Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University

Join us for an art making activity!

Join Maggie Dethloff, Assistant Curator of Photography and New Media (@curatormaggie) on March 3 at 5:30PM PST for a virtual tour of "When Home Won't Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art." RSVP: http://bit.ly/3dW5z09 Virtually walk through the exhibition as we explore themes of migration, home, and belonging. You can digitally preview the exhibition at https://museum.stanford.edu/migration

On Feb. 26 at 5 PM PST join the winning @stanfordtreehacks team for a discussion about their museum project and how technology can be used for arts activism. RSVP: https://bit.ly/museumnights21 In conversation: Kate Holohan, Interim Director, Academic and Public Programs, Cantor Arts Center; Matthew Katz, Stanford, Computer Science '23; and Tejas Mehta, UT Austin, Computer Science and business. #stanford #museumnights

Join us today, February 24 at Noon PST for #ArtBreaks with #Stanford Student Guides. RSVP: http://bit.ly/artbreaks21 In today’s event, Art & Civil Rights we will explore how art helps us grapple with the emotional complexity of societal issues by looking at portraits that depict the turmoil of race and class-based conflict in the context of the #CivilRights era. Hosted by the Cantor Arts Center and Anderson Collection at Stanford, the event features Melissa Santos, Psychology Major, Spanish Minor, & Sociology Masters ‘21. Upcoming dates: http://bit.ly/artbreaks21

What Forms You ? Art Activity Download activity guide: http://bit.ly/Feb21Guide

You're invited to the upcoming digital event "Introducing the Asian American Art Initiative" on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 5:30 PM PST. RSVP: http://bit.ly/introAAAI Join a lively discussion on the #AAAI with founding co-directors Marci Kwon, assistant professor of Art and Art History, and Aleesa Alexander, assistant curator of American Art. ... For more information on this initiative and to join the AAAI interest group, please visit museum.stanford.edu/AAAI #asianamericanart See more

Today, we are proud to announce the establishment of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI), an interdisciplinary effort to acquire, display, and research art related to Asian American and Asian diaspora artists and practices. Read more in Stanford Report:

Happy birthday to Ruth Asawa. Born January 24, 1926 in California, this American sculptor and Black Mountain College alumna would have been 95. She was best known for her looped-wire sculptures, informed by the influence of such teachers as Joseph Albers and Buckminster Fuller. I found myself experimenting with wire,’’ she explained: I was interested in the economy of a line, enclosing three-dimensional space.... I realized that I could make wire forms interlock, expand, an...d contract with a single strand, because a line can go anywhere.’’ Upon moving to San Francisco in 1949, Asawa contributed to the arts education of the Bay Area by expanding local programming, co-founding the Alvarado Arts Workshop in 1968 and campaigning for the opening of the first public arts high school in the city. Stay tuned for a special announcement related to the works of Ruth Asawa. [Ruth Asawa with Family Masks, 1991. 2020 Estate of Ruth Asawa / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy The Estate of Ruth Asawa and David Zwirner.]

In celebration of #MLKDay weekend, we remember the wisdom imparted by the Martin Luther King Jr. during his second visit to Stanford in 1967. In that speech, he touched on many resonate issues of past and presentracism, poverty and violence versus nonviolent social activismand noted that the poor find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Enjoy the free four-day festival, courtesy of the university (link below). Or revisit our recording of January's #SecondSunday, and create MLK-inspired activist art: stanford.io/3suy2iy

"But how do you take an entire museum originally intended to be experienced in person and put it online during a global health crisis?" Cantor Arts Center is leveraging new tools to virtually deliver art experiences and galleries, including virtual tours of our extensive collection of Rodin sculptures. Read more here:

MLK Art Making Activity

Join us on 1/10 at 11 AM for our first #SecondSunday of 2021. Our January event is dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the upcoming holiday in his honor, as we create our own art signs for #MLK. Register today or join us for the FB livestream: bit.ly/3pZs9Yy

"The night before I left Stanford to start the shelter-in-place with my family in Los Angeles, I was at the Cantor. I remember being in the Rodin rotunda with my fellow student guides and classmates attending the First Friday event when we all received the email announcing the official cancellation of in-person classes. The next morning, I drove back home, unsure when I’d return to campus. Although that was the last night I physically spent at the Cantor, I’ve been there mentally ever since." Student guide and Cantor scholar Melissa Mae Santos, ’21, writes a student perspective essay on connecting with art and community in the time of coronavirus. Read the full story: stanford.io/3oHZxlW

Dear Friends, Our warmest wishes of health, peace and prosperity this coming year. We are filled with hope; though the Cantor and Anderson Collection at Stanford University are not yet able to set a reopening date, per state and county guidelines, we are preparing for your in-person return with renewed excitement.... As we welcome January’s fresh start, we look to encounter art and artists with new eyes if only from our homes. In that spirit, below are three works that, like 2021, we hope will bring you encouragement and new perspective: 1.) Kahlil Robert Irving renders examples of the news and digital media in ceramics, slowing them down. His pieces are included in Anderson’s Formed & Fired: Contemporary American Ceramics, which highlights sculpture that is grounded in a centuries-old tradition and speaks to contemporary issues and ideas. 2.) While we seek to better understand how to sustain our well-being during the global health crisis, Robert Bénard’s drawing of legs and feet depict the attention to detail that mid-18th century researchers applied to gaining knowledge of the human body. 3.) It can be a hard choice to leave home. Artist Mona Hatoum, a British Palestinian born in Lebanon, makes sense of dislocation by incorporating everyday found objects into pieces that evoke movement and travel while reminding viewers of the human lives involved therein. Her work Exodus II will be included in the planned exhibition When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art. Acts of creativity remind us we are never alone in our experiences of joy and tribulation. We are so grateful you are part of our vibrant community of art and ideas. Together, we will forge new and inspiring pathways ahead. Happy New Year, Jason Linetzky Director Anderson Collection at Stanford University Maude Brezinski Interim Co-Director Cantor Arts Center Elizabeth K. Mitchell Interim Co-Director Cantor Arts Center

Throughout the history of American art, portrait paintings have been used as a means to many ends: to memorialize those who have passed, to teach future generations about important historical figures, and to sanctify legacies. But who decides who is worthy of a painting, and what constitutes worthiness in artistic representation? Aleesa Alexander, assistant curator of American art, reflects on the role of portraiture in signifying important and marginalized narratives in American history. Read the essay: stanford.io/3qKOsSJ