UMMA & Chill

During the week of Feb 14, if you write UMMA a love poem and send it to our Instagram DM's; we'll respond with a custom love poem about you. Whether it's a haiku, a sonnet, or a piece of freeverse prose that bucks the rules of language, write whatever your heart desires and feel that love in return when our curators and staff draft a poem inspired by you! 
 
Follow @UMMAMuseum on Instagram and send your poem to us as a message to enter: https://www.instagram.com/ummamuseum/
 
xoxo,
UMMA
 
p.s. We believe in spreading the love, so we may share all of or a portion of your submitted poem publicly.
 

Artists integrate humour in their works of art in ways that can be twisted, dark, political, silly, nonsensical, weird and dry. In this tour, you will join Isabelle Marie Anne Gillet, UMMA’s Stenn Fellow in Public and Digital Humanities and Museum Pedagogy, to explore and discuss how artists use humor as a tool to undermine the superficial meaning of what is depicted and subvert or even confuse expectations. We might even laugh.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

Welcome to UMMA Jukebox! A community collaborative playlist in conjunction with our two newest works on display!

Do you listen to music while you study? When you go about your chores? Does certain music help you focus more while others help you relax? Dig into these two new works, Sophie/Elsie and Behind the Walls, with some accompanying music contributed by UMMA staff and the greater UM community. You can listen to the Spotify playlists to help you reflect on these art works and perhaps view them in a different perspective. For example, how do you feel about Sophie/Elsie when listening to classical music, say Stravinsky, versus "Like a Girl" by Lizzo? 

If looking at these works makes you think of a song, contribute to our growing playlist by following this link.

In honor of the first woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, join curator Laura De Becker for a tour of three works in UMMA's collection that depict and celebrate strong women.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

For many, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant getting deeply reacquainted with our kitchens and  pushing the limits of home cooking creativity. David Tamarkin, Digital Director of Epicurious and author of Cook90: The 30-Day Plan for Faster, Healthier, Happier Meals, is an outspoken champion of home cooking and launched "Cooking Through It" on Epi as a response to the pandemic. Tamarkin will reflect on how food media has responded to the pandemic, share tips on how to keep home cooking fun and fresh as we soldier on, explore the intersection of home cooking and sustainability, and dish on all the hot (and not-so-hot) pandemic food trends. Hosted by Jim Leija, UMMA Deputy Director for Public Experience and Learning.
 

Tamarkin joined Epicurious as its chief editor in 2015. His words and recipes have appeared in publications such as Bon Appetit, Healthyish, Gourmet, Cooking Light, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Food Network Magazine, The Guardian, Wine & Spirits, Time Out New York, and Time Out Chicago, where for many years he was the food editor. David is the creator of COOK90 and the author of COOK90: The 30-Day Plan for Faster, Healthier, Happier Meals, which the New York Times called "excellent." He's also the co-author of More Mexican Every Day and the publisher of the short-lived, experimental cooking magazine Middlewest. Find him on twitter @DavidTamarkin.  

The Adjacent Possible mixes music performance, storytelling, and technology that converts the audience into an orchestra. The project culminates in the recording of an orchestral piece - the first and last ever to be performed.
No musical experience required. We don’t use your video or audio so there is no need to get dressed up for us :-)

You will want to have:

• A laptop or desktop (the experience is not yet available on mobile)
• Headphones: the best you have. You will not need a microphone
• A solid internet connection… with Zoom installed

...and a quiet place to get lost together.

This event is hosted by the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). We want to ensure full and equitable participation in our events. If an accommodation would assist your full participation in this event, please please email Briannon Cierpilowski: briannon@umich.edu, to share your accommodation requirements.

UMMA performances of The Adjacent Possible are in conjunction with the current exclusive series being presented by CSUF Grand Central Art Center.

More information available at The Adjacent Possible.

Meet UMMA’s newest faces! Jaume Plensa’s Behind the Walls and Mary Sibande’s Sophie / Elsie provide a visible public presence at a time when in-person engagement with the arts and indoor events are limited. Explore these sculptures with museum guides, who will be standing outside the Frankel Family Wing (weather permitting) to answer questions and provide context for these riveting and intriguing works. 

This is an outdoor activity and all are welcome. Please wear a mask and follow COVID safety protocol. Entrance to the Museum building is restricted.

Remember celebrating together? Taking cheeky photos with friends and awkward photographs with family to commemorate personal milestones is a significant part of how we gather. Join curator Jennifer Friess for a virtual tour (unironically, from her home via Zoom) of twentieth-century amateur photographs picturing parties, gatherings, and celebrations from UMMA’s collection. We will explore the special moments that bring us together and the role of photography in making memories.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

Artists integrate humour in their works of art in ways that can be twisted, dark, political, silly, nonsensical, weird and dry. In this tour, you will join Isabelle Marie Anne Gillet, UMMA’s Stenn Fellow in Public and Digital Humanities and Museum Pedagogy, to explore and discuss how artists use humor as a tool to undermine the superficial meaning of what is depicted and subvert or even confuse expectations. We might even laugh.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

“Can You Hear Me?” is a documentary film that follows internationally celebrated Spanish artist Jaume Plensa for a year and a half, offering audiences an unfiltered look into his artistic process. Directed by Pedro Ballesteros, the film presents Plensa’s story across seven chapters, moving between moments from the studio and the production of some of Plensa’s most ambitious public projects, including the recent large-scale works installed at Rockefeller Center and Hudson Yards in New York. 

Plensa is one of the world’s foremost sculptors in the public realm with award-winning projects spanning the globe in such cities as Calgary, Chicago, San Diego, Montréal, London, Paris, Dubai, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Tokyo.  His monumental sculpture Behind the Walls was recently installed outside the front doors of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. 

Most well known in the U.S. for his iconic Crown Fountain (2000-2005) at Millenium Park in Chicago, the artist has spent the last 35 years producing a multifaceted body of sculpture that speaks to the capacity and beauty of humanity, often bringing people together through the activation of public spaces. Conventional sculptural materials like glass, steel, and bronze blend with unconventional media such as water, light and sound to create hybrid works of intricate energy, psychological weight, and symbolic richness.

The winner of many national and international awards including the Honorary Doctorate from Univeristat Aut’onoma de Barcelona in 2018 and the 2013 Velazquez Prize awarded by the Spanish Cultural Ministry, Jaume Plensa has had solo museum exhibitions at the MACBA: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Spain; MAMC–Musée d’art moderne et contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Étienne, France; Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Brühl, Germany; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, England; and Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas. He lives and works in Barcelona.

A screening of the documentary will be followed with a conversation between the artist and Christina Olsen, Director of UMMA, and U-M students. The documentary will be available for a 3 week limited engagement through special arrangement with the filmmaker. 

Notice of uncensored content: In accordance with the University of Michigan’s Standard Practice Guidelines on “Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression,” the Penny Stamps Speaker Series does not censor our speakers or their content. The content provided is intended for adult audiences and does not reflect the views of the University of Michigan or Detroit Public Television.
 

In honor of the first woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, join curator Laura De Becker for a tour of three works in UMMA's collection that depict and celebrate strong women.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

 All eyes are on Tokyo for year 2021! Can the Olympics and Paralympics finally happen without a live audience? Don't worry even if you cannot visit the world's coolest city just yet. UMMA curator and Tokyo native Natsu Oyobe will take you to a tour of Tokyo through historical and modern prints featured in UMMA's Gallery of Japanese Art.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

The Adjacent Possible mixes music performance, storytelling, and technology that converts the audience into an orchestra. The project culminates in the recording of an orchestral piece - the first and last ever to be performed.
No musical experience required. We don’t use your video or audio so there is no need to get dressed up for us :-)

You will want to have:

• A laptop or desktop (the experience is not yet available on mobile)
• Headphones: the best you have. You will not need a microphone
• A solid internet connection… with Zoom installed

...and a quiet place to get lost together.

This event is hosted by the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). We want to ensure full and equitable participation in our events. If an accommodation would assist your full participation in this event, please please email Briannon Cierpilowski: briannon@umich.edu, to share your accommodation requirements.

UMMA performances of The Adjacent Possible are in conjunction with the current exclusive series being presented by CSUF Grand Central Art Center.

More information available at The Adjacent Possible.

Meet UMMA’s newest faces! Jaume Plensa’s Behind the Walls and Mary Sibande’s Sophie / Elsie provide a visible public presence at a time when in-person engagement with the arts and indoor events are limited. Explore these sculptures with museum guides, who will be standing outside the Frankel Family Wing (weather permitting) to answer questions and provide context for these riveting and intriguing works. 

This is an outdoor activity and all are welcome. Please wear a mask and follow COVID safety protocol. Entrance to the Museum building is restricted.

 All eyes are on Tokyo for year 2021! Can the Olympics and Paralympics finally happen without a live audience? Don't worry even if you cannot visit the world's coolest city just yet. UMMA curator and Tokyo native Natsu Oyobe will take you to a tour of Tokyo through historical and modern prints featured in UMMA's Gallery of Japanese Art.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

This program takes place on Zoom. Please register to receive the link.

Jacob Gorski from the Ann Arbor District Library and Sean Kramer from UMMA chat about their discoveries while digging into Ann Arbor’s queer history for their respective projects, the AADL podcast, The Gayest Generation, and the UMMA exhibition, Oh, honey… A queer reading of the collection. Jacob, a transplant from Saginaw, Michigan, and Sean, a native of middle-of-nowhere Kansas, have both lived in Ann Arbor for several years now and both had expectations about what they heard was a hip, artsy college town where coffee shops, bookstores, bars, and restaurants abound. They’ll discuss their earliest encounters with Ann Arbor—from walking to the food co-op to Google searching “gay bar near me”—and how their perceptions have changed over the years just as the city has. Audience members are invited to share their own hot takes on Ann Arbor’s past and present.

Have you ever wished you could have a more meaningful connection with art at UMMA? In this virtual experience, we will explore a more contemplative approach to looking at art with a variety of guided mindfulness practices. As we rest our attention on our breath, the body and heart relax while the mind quiets. We can experience what’s before with more spaciousness and also learn to trust our own experience. Led by meditation teacher and UMMA docent Laura Seligman. Beginner and experienced meditators welcome.

UMMA’s collection includes a silkscreen by Paul Rand titled Joseph Addison Poser-Laughter. Let’s use a line from Addison—“Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter”—as a runway, of sorts, for some poetic flights. Our description of the Rand silkscreen compares its central figure to Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat. Let’s write and share a few poems in the tradition of Lewis Carroll.

We especially have Carroll’s “Mad Gardener’s Song” form in mind, an example of which goes like this: “He thought he saw an Argument / That proved he was the Pope: / He looked again, and found it was / A Bar of Mottled Soap. / ‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said, / ‘Extinguishes all hope!’”

These poems are easy to write, and great fun to hear out loud.

Cody Walker directs the U-M English Department’s Undergraduate Creative Writing Program and co-directs the Bear River Writers’ Conference. He’s the author of three poetry collections, including The Self-Styled No-Child (Waywiser Press, 2016). His work appears in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and The Best American Poetry. 

Join us as UMMA takes the hit TikTok series Stump Me, live onto Zoom. Pose a prompt, any prompt, and Isabel Engel (University Learning and Programs Specialist) and Dave Choberka (Andrew W. Mellon Curator for University Learning and Programs) will find artwork in UMMA's collection to go with it. Stump us!

Meet UMMA’s newest faces! Jaume Plensa’s Behind the Walls and Mary Sibande’s Sophie / Elsie provide a visible public presence at a time when in-person engagement with the arts and indoor events are limited. Explore these sculptures with museum guides, who will be standing outside the Frankel Family Wing (weather permitting) to answer questions and provide context for these riveting and intriguing works. 

This is an outdoor activity and all are welcome. Please wear a mask and follow COVID safety protocol. Entrance to the Museum building is restricted.

Remember celebrating together? Taking cheeky photos with friends and awkward photographs with family to commemorate personal milestones is a significant part of how we gather. Join curator Jennifer Friess for a virtual tour (unironically, from her home via Zoom) of twentieth-century amateur photographs picturing parties, gatherings, and celebrations from UMMA’s collection. We will explore the special moments that bring us together and the role of photography in making memories.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

When Alisha B. Wormsley created the phrase, “There Are Black People in the Future,” she boldly articulated an “archive of information, histories, and myths that [continued] despite the apocalyptic narrative of Black American culture.”  Join Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art, on this tour that looks at how Black artists within UMMA’s collection have used their craft to articulate identity, reflect on Black life globally, examine the stories we fail to tell, and reimagine a new future.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists.

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.
 

Meet UMMA’s newest faces! Jaume Plensa’s Behind the Walls and Mary Sibande’s Sophie / Elsie provide a visible public presence at a time when in-person engagement with the arts and indoor events are limited. Explore these sculptures with museum guides, who will be standing outside the Frankel Family Wing (weather permitting) to answer questions and provide context for these riveting and intriguing works. 

This is an outdoor activity and all are welcome. Please wear a mask and follow COVID safety protocol. Entrance to the Museum building is restricted.

Please join us for an afternoon of fun and creativity online at UMMA!

Mark Tucker, Founder and Creative Director of FestiFools and FoolMoon, is unleashing a new online artmaking workshop just for you! Learn to make a ZooMoon Luminary Sculpture. These cool illuminated sculptures will light up your world! Come join us on Zoom and meet new friends, get creative, laugh, and let your inner artist beast roam free! 
 
No experience necessary. Ideal for ages 10-110. Younger kids with adult supervision are also welcome.

Supplies needed (all should be available at ACE Barnes Hardware on W. Stadium Blvd):

• 17-20 gauge steel wire
• Wire cutters
• Elmer’s White Glue
• 1-2” wide brush
• Tissue paper (white or colored)
• ½” wide fiberglass tape
• 2” wide clear packing tape
• LED lights (puck or string lights)
• Batteries
• Pencil/paper (for drawing out design)

Mark Tucker is the originator and Founder of FestiFools and FoolMoon, two annual large-scale public art events held in downtown Ann Arbor, and Co-Founder of WonderFool Productions, the non-profit producers of FestiFools, FoolMoon and YpsiGlow.  Mark also helped launch YES (Ypsilanti Experimental Space) in downtown Ypsilanti, and he serves as Art Director for the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts where he develops and designs innovative arts programming and has the pleasure of teaching art classes for non-art majors at the University of Michigan. 
 
Tucker’s current creative work revolves around community collaborations making large-scale public art sculptures, theater sets, and unique outdoor spectacles celebrating the Arts as a catalyst for creative community engagement. 

Artists integrate humour in their works of art in ways that can be twisted, dark, political, silly, nonsensical, weird and dry. In this tour, you will join Isabelle Marie Anne Gillet, UMMA’s Stenn Fellow in Public and Digital Humanities and Museum Pedagogy, to explore and discuss how artists use humor as a tool to undermine the superficial meaning of what is depicted and subvert or even confuse expectations. We might even laugh.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

When Alisha B. Wormsley created the phrase, “There Are Black People in the Future,” she boldly articulated an “archive of information, histories, and myths that [continued] despite the apocalyptic narrative of Black American culture.”  Join Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art, on this tour that looks at how Black artists within UMMA’s collection have used their craft to articulate identity, reflect on Black life globally, examine the stories we fail to tell, and reimagine a new future.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists.

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.
 

Artists integrate humour in their works of art in ways that can be twisted, dark, political, silly, nonsensical, weird and dry. In this tour, you will join Isabelle Marie Anne Gillet, UMMA’s Stenn Fellow in Public and Digital Humanities and Museum Pedagogy, to explore and discuss how artists use humor as a tool to undermine the superficial meaning of what is depicted and subvert or even confuse expectations. We might even laugh.

This is one of five themed tours offered as part of UMMA + Chill during the month of February. Each theme will be accompanied by a customized beverage suggestion created by local mixologists. 

Availability for this event is first-come first serve and may be full. Click here to check availability of this and other Group Chat events.

Meet UMMA’s newest faces! Jaume Plensa’s Behind the Walls and Mary Sibande’s Sophie / Elsie provide a visible public presence at a time when in-person engagement with the arts and indoor events are limited. Explore these sculptures with museum guides, who will be standing outside the Frankel Family Wing (weather permitting) to answer questions and provide context for these riveting and intriguing works. 

This is an outdoor activity and all are welcome. Please wear a mask and follow COVID safety protocol. Entrance to the Museum building is restricted.