ACA News RSS Feed

Faith Ringgold’s Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:06:00 GMT

A community - revitalization project integrating affordable housing, educational services and Faith Ringgold’s Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling will be sited in Harlem’s Sugar Hill, the epicenter of the Harlem Renaissance and Faith’s neighborhood of origin. The architect, David Adjaye, recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters, is designing a state-of-the-art green building planned to open in 2012.

For more information visit www.broadwayhousing.org

The Dinner Party Curriculum Project by Judy Chicago

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:07:00 GMT

The Dinner Party, an icon of feminist art, is permanently housed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. This work was created in 1975 - 79 and represents the achievements of 1,038 women in history—39 women are represented by place settings and another 999 names are inscribed in the Heritage Floor on which the table rests. An educational curriculum based on this work is now available for grades Kindergarten through 12th grade.

It is available as a series of free, downloadable PDF files on Through the Flower’s website www.throughtheflower.org

Faith Ringgold in the New York Times

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:54:00 GMT

Faith Ringgold is featured in the recent New York Times article on the history of the Edgecombe Avenue arts community in Sugar Hill, New York

Click here to read all about it!

Jack Stuppin's "Songs of the Earth" Reviewed in ARTnews

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:34:00 GMT

Doug McClemont reviewed Jack Stuppin's exhibition Songs of the Earth in the June 2010 issue of ARTnews.

Jack Stuppin

This show, of 14 large oil paintings and dozens of smaller ones, all landscapes created between 1996 and 2009, was titled "Songs of the Earth." New York-born painter Jack Stuppin chose Sonoma County, California, as his home and main subject. The landscape as seen by Stuppin is a bright, rolling symphony of color and curves. And the artist's thick impasto style and saturated palette combine to make a stylized, glossy vision of nature.

In this show, which originated at the San Jose Museum of Art, imposing cloud formations seemed like icing on the earth's cake. The blue-green luster of Stuppin's horizontal boughs was created with uniform heavy but somehow gentle brushstrokes. His orange hills, which couldn't help but evoke the female form, depicted real hilly landscape that is so vivid it appears as if it might be breathing. One of the artist's most memorable touches is in the way he depicts coastal rock formations. The smooth, sinewy shapes are made of grays, blues, purples, and browns, and each feels perfectly placed. In Stuppin's world, lacking edges or discord, even powerful ocean waves crashing against rock are harmonious.

- Doug McClemont

James McGarrell article in Art in America's May 2010 Issue

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:34:00 GMT

ACA artist James McGarrell is featured in Art in America's May 2010 issue, check it out here!

"Through the Flower" presents first annual Minx Auerbach Education Award

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:07:00 GMT

This July, at ACA Galleries in New York City, Through the Flower, the non profit Feminist art organization founded by artist Judy Chicago, will present the first annual Minx Auerbach Education Award, for an exemplary implementation of The Dinner Party Curriculum. The 2010 award will be presented to Andrea Horn for her unit of study, entitled Mothers of Mother Earth, which she implemented with her entire 5th grade for two consecutive years at Muhlenberg Elementary School in Allentown, PA.

When Judy Chicago created The Dinner Party, the iconic work of art celebrating women’s achievements in history now permanently housed at the Brooklyn Museum, it was with the intention of educating a broad and diverse audience about women’s achievements and countering the systematic erasure of their accomplishments. One of the key components of The Dinner Party is that it was built upon extensive research and has a solid foundation in history, art history, and feminism. The Dinner Party K-12 Curriculum brings this work of art and history to classrooms and home schools ensuring that women’s history becomes embedded within the education system where it can continue to inspire future generations. The Dinner Party curriculum is a series of free, downloadable files on Through the Flower’s website www.throughtheflower.org.

Andrea Horn is a dynamic teacher, able to engage her students in exploration and discovery. In her unit she empowered her 5 ^th grade students to discover for themselves why it is important to study the lives and contributions of the women represented in The Dinner Party. Moreover, Andrea felt it was important to present Judy Chicago as a “real’ person in the eyes of her students. She chose to couch the theme of her unit in the Jewish concept of ‘tikkun olam’, meaning to heal or repair the world, a philosophy in which Judy believes strongly. She engaged her students in a deep investigation of the women at the table. Andrea reported that the children became so invested in their new knowledge that when asked to choose a subject for reports in other classes, many students insisted on using what they had learned about the woman they researched from The Dinner Party. When asked about her experience in teaching The Dinner Party, Andrea says, “ The Dinner Party Curriculum has not only changed how, but why I teach art.”

The Minx Auerbach Award was established in honor of Minx Auerbach, to whom education was important. A former TTF board member, Minx mentored many younger women during her career and years of community service. She was the first woman president of the University of Louisville Board of Trustees. In this role she profoundly expanded the roles and positions of women at the University.

Presenting this year's award will be Minx's daughter and TTF board member, Penny Auerbach Friedberg. Penny says her mother was "someone who loved people and moved and inspired her family and community. She was open, welcoming, empathetic, intelligent and filled with common sense. If she saw something needed to be done, she did it. She was a model for me and those she mentored. She had a great strength of spirit, living life with unparalleled energy, great courage, wisdom and understanding with a focus always outward for others."

In the ceremony at ACA Galleries, invited guests will join the participants in The Dinner Party Institute to celebrate the teaching accomplishments of Andrea Horn and to honor the contributions of Minx Auerbach. The Dinner Party Institute is an intensive workshop aimed at introducing teachers to the many ways The Dinner Party Curriculum can be applied. Andrea was a participant at the first Dinner Party Institute held in 2007 and believes that this experience contributed greatly to her Mothers of Mother Earth unit and her desire to teach about the women of The Dinner Party.

Through the Flower is the non profit art organization founded by Judy Chicago in 1978. The Dinner Party Curriculum was launched at the New Mexico State House in May of 2009. Andrea Horn is the first recipient of the Minx Auerbach Education Award.