Americana singer-songwriter Ed Dupas’ lived-in melodies unwind with reflective lyrics and speak to the current state of the human condition. Come enjoy an hour of songs that are soothing where possible, agitating where necessary, and seeking change where appropriate.  

Find Ed on Instagram and Facebook

This exhibition celebrates Gertrude Kasle (1917–2016), a key figure in the formation of Detroit’s contemporary art community in the 1960s and 70s. A pioneering female gallerist, Kasle provided midwest audiences with a venue in which to experience avant-garde art from centers like New York City, while also supporting and exhibiting regional artists. Featuring a collection of paintings, works on paper, and sculptures from the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement through the early twenty-first century including Philip Guston, Jane Hammond, Grace Hartigan, Jasper Johns, Michele Oka Doner, and Robert Rauschenberg, among others. Join docents as they explore a dynamic moment in Detroit’s cultural history and insight into Kasle’s love of looking and learning.

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. During the summer we take advantage of the warm weather and the public art situated outside the Museum. As always, we include a fun, age-appropriate hands-on activity related to the story. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store. 

See Through looks at how photographers of these images doubly frame the world around us —once through the frame of the camera lens and, again, through the frame of a reflective mirror or transparent window. UMMA Docents will reveal which photographers include their own reflections in their photographs, highlighting their active role in the creation of images. A tour will also indicate which photographers look outward, enacting an exchange of public and, sometimes, voyeuristic glances; and which look inward to domestic spaces, framing intimate views and personal moments among families and lovers. Mirrors and windows, like the medium of photography itself, expand the limits of the human eye to perceive the world and, in turn, invite viewers to see through to new visual possibilities.

Dan Hazlett's original songs fuse folk, jazz, blues, and pop. 

Find Dan on Facebook @dan.hazlett.96 and on YouTube @DanHazlett

In celebration of the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial in 2017, artist and distinguished Stamps School of Art and Design professor Jim Cogswell has been invited to create a series of public window installations at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. For this visionary project, the artist will adhere a procession of vivid images to the glass walls of the museums in a rhythmically evocative narrative of reassembled fragments from a diverse range of artworks in both museums’ permanent collections. By leveraging the buildings’ unique architecture, the artist expands our understanding of a museum as a cultural repository and highlights the significant role of these institutions in the life of the campus community. UMMA docents will introduce the juxtaposed images and help connect the viewer to the origins and meaning of objects and their power to shape knowledge, memory, and identity.

Jen Sygit and Sam Corbin have been performing regionally as a songwriting team for the better part of a decade. Together, they have six albums and are both members of the Americana outfit "Lincoln County Process."  Soulful vocals laden with rich harmonies, a variety of instrumentation including banjo, acoustic guitar, telecaster, and harmonica round out the duo's eclectic roots-y sound.

Find Jen and Sam on Twitter @sygvicious and @SamCorbinMusic

Historical collecting practices have had a lasting impact on representations of Africa, its history,
culture, and life today. Labeled as ‘unknown’ or ‘anonymous,’ African artists became associated
with broad cultural styles and collective identities rather than personal creativity and individual
agency. The exhibition Unrecorded: Reimagining Artist Identities in Africa includes artworks
from both named and unrecorded, contemporary and historic artists to tell an alternative story.
It explores how the changing attributes of an ‘African’ artist’s identity, and constructions of
African identity more broadly, have shaped perceptions of Africa outside of the continent.

More than ever, ideas cross geographic, generational and ethnic boundaries, even at a time when national borders are becoming increasingly impenetrable. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering the arts of Africa and how they have been shaped by, and have contributed to, conversations taking place across the world. Join exhibition curator Laura De Becker for this first look at the dynamic and influential qualities of contemporary African art and discuss works by leading artists such as Kudzanai Chiurai, Yinka Shonibare and Serge Alain Nitegeka, among others.
 

See Through looks at how photographers of these images doubly frame the world around us —once through the frame of the camera lens and, again, through the frame of a reflective mirror or transparent window. UMMA Docents will reveal which photographers include their own reflections in their photographs, highlighting their active role in the creation of images. A tour will also indicate which photographers look outward, enacting an exchange of public and, sometimes, voyeuristic glances; and which look inward to domestic spaces, framing intimate views and personal moments among families and lovers. Mirrors and windows, like the medium of photography itself, expand the limits of the human eye to perceive the world and, in turn, invite viewers to see through to new visual possibilities.

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. During the summer we take advantage of the warm weather and the public art situated outside the Museum. As always, we include a fun, age-appropriate hands-on activity related to the story. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store. 

More than ever in the era of globalization, ideas traverse geographic, generational, and cultural boundaries, even as national borders seem to be closing. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the center of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries. Bringing together a dazzling array of works made in Africa, Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and the African diaspora. Join UMMA docents as they explore the significant themes of our times including slavery, colonization, migration, racism and identity.

UMMA and Arts at Michigan celebrate Welcome Week by introducing new University of Michigan students to the wide array of possibilities for arts participation on campus. This evening event will feature live music and performances, dance, poetry, film, games, prizes, and a variety of art-making activities. 

Historical collecting practices have had a lasting impact on representations of Africa, its history,
culture, and life today. Labeled as ‘unknown’ or ‘anonymous,’ African artists became associated
with broad cultural styles and collective identities rather than personal creativity and individual
agency. The exhibition Unrecorded: Reimagining Artist Identities in Africa includes artworks
from both named and unrecorded, contemporary and historic artists to tell an alternative story.
It explores how the changing attributes of an ‘African’ artist’s identity, and constructions of
African identity more broadly, have shaped perceptions of Africa outside of the continent.

featuring
Haleem Rasul (dance / choreography) & Hardcore Detroit
Franco Dhaka (dance / vocals)
E.Reid JIT Coalition (live music / production)
Mono Mukundu (guitar)

A synthesis of Zimbabwean jiti, Detroit ghetto tech, jit dance, jazz and funk, this performance is the culmination of a month long artist residency and exchange between dancer/choreographers Haleem “Stringz” Rasul  of Detroit and Franco “Slomo” Dhaka of Harare, Zimbabwe, with musical support from SMTD students and alumni. The uncanny parallel in historical narrative and their similar dance styles exemplify the theme of interconnectedness in UMMA’s exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa, while the artists’ exchange engages the exhibition’s theme of hybridity and its dialogic approach to African and African diasporic arts. 

The exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa will be open for browsing following the performance.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

This week's reading features Rachel Girty and Lorenzo Diaz-Cruz.

Rachel Ann Girty is a writer and classical mezzo-soprano from Southfield, Michigan. The farthest west she's ever been is the Kansas-Missouri state line.

Lorenzo Diaz Cruz: "the true world featherweight champion, son of Conchy and Guillermo Diaz, anti-Communist and a living legend.”

More than ever in the era of globalization, ideas traverse geographic, generational, and cultural boundaries, even as national borders seem to be closing. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the center of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries. Bringing together a dazzling array of works made in Africa, Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and the African diaspora. Join UMMA docents as they explore the significant themes of our times including slavery, colonization, migration, racism and identity.

Photographs are often referred to as “reflections of life” or “windows on the world.” Yet, photographers often seek to elide or distort clear views of the visual world. Join John Cantú, arts writer, and Jennifer Friess, UMMA Assistant Curator of Photography, for a conversation in the exhibition as they discuss issues of realism in photography in the exhibition See Through: Windows and Mirrors in Twentieth-Century. Together with the audience, they will explore a selection of images in depth—parsing the visual possibilities of images that employ windows and mirrors.
 

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of educational entertainment known to mankind. From the West African tradition of the Griot to modern day Moth events, storytelling environments have served as a means to pass along history, shape culture, share helpful lessons, and establish a sense of belonging and community.

The U-M Comprehensive Studies Program and Department of Afroamerican and African Studies invite you to explore themes related to campus life, coming of age, and learning and growing, at this series of Moth Style Storyteller Lounge events. Storytellers include students, faculty and staff, and Voices of Wisdom (alums or community members).​ 

Light food and refreshments will follow in the UMMA Commons. 

Value the Voice will take place on Tuesdays, September 18, November 13, January 22, March 19, 7 p.m. UMMA Auditorium.

For more information, please contact Keith Jason at mrjason@umich.edu or 734-764-9128

Danielle Lazarin’s debut collection of short stories, Back Talk, has been praised for its ability to bend form and turn the story into something that is temporally and emotionally elastic. A New York Times pick for a 2018 special book review issue on women, Lazarin is a graduate of Oberlin College’s creative writing program. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where her stories and essays won Hopwood Awards.
 
Esmé Weijun Wang is a novelist and essayist. Her debut novel, The Border of Paradise, was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR and one of the 25 Best Novels of 2016 by Electric Literature. She was named by Granta as one of the “Best of  Young American Novelists” in 2017, won the Whiting Award in 2018, and is the recipient of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize for her forthcoming essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias. Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, she lives in San Francisco.

See Through looks at how photographers of these images doubly frame the world around us —once through the frame of the camera lens and, again, through the frame of a reflective mirror or transparent window. UMMA Docents will reveal which photographers include their own reflections in their photographs, highlighting their active role in the creation of images. A tour will also indicate which photographers look outward, enacting an exchange of public and, sometimes, voyeuristic glances; and which look inward to domestic spaces, framing intimate views and personal moments among families and lovers. Mirrors and windows, like the medium of photography itself, expand the limits of the human eye to perceive the world and, in turn, invite viewers to see through to new visual possibilities.

The exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics of the Early 1970s presents large-scale works by four leading American artists—Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson—who chose abstraction as a means of expression within the intense political climate of the early 1970s. To many at the time, the decision by women artists and artists of color to make abstract art represented a retreat from politics and protest: an abnegation of a commitment to civil rights and feminism. Join UMMA Director and exhibition curator, Christina Olsen, in the gallery to explore these works of art and the questions they pose.

Aracelis Girmay was born and raised in Santa Ana, California. She received a BA from Connecticut College in 1999 and went on to earn an MFA in poetry from New York University. She is the author of The Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016), Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), and Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007), and winner of the Isabella Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award. In a statement for the New American Poets series, she says of her work, “I hope the poems are songs sometimes. I want the poems to ask questions. To engage other people. To promote compassion.” Girmay is also the author of a collage-based picture book, changing, changing (George Braziller, 2005). She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Civitella Ranieri, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches and lives in New York City.

Sigrid Nunez has published seven novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, and, most recently, The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends—a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

This week's reading features Gerardo Sámano and Elinam Agbo.

Gerardo Sámano is a writer from Mexico City.

Elinam Agbo was born in Ghana and moved to the United States when she was ten. She is a recipient of the 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2017 Les River Fellowship for Young Novelists. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Review.

This fall’s biennial U-M History of Art Graduate Student Symposium aims to foster discussions of the theoretical, social, and cultural nature of the “Virtual” in Art, Architecture, and Visual Culture. The virtual, often linked to the digital age, implies imagined, border-less spaces with no material form. Ten graduate students in art history and related fields from the University of Michigan and other institutions will present papers that collectively address the impact of the virtual on the mind, body, and the construction or cementation of boundaries.
 

Kristina Kleutghen, David. W. Mesker Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Chinese Art and Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis will be the keynote for this event.

This program is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.

For more information, please contact the History of Art Department.

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.

Through labels, museums identify, classify, and make sense of artworks on display. Yet such information is rarely uncomplicated: many of the ways we classify the historical arts of Africa are in fact remnants of colonization, when European powers carved up the continent into sharply divided groups and nations, failing to recognize moments of interaction, encounter, and exchange. The exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa brings together artworks that challenge such borders, ranging from historical objects from UMMA's collection, to contemporary artworks by Omar Victor Diop, Nandipha Mntambo and Kudzanai Chiurai. Join Laura De Becker, exhibition curator and UMMA's Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African Art, in a conversation exploring how conceptual and geographic borders continue to inform - and limit - the way we collect, research, and display the arts of Africa.

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• November 9 or 16 (TBD)
• December 21
• February 15
• April 19
• May 10
• June 14
• July 19—Art Fair Edition

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

This week's reading features Samantha Bares and Daniella Toosie-Watson.

Samantha Bares is a fiction MFA candidate at the Helen Zell Writers' Program and a reader for Michigan Quarterly Review. Her work has appeared or will appear in Cricket Online Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and NightBlock. She has been awarded the Frederick Busch Prize in Fiction, the John Ed Bradley Award for Fiction, and the Dara Weir Award for Poetry. Her novel-in-progress is a contemporary retelling of Longfellow's "Evangeline," set in her native Cajun country.

Daniella Toosie-Watson is a Puerto Rican/Iranian/Russian poet, visual artist and educator from New York. She has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and the InsideOut Detroit Literary Arts Project. Her poetry is forthcoming in Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters. Daniella holds a BA in English from the College of Saint Rose and is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program. She shamelessly and enthusiastically invites you to follow her on Instagram: @toositajoon

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Al Loving, within the context of highly-charged debates of the early 1970s about aesthetics, politics, race, and feminism. This exhibition explores the gendered and racialized terms upon which great art was defined and assessed, and the strategy of artists to question the identity and aesthetics of the artist making the art. UMMA docents will help visitors look through the lens of the five artists’ works to explore the aesthetic choices inherent in abstraction as well as the acts of staining, pouring, draping, —or even taking apart the wall itself—within this charged political context.

Xu Bing, an internationally renowned artist and film director, will discuss his life as an artist and the many media he works in. Xu will focus on how he draws inspirations from society and his environment. Although his projects may seem radically different from each other, there are underlying principles that he applies to all of his creations. Xu will talk about his signature works including Book From the Sky, Book From the Ground, Square Word Calligraphy, Background Story, Phoenix, and his new film Dragonfly Eyes (2017), which will have its Michigan premiere at the Michigan Theater with Xu Bing present for a reception and Q & A. 

Born in Chongqing, China, Xu Bing is one of the most renowned contemporary artists in China, well known for his representations of artistic sophistication, political conscience, and far-reaching imagination. His art works have been exhibited at many prestigious venues including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan. He is a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing where he has also taught and served in academic leadership. He has been included in the Venice Biennale three times and honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Graphics Council, the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, the Wales International Visual Art Prize, and a US Department of State Medal of Arts.

Following Xu Bing's talk at UMMA, please head to over the Michigan Theater at 603 E. Liberty for a screening of Dragonfly Eyes.
 
5:30 p.m.: Pre-screening reception at the Michigan Theater Main Lobby 
6:30 p.m.: Screening of Dragonfly Eyes (2017)  
8 p.m.: Post Screening Q&A with Xu Bing 

All events are free and open to the public.  

More than ever in the era of globalization, ideas traverse geographic, generational, and cultural boundaries, even as national borders seem to be closing. Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on this moment by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the center of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries. Bringing together a dazzling array of works made in Africa, Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and the African diaspora. Join UMMA docents as they explore the significant themes of our times including slavery, colonization, migration, racism and identity.

Born in central Connecticut, Gabrielle Calvocoressi grew up in a family that owned movie theaters in several small towns across the state. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and earned her MFA from Columbia University. Calvocoressi’s first book, The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart (Persea Books, 2005), was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award and won the 2006 Connecticut Book Award in Poetry. Her second collection, Apocalyptic Swing (Persea Books, 2009), was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is also the author of Rocket Fantastic (Persea Books, 2017). Calvocoressi has been praised for “moving beyond the popular poetry of ‘self’ in an effort to understand other perspectives.” Her awards and honors include a Stegner Fellowship, a Jones Lectureship at Stanford University, and a Rona Jaffe Women Writers’ Award. Her poem “Circus Fire, 1944” received The Paris Review‘s Bernard F. Connors Prize. She teaches at the MFA programs at California College of Arts in San Francisco and at Warren Wilson College. She also runs the sports desk for the Best American Poetry Blog.

Karan Mahajan grew up in New Delhi, India and moved to the US for college. Since then, he has lived in San Francisco, New Delhi, New York, Bangalore, and Austin. His first novel, Family Planning (2008), was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. It was published in nine countries. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs (2016), was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Awards and was named one of the "10 Best Books of 2016" by The New York Times. Mahajan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker Online, The New Republic, and other venues.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends - a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

This week's reading features Coleen Herbert and Daniel Neff.

Coleen Herbert is a writer from Virginia.

Daniel Neff is from a small town in Indiana, then Missouri, and then Michigan, and then still Michigan. Daniel’s poetry is published in places such as Zyzzyva, Interrupture, Ninth Letter, Whiskey Island, and Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Daniel’s fiction once got an encouraging rejection. Daniel will read your tarot for seven dollars.

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

The story of Japanese archaeologist Ryoichi and evidence of his worldwide excavations are
explored by Patrick Nagatani in this series of photographs. Nagatani presents a narrative of
Ryoichi’s archeological work, supported by images of excavation sites, unearthed artifacts, and
Ryoichi’s own journal pages. According to the photographs, Ryoichi discovered evidence of an
automobile culture buried at sites across several continents: Stonehenge, the Grand Canyon,
and a necropolis in China. Docents will introduce this provocative and playful series that compels viewers to reflect on how photographs and institutions, such as museums, shape our
knowledge of the past and present.

"Where do you think your ancestors got these?" asks Eric Killmonger in the recent Black Panther film. Join us for a discussion facilitated by African Art Historian Ray Silverman with curators, activists and scholars Nii Quarcoopome (Detroit Institute of Arts), Sylvester Ogbechie (UC Santa Barbara), and Monica Udvardy (University of Kentucky) about what we can learn from the display of African art objects in Western art museums, diving deep into fraught questions of collecting, display, and repatriation.

Storytime at the Museum promotes art enjoyment for our youngest patrons. We read a story in the galleries and include a fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activity related to it. Children ages three to six are invited to join Storytime. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet in front of the UMMA Store.

Paul Rand was a giant of American design whose influential career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. His visionary and pithy conceptions of corporate and non-profit brand identities—though often graphically minimal—embody the artist’s complex philosophy, interest in modernist aesthetics, and singular wit. This exhibition features posters, book covers, and packaging designs from the entirety of Rand’s career. Visit Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task with an UMMA docent to explore the genre of graphic design within the context of the art museum and examine how Rand’s intellectual process and impact on visual culture developed over time.

What is the value of exploring connections between past and present cultures? What technologies and evidence do we use to construct these narratives? What role do institutions, such as museums, play in shaping these histories? We will explore these questions and more in a conversation co-hosted by Curator and U-M Professor of Classical Archaeology, Christopher Ratté, and UMMA Assistant Curator, Jennifer Friess. Join Christopher and Jennifer, for a conversation beginning in the exhibition Urban Biographies, Ancient and Modern at the Kelsey. Our tour will continue across the street in the UMMA exhibition Proof: The Ryoichi Excavations. Taken together, these two exhibitions uncover layers of fact and fiction that shape our understanding of history and our present.

What is African art? What makes art 'African'? Peoples, cultures and nations have always exchanged goods, ideas and artworks: 15th century West African artworks clearly show motifs introduced by Portuguese explorers, while modern artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse found inspiration in African art. Especially now, in our current age of globalization, which has allowed the sharing of information to take place at an unprecedented speed and scale, cross-cultural exchange is the rule, rather than the exception. This raises the question: does it still make sense to classify works by geography? Did it ever?  Laura De Becker, UMMA's Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African art, will speak to these themes while focusing in detail on some of the works in Beyond Borders: Global Africa. 

Families with children ages six and up are invited to create a project inspired by the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Enjoy a tour with UMMA docents followed by a hands-on workshop with Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati. Parents must accompany children.

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• February 15
• April 19
• May 10
• June 14
• July 19—Art Fair Edition

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• April 19
• May 10
• June 14
• July 19—Art Fair Edition

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• May 10
• June 14
• July 19—Art Fair Edition

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• June 14
• July 19—Art Fair Edition

Stop in to UMMA on select Friday evenings to enjoy special exhibitions and engaging activities at Fridays After 5! With all of UMMA's galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m., this exciting series provides an interactive atmosphere for all audiences.

Park in the Maynard Structure (between Liberty and William) and receive free, validated parking. The Museum is always free.
 

Join us for future Fridays After 5 dates:

• July 19—Art Fair Edition