Art & Art History
Jisha Menon leads the Stanford Arts Institute
Jisha Menon, associate professor of theater and performance studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, is the new Denning Faculty Director of the Stanford Arts Institute (SAI). Menon will continue to teach and she remains director of Stanford’s Center for South Asia. She is affiliated with the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies,…
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Stanford University announces collaboration with Sundance Institute New Frontier Lab Programs designed to heighten creative visibility in underrepresented sectors
Sundance New Frontier Story Lab Fellow Stephanie Dinkins will further develop the “mind” of a learning artificial intelligence entity while on campus.
Stanford’s new Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), an interdisciplinary, global hub for artificial intelligence thinkers, learners, researchers, developers, builders and users, co-hosts its first HAI artist resident. The residency is a collaboration with Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Lab Programs (NFLP) and co-hosts on campus are the Office of the Vice President for the Arts…
Read More Looking at Richard Diebenkorn at the Cantor
The Stanford exhibition celebrates a great American painter and alumnus.
American painter Richard Diebenkorn’s connection to Stanford is deep as well as broad. Not only was Diebenkorn an alum, but even after his death in 1993, his impact has continued on campus thanks to the number of significant artworks given and lent to Stanford, the digitization of his sketchbooks and the documented examination via infrared…
Read MoreThe Anderson Collection at Stanford University celebrates its fifth anniversary
In a Q&A, Anderson Collection Director Jason Linetzky looks back at the first five years and anticipates what is to come.
Five years ago, on Sept. 21, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University opened to the public. What was true then is true now: The remarkable collection that is anchored in the New York School and Bay Area Figuration, and incorporates key modern and contemporary artists collected in depth and across media, is a breathtaking survey of post-World…
Read More The compelling origin story of the Stanford museum, university and Silicon Valley
"The Melancholy Museum: Love, Death, and Mourning at Stanford" highlights the impact of the death of Leland Stanford Jr.
When Jane and Leland Stanford experienced the immense pain of losing their only son, Leland Jr., just before his 16th birthday, they were compelled to enshrine his memory in a meaningful way. The resulting museum and university they founded not only secured young Leland’s place in history – artist Mark Dion argues that this particular…
Read More Students minoring in art practice produce a major work of art at the new Stanford Hospital
Two Stanford undergraduates helped paint a mural based on the drawings of the artist Sol LeWitt. The process provided the students with insight into how the visual environment can influence health.
Students Noah DeWald and Savannah Mohacsi were not exactly sure what their summer internship at Stanford Health Care would entail. Apprenticing with master painters to bring to life a conceptual work of art by an iconic 20th-century American artist that will be seen by thousands was beyond their imagination, as was the profound realization that…
Read MoreStanford Live presents a genre-bending musical performance exploring beauty and aesthetics in Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography
"Triptych (Eyes of One on Another)" Oct. 3, 2019, in Memorial Auditorium
Marking 30 years since the death of groundbreaking photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) explores the origins and impact of Mapplethorpe’s controversial photography. This staged musical work produced by ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann combines orchestra, vocal ensembles, theater, poetry, and photography to re-examine notions of obscenity, race, and aesthetics that Mapplethorpe himself challenged…
Read MoreNew leadership at Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts
Adam Banks and A-lan Holt are making the arts a core part of the learning experience.
Adam Banks, professor of education in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, is the new faculty director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA). A-lan Holt, formerly the associate and then interim director of IDA, is the new director. Both appointments were made at the end of academic year 2018-19 and they are already…
Read More Psychology graduate student Natalia Vélez is ‘The Science Sketcher’
Natalia Vélez, a psychology PhD student who began sketching during academic talks a year ago, has earned the nickname “The Science Sketcher” for her work, which will begin appearing regularly in the Stanford Psychology Newsletter in the 2019-20 academic year.
In high school, Natalia Vélez got in trouble for doodling during French class, even though she was drawing tiny characters speaking French – accent marks included – in miniature comic strips, using the phrases her teacher was presenting. Vélez, who is now a PhD student in psychology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, said…
Read More New Stanford mural connects campus to local nature, diversity and history
Visit Harmony House, which is located on Lomita Drive, across the street from the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, to see the newest work of public art on campus.
In the waning days of spring quarter, Mother Earth appeared on campus. She arrived without fanfare, although there was music and spontaneous dancing as artist Jess X. Snow painted a Mother Earth figure – made of branches and native California poppies – on an exterior wall of Harmony House, a community center for undergraduate artists. In the…
Read More At new hospital, art and nature aim to benefit healing
The new Stanford Hospital values the restorative qualities of art and nature. It includes four acres of outdoor gardens, floor-to-ceiling windows in every patient room and more than 400 works of original art.
In the early 1980s, a group of volunteers formed to acquire and hang art on the then-empty walls of Stanford Hospital. What this group sensed about the power of art — that it could help improve healing — was proven later that same decade in multiple studies by environmental psychologist Roger Ulrich, PhD, and others.…
Read MoreQ&A with curator Elizabeth Mitchell on gifts to the Cantor
Elizabeth Mitchell, Burton and Deedee McMurtry Curator and director of the Curatorial Fellowship Program at the Cantor Arts Center, discusses the Capital Group Foundation’s gift of 1,000 photographs and the 12 prints, drawings, and photographs given by Stanford alumna Marilyn F. Symmes (BA, ’71). Q: Can you talk about the importance of gifts like…
Read MoreStanford alumna Marilyn F. Symmes (BA, ’71) gives prints, drawings, and photographs to the Cantor
The Cantor Arts Center recently acquired 12 prints, drawings, and photographs given by Stanford alumna Marilyn F. Symmes (BA, ’71). The New York–based curator and art historian is honoring her Stanford roots while recognizing the importance of student interactions with objects. The gift features an eclectic selection of works ranging from an Italian Renaissance portrait…
Read MoreReflection on Stephanie Syjuco’s I Am An . . .
On view at the Cantor Arts Center in the main lobby
Stephanie Syjuco’s I Am An . . . is a 20-foot-long black banner that is suspended from the ceiling of the Cantor’s marbled gray entry hall, announcing in block letters: I AM AN AMERICAN. The banner is displayed partially closed to intentionally distort the white letters that read “AMERICAN,” suggesting a garbled reading of the…
Read MoreThe Medium Is the Message: Art since 1950
On view at the Cantor Arts Center in the Pigott Family Gallery
“It is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action,” wrote Marshall McLuhan. Using works created since 1950, this reinstallation of the Cantor’s permanent collection of contemporary art explores the relationship between subject, content, and the materials that informed each object’s production. In 1964, Canadian media theorist Marshall…
Read MoreAnne Shulock named assistant vice president for the arts
Anne Shulock, chief of staff in the Office of the President of the San Francisco Art Institute, has been appointed the assistant vice president for the arts at Stanford University. As the assistant vice president for the arts, Shulock will help to further implement a cohesive 21st-century vision for the arts at Stanford. Reporting to…
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