shows will be ready for September 4th. Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey (see above left) consists of forty large-scale color portraits of high school students taken across the country. Each image is accompanied by the sitter's personal statement, the image and text combining to give unique insight into the personality and mind of each student.

Class Pictures shares our second floor with The Discerning Eye: Five Perspectives of the Addison Collection. Our Director, three Curators, and Dawoud Bey have each curated a gallery with different themes. Our own blogger and Curatorial Fellow Jaime DeSimone, has curated her gallery of The Discerning Eye (see right) using artwork that uses contemporary interpretations of word and image.

The third exhibition is hung on our main level: Bernard Langlais: Abstract Wood Reliefs (see left). Also occupying the main level will be Ipswich Days: Arthur Wesley Dow and his Hometown and Angela Lorenz: The Artist's Book as Volume of Knowledge, but you will need to wait until our opening reception September 22nd to see those two shows. We start installing them next week.

Over the next few weeks, keep checking Blog Addison as we introduce our new blogger from the Education Department, bring you up to date on current and future museum events, and continue to give you the behind-the-scenes glimpses of our museum as you've come to expect. We also will soon announce what Building for the Addison's Future is all about. Sharp-eyed viewers have noticed the spot for that new link on the Addison's main web page.

Thanks as always for reading and we hope to see you here at the museum soon!


James Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives

Tomorrow's Ends and Beginnings

Tomorrow is the final day to see our Spring 2007 exhibitions here at the Addison, including the wildly popular William Wegman: Funney/Strange (see left) and An Impressionist Legacy: Lawrence's White Fund Paintings. We're very sad to see these shows close as they have become favorites among our record number of visitors.

Tomorrow is also the final day of our Education Fellow and blog poster Rebecca Spolarich. Though her two year Addison fellowship is ending, she'll be starting a new job in Paris, France. We all wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors!

And late tomorrow, we'll be launching a freshened front page for our website. It contains links to our fall shows and a spot for a link to Building for the Addison's Future, a major project on the museum's horizon that will soon be announced to the public. This follows the newly redesigned Education Module on our site (see right) launched last week and designed by Rebecca as one her last gifts to us before her departure. A multitude of new pages outline the various aspects of our Education program. Click here to view it.

We will be taking a break from posting to the Blog during the month of August while we're closed and busy installing the new shows. But, I promise, we'll be back posting again when we reopen September 4th. Take care and have a great summer!

James Sousa
Associate Registrar for Collections and Archives

What to see while we're closed...

Though the Addison closes its doors during the month of August, one will be left open at a different address - the Essex Art Center in Lawrence, MA.

To celebrate the artwork and writing created by the hundreds of students who visit the Addison throughout the school year, the Education Department has organized Student Photography Alphabets - an exhibition of student photography - on view through August 17 at the Essex Art Center.

Student Photography Alphabets brings together selections from sixteen Photography & Writing projects prompted by the Addison's fall 2006 exhibition, WendyEwald: American Alphabets. Responding to Ewald's work which questions the link between language, education, and identity, students created painted photographs, alphabet books, and DVDs which mimic the format of the familiar alphabet primer. Sixteen alphabet projects created by K-12 students in schools as close as Andover and Lawrence and as far away as Mumbai, India are on interactive display in the Essex Art Center's Student Gallery. Visit www.essexartcenter.com for visitor information.

Contemporary photographer Wendy Ewald's collaborative work with children and young adults across the United States has inspired numerous projects organized through the Addison's Photography & Writing Program - a program directed by the Education Department which works to develop students' visual literacy skills through picture-making and creative writing. Learn more about this program by clicking on EDUCATION on the Addison's website.

Top left: Q is for Quieted, A 20th Century Alphabet, Pike School, Andover.
Above: M is for Martin Luther King, Jr., A 1st Grade Alphabet, Robert Frost School, Lawrence.