Michelle Held is a singer/songwriter with a distinctively soulful and captivating style. Brett Callwood of LA Weekly wrote, "Held plays a gentle folk with oft scathing lyrics. It's her voice that adds the X-Factor; that little bit of welcome strange." Held performs regularly throughout Southeast Michigan with recent national appearances that include Kansas City Folk Festival, Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe and Wheatland Music Festival. Michelle received a Telluride Troubadour honorable mention in 2018. 

Find Michelle:
michelleheld.com
facebook.com/michelleheldmusic
instagram.com/michelleheldmusic
twitter.com/meesheldmusic

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.

Participate in the ancient practice of yoga in the beautiful surroundings of the Museum of Art. This will be gentle yoga, especially appropriate for students preparing for finals, led by a U-M RecSports teacher. All levels and community members welcome. Please bring your own yoga mat. 

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.

The Art, Ideas & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.
 

Create a 3D sculpture inspired by the artist Louise Nevelson who was known to make work using everyday objects and materials she found on the street. We will explore the UMMA exhibition, Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s, which features a large-scale work by Nevelson, as well as other well known abstract expressionists, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artists Susan Clinthorne and Nora Venturelli. 

Create a 3D sculpture inspired by the artist Louise Nevelson who was known to make work using everyday objects and materials she found on the street. We will explore the UMMA exhibition, Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s, which features a large-scale work by Nevelson, as well as other well known abstract expressionists, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artists Susan Clinthorne and Nora Venturelli. 

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.

“The internet has introduced a new way of seeing and being,” says Eva Respini, Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA/Boston. “It’s affected how we shop, eat, date, travel, our social behaviors, our political machines, and how we create and consider art,” both online and off. The exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, on view at UMMA December 15, 2018 - April 7, 2019, brings together more than forty works across a variety of media and features artists and collectives of different generations and backgrounds to take a look at this ubiquitous influence.  Join Respini, the exhibition curator, for an in-depth exploration of the art, artists, and ideas behind the show.

Eva Respini is the Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the ICA/Boston and specializes in global contemporary art and image-making practices. At the ICA Respini recently curated Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today and has organized exhibitions of leading contemporary artists such as Diana Thater, Liz Deschenes, Nalini Malani, Dana Schutz, as well as forthcoming exhibitions of William Forsythe, Huma Bhabha, John Akomfrah and an exhibition on art and migration in the 21st century.
 

Formerly Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Respini organized there critically acclaimed retrospectives of Cindy Sherman, Walid Raad, and Robert Heinecken, and exhibitions with artists Klara Liden, Anne Collier, Leslie Hewitt, and Akram Zaatari. She is author of Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today (2018); Liz Deschenes (2016); Walid Raad (2015); Robert Heinecken: Object Matter (2014); Cindy Sherman (2012).

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 Erika Nestor and 'Pemi Aguda.
 
Erika Nestor is a poet from Dexter, Michigan. She worked in Madison, Wisconsin as a technical writer before entering the MFA program here. She currently prefers sonnets to software.

'Pemi Aguda is a writer from Nigeria. Her stories sometimes slant into the surreal and are inspired by the city of Lagos.

Join the next generation of artists at their studio site as they explore theory and practice in the age of the internet.

Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet at the UMMA Store.

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, 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 four 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.

In conjunction with the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor partner to present a book club that will read and discuss three comic books that explore some of the extreme possibilities of life in the age of the internet. Books include: The Private Eye (January 20), Snot Girl vol. 1 (February 17), and Bitch Planet vol 1 (March 10). Pick and choose your favorites or come to the whole series. Books will be available for sale at Vault of Midnight. All are invited to read and participate. Please note that these comic books deal with mature material.

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 be served in the Commons at 6:30 prior to the start of the program. 

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

Elif Batuman has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010. She is the author of the novel, The Idiot, and The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have been anthologized in the 2014 Best American Travel Writing and the 2010 Best American Essays collections. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and a Paris Review Terry Southern Prize for Humor. Batuman holds a doctoral degree in comparative literature from Stanford University. From 2010 to 2013, she was writer-in-residence at Koç University, in Istanbul. She lives in New York.

Organized by U-M students for U-M students, and inspired by the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, the 10th annual Student Late Night event at UMMA will be a fun-filled creative explosion!

Come to the party and enjoy some of the best fun that the digital age has to offer! Participate in live collaborative art making, motion graphics, and sound mixing. Have fun at the Silent Disco, snag some free food, and have a blast! Don’t miss it or you will be one grumpy cat.

Hosted by the Student Collective at UMMA in partnership with Maize Collective.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. Meet at the UMMA Store.

Anne Basting, founder and CEO of the award-winning TimeSlips Creative Storytelling program will give a talk on her work to create meaning and connection with those living with memory loss. Basting is recognized as an international expert in community-engaged arts practices and the author of several books, including Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia.  She is an advocate for the arts as an integral element in our care systems.  Basting is a Professor of Theater at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a McArthur Fellow.

TimeSlips is evidence-based, award-winning and person centered, bringing meaning and purpose into the lives of elders through creative engagement. TimeSlips strives to inspire others to see beyond memory loss and recognize the strength of people with dementia. Says Basting: “We transform aging care by building Creative Communities of Care that engage elders, volunteers, staff and families.”

Research suggests that TIMESLIPS can:

• Increase the quality and quantity of interactions between staff and residents in care settings
• Improve caregiver attitudes toward aging and people with dementia
• Reduce psychotropic medications by decreasing contributing factors of anxiety and depression
• Improve affect and communication among people with dementia
• Decrease distressed behaviors among people with dementia
• Increase social engagement among people with dementia

This talk is free of charge and all are welcome: care partners and care givers, professionals including physicians, nurses, social workers and others, artists and performers, as well as people with memory loss and their family and friends, are encouraged to attend. 

TimeSlips: The Freedom to Imagine is offered in conjunction with UMMA’s Meet Me at UMMA programs for people with memory loss, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other generous donors who support Meet Me.

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 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.

Using humor, contemporary pop culture references, and possibly games, U-M student improv groups lead unconventional tours of the UMMA collection.

The internet has changed every aspect of contemporary life—from how we interact with each other to how we work and play. Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. Join UMMA docents as they explore the more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects—in this exciting exhibition.

In response to the Virtual Worlds considered in the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, SMTD professor and video game music specialist Matthew Thompson explores the dichotomy of real/unreal in a live performance of new analog transcriptions of favorite video game soundtracks, joined by undergraduate and graduate piano students from his studio. 

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, on view at UMMA from December 15, 2018 to April 7, 2019, examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. The exhibition presents more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects. It features work by some of the most important artists working today, including Judith Barry, Juliana Huxtable, Pierre Huyghe, Josh Kline, Laura Owens, Trevor Paglen, Seth Price, Cindy Sherman, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms.

Open galleries from 4-5 p.m. will be hosted by UMMA staff. At 5 p.m. participants will convene for an open discussion about the exhibit. The conversation will begin with a dialogue between the artist Osman Khan (U-M School of Art and Design) and the cultural critic Anna Watkins Fisher (U-M American Culture) facilitated by Jennifer Robertson (Art History and Anthropology). Meet in the exhibition in the A. Alfred Taubman I gallery on floor 2 of the Alumni Memorial Hall wing the the Museum.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

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 Ann Girty and Justin Balog. 
 
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. 

Justin Balog is a writer and arts administrator from Beach Park, IL. He is a first authored, scientist with work appearing in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism.

Construct an impossible but believable story in the manner of Patrick Nagatani's imaginative photographs featured in the UMMA exhibition of his work Proof: The Rioichi Excavations. In this workshop, we will create fantastical stories through collaging found images. We will explore the meaning that is implied when images of living forms, objects, and other things that could not have met in the same place and time, meet in your work. UMMA docents will lead a tour of the exhibition, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artist Adrian Deva. Designed for families with children of ages six and above. Parents must be present during the workshop. 

Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet at the UMMA Store.

Construct an impossible but believable story in the manner of Patrick Nagatani's imaginative photographs featured in the UMMA exhibition of his work Proof: The Rioichi Excavations. In this workshop, we will create fantastical stories through collaging found images. We will explore the meaning that is implied when images of living forms, objects, and other things that could not have met in the same place and time, meet in your work. UMMA docents will lead a tour of the exhibition, followed by a hands-on workshop with local artist Adrian Deva. Designed for families with children of ages six and above. Parents must be present during the workshop. 

On the occasion of the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor have partnered up to form the UMMA Book Club: The Age of the Internet in Comic Books. Join David Choberka, Andrew W. Mellon Manager of Academic Outreach & Teaching, for a discussion in the gallery that connects the art on view to themes in the selected comics. Open to anyone, regardless of participation in the book club. Meet at the UMMA Store.

Chinese artist Wang Qingsong’s 2018 work The Bloodstained Shirt restages in Highland Park, Michigan, an iconic 1959 drawing by Wang Shikuo of peasants rising up against a cruel landlord and triumphantly reclaiming their right to the land. Wang’s projects are usually located in China, but while visiting southeast Michigan he was struck by the similarities between the effects of inequitable real estate development on local communities in Detroit, Highland Park, and his native Beijing. His large-scale photograph in the UMMA exhibition Wang Qingsong/Detroit/Beijing features more than seventy volunteers from the greater Detroit community and University of Michigan. Eight months later, Michigan residents created a work of protest banners in collaboration with Wang, also included in the exhibition. Join the artist to hear more about the evolution of this project, from the initial idea to a larger project connecting the two urban centers.

Light refreshments and open gallery after the program. 

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.

The University of Michigan School of Social Work is pleased to present NYC-based artist, DJ and poet Juliana Huxtable on the occasion of the 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium. Huxtable's work probes the perception and presentation of identity, history and online communities.  Huxtable will present a new iteration of her performance work highlighting her compelling use of language, and collaborations in music, projection, and lighting design.  Featuring instrumental performances by her frequent collaborators, the pianist, percussionist, and composer Joe Heffernan, Detroit-based harpist Ahya Simone with lighting design by Michael Potvin. Huxtable’s explorations invite us to contemplate the power and powerlessness of the body as well as its dispossession in relation to technology, violence, and blackness. Her performance marks Michigan Social Work’s first commissioned artist in over 20 years, as a part of the Social Justice Art Collection. 

Huxtable’s work is included in Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today on view at the University of Michigan Museum of Art from December 15, 2018 to April 7, 2019. Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the exhibition examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. This exhibition presents more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects. It features work by some of the most important artists working today, including Judith Barry, Juliana Huxtable, Pierre Huyghe, Josh Kline, Laura Owens, Trevor Paglen, Seth Price, Cindy Sherman, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms.

Huxtable will also give a Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Lecture at 5:10 p.m. on February 7, 2018 at the Michigan Theater.

The iconic Juliana Huxtable is an American artist, writer, performer, and musician. Exploring the intersections of race, gender, queerness, technology and identity, Huxtable uses a diverse set of means to engage these issues, including self-portraiture, text-based prints, performance, nightlife, music, writing, and social media. Huxtable does not privilege any method over another, and the lines between different forms of her work are often fluid. This approach aids Huxtable in her ongoing critiques of existing social norms and categorical distinctions while indicating alternate, more hopeful possibilities. Huxtable references her own body and history as a transgender African American woman as she challenges the socio-political and cultural forces that inform normative conceptions of gender and sexuality. Huxtable’s Art and Performance work has been featured at Roskilde Festival, Denmark (2018), ReWire Festival, Netherlands (2018), Park Avenue Armory, New York (2018), Reena Spauldings, Solo show, New York (2017), Project Native Informant, London UK, (2017) MoMA PS1, New York (2014); “Take Ecstasy with Me,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014); Frieze Projects, London (2014); and 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2015); among other venues. She lives and works in New York, where she is the founder and DJ for Shock Value. And part of House of Ladosha a nightlife collective run by artists, DJs, writers, and fashion icons.​

Huxtable’s work is included in Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today on view at the University of Michigan Museum of Art from December 15, 2018 to April 7, 2019. Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the exhibition examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. This exhibition presents more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects. It features work by some of the most important artists working today, including Judith Barry, Juliana Huxtable, Pierre Huyghe, Josh Kline, Laura Owens, Trevor Paglen, Seth Price, Cindy Sherman, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms.

Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, a finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her other books include Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Sharks in the Rivers. Her new collection, The Carrying, was released by Milkweed Editions in August of 2018 and has been called “her best yet” by NPR, “remarkable” by The New York Times, “exquisite” by The Washington Post, and one of the Ten Titles to Pick Up Now by O Magazine. She
serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program, and the 24Pearl Street online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writer in Lexington, Kentucky.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet at 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.

For over thirty years Carrie Mae Weems, through the use of image, text, film, and video, has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past.  As a result of this work, Weems has received numerous awards, grants, and fellowships including the MacArthur “Genius” grant; US Department of State’s Medals of Arts; Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome; the National Endowment of the Arts; and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, among many others.
 
Her artwork is included in public and private collections nationally and internationally including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Tate Modern, London, England; the Museum of Modern Art, NY and Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, SF, CA. Weems is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Major Jackson is the author of four books of poetry, including Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. He is the editor of Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, Callaloo, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Tin House, and included in multiple volumes of Best American Poetry. Major Jackson lives in South Burlington, Vermont, where he is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold University Distinguished Professor at the University of Vermont. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Using humor, contemporary pop culture references, and possibly games, U-M student improv groups lead unconventional tours of the UMMA collection.

In conjunction with the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor partner to present a book club that will read and discuss three comic books that explore some of the extreme possibilities of life in the age of the internet. Books include: The Private Eye (January 20), Snot Girl vol. 1 (February 17), and Bitch Planet vol 1 (March 10). Pick and choose your favorites or come to the whole series. Books will be available for sale at Vault of Midnight. All are invited to read and participate. Please note that these comic books deal with mature material.

Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s explores large-scale works of art by Helen Frankenthaler, 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 four 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.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (she/they) is a queer disabled nonbinary femme writer and cultural worker of Burger/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Leah's work has been widely published and anthologized, most recently in The Deaf Poets Society, Glitter and Grit, and Octavia's Brood, including work in the anthologies Dear Sister, Persistence: Still Butch and Femme, and Visible: A Femmethology, among others. A VONA fellow, she holds an MFA from Mills College. In 2010, she was named one of the Feminist Press' 40 Feminists Under 40 Shaping the Future, and she is a 2013 Autostraddle Hot 105 member.

Join Leah and the Spectrum Center for a conversation on the intersection of queerness, race, and disability in today's society. Leah will treat us with her latest work on the aforementioned topics and bring us to her own world. 

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is part of a series of keynote speakers Spectrum Center is hosting on campus covering radical queer advocacy and activism work in collaboration with several departments and student organizations at University of Michigan. 

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

Student Docents explore love and death, politics and humor, history, mythology, materiality, fashion, food, and other ideas in these short & sweet 15-minute peeks at the UMMA collection. ​Meet at the UMMA Store.

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 Cross and Eirill Falck.

Rachel Cross is a writer from the Midwest. Her fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Fugue, Day One, and elsewhere. You can find her online at rcross.net.

Eirill Falck, is a writer from Oslo, Norway.

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.

Student Docents or other facilitators will be on hand to provide free sketching materials and facilitate your experience of looking and drawing. Beginners welcome! Meet at the UMMA Store.

The internet has changed every aspect of contemporary life—from how we interact with each other to how we work and play. Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. Join UMMA docents as they explore the more than forty works across a variety of media—painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects—in this exciting exhibition.

In conjunction with the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor partner to present a book club that will read and discuss three comic books that explore some of the extreme possibilities of life in the age of the internet. Books include: The Private Eye (January 20), Snot Girl vol. 1 (February 17), and Bitch Planet vol 1 (March 10). Pick and choose your favorites or come to the whole series. Books will be available for sale at Vault of Midnight. All are invited to read and participate. Please note that these comic books deal with mature material.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).
Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.

On the occasion of the exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, UMMA and Vault of Midnight-Ann Arbor have partnered up to form the UMMA Book Club: The Age of the Internet in Comic Books. Join David Choberka, Andrew W. Mellon Manager of Academic Outreach & Teaching, for a discussion in the gallery that connects the art on view to  themes in the selected comics. Open to anyone, regardless of participation in the book club.

Meet Me at UMMA invites people with mild memory loss to enjoy a guided gallery experience along with family members or care partners. This program is designed for people who live at home and their companions.

If you or someone you care about is experiencing mild memory loss, research has shown that the visual and expressive arts can be good for your mind. In addition, great enjoyment is to be found in seeking out the sights, sounds, textures, and good feelings that come with looking at, learning, and sharing feelings about paintings, music, and other creative arts.

UMMA's trained docents will accompany small groups for a guided tour and provide the opportunity for everyone to experience different kinds of art and share their responses.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club is a partnership between UMMA and Literati Bookstore in connection with UMMA's exhibition Abstraction, Color, and Politics in the Early 1970s. Surrounded by the large-scale artworks by Sam Gilliam, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Loving, and Louise Nevelson, we will read and discuss bold and critical voices—both fiction and nonfiction—guided by Literati Bookstore's Creative Programs Manager, Gina Balibrera Amyx. Books will explore visions and critiques relevant to abstract art as well as the immense social changes of the period, and include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Jan 10), Art on My Mind, Visual Politics by bell hooks (March 14), Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel (May 9), Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (July 11), and How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Sept 12).

Gina Balibrera Amyx is the Creative Program Manager at Literati Bookstore, and a graduate of Zell MFA Program. Her writing has been featured in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of the Central American diaspora.

The Art, Ideas, & Politics Book Club will meet on the second Thursday of the month, 12-1 p.m. in the exhibition gallery. Pick and choose or come to all of them. Books will be available for sale at Literati Bookstore as well as after book club meetings at UMMA, at a 15% book club discount.