MyNorth News Service

(Press Release Provided by The Dennos Museum Center)

The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College will celebrate its 25th anniversary (official date July 6, 1991) with the opening of five new exhibitions that will be shown from June 12 to September 4, 2016.

For nearly 25 years the Dennos has brought world class programing in the arts and sciences to the Grand Traverse region. The exhibitions planned for the 25th continues the tradition of bringing unique artistic experiences to the region while paying homage to the last 25 years of exhibition programming that also grew the Dennos’ permanent art collection.

Three special invited exhibitions will be featured. These include:

Soo Sunny Park-Unwoven Light

Artist Soo Sunny Park is best known for using everyday building materials to create large, experiential installations that rely on repetition and the interplay of light. At the Dennos, Park will recreate a version of her installation Unwoven Light that will be suspended as a sculptural composition of chain-link fencing and iridescent Plexiglas formed in organic shapes within the Schmuckal Gallery of the Dennos, transforming it into a shimmering world of light, shadow, and brilliant color.

Park will install the work from June 6 to 10 at the museum. A graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, she is Associate Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College. Visit her website to find out more.

Ilhwa Kim: ‘Seed Universe 天下圖’

Artist Ilhwa Kim of Seoul, Korea, hand-dyes, cuts, and rolls thousands of sheets of Korean mulberry paper to form colorful, three-dimensional works of art that form vibrant patterns and shapes. The artist developed this nearly sculptural way of creating artworks using layers of paper, which she calls “seeds,” to make the surface and sense of her images change from morning to night. Depending on the angle, distance and light situation, each of her pieces transforms in a constantly shifting wave of texture, dimensions, depth, and color while the viewer can spot subtle impressions of eyes, hearts, human figures, and more in the densely packed images. Find out more on her website.

Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds

Appropriate to celebrating our Silver Anniversary, the Dennos will present the art installation by pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) called Silver Clouds. The exhibition consists of large helium-filled, pillow-like forms made from silver plastic film. First shown in 1966 at the Castelli Gallery in New York, the clouds will float in a confined space in our Binsfeld Gallery where the helium-filled clouds will move gently on fan-propelled wind allowing visitors to experience an interactive and blissful walk through a pop interpretation of the heavens. Warhol was known as one of the innovators of pop art, the 20th century movement that utilized the imagery and techniques of popular culture. The artist often used mundane objects from consumer culture as well as images of celebrities in his work. Silver Clouds is an example of his talent, creativity, and individual style. Billy Kluver (1927-2004), an engineer by education and Warhol’s close friend, designed the clouds using a then new plastic film called Mylar. The exhibition is being produced in cooperation with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. Find more here.

In addition to these invited exhibitions the Dennos will also look back at the past with two exhibitions that pay homage to the museum’s exhibition and art collecting history.

Exhibited and Acquired: 25 Years of Exhibitions that added art to the Dennos Collections.

Since the beginning of the Museum’s exhibition program, the Dennos has collected works of art for its collections that were part of its exhibition program or came from the artist or artists as a result of showing works by those artists. This exhibition will offer a survey of the growth of the museum’s collections acquired in connection with these exhibitions over the past 25 years. The Dennos Museum Center holds about 2500 catalogued works in its collections, 1500 of which are from its internationally significant Inuit Art collection.

Looking Back to the Beginning: Clifton McChesney – Painting / Dale Chihuly – Glass

In homage to the very first exhibition in the Zimmerman Court we re-install the first two paintings by the former MSU painting professor, Clif McChesney (1929-2011) to be hung on the court walls, and present the glass artistry of Dale Chihuly, featuring works from the Dennos collection. In 1991, an exhibition of Dale Chihuly glass accompanied the McChesney painting installation.

There will be an exhibition opening for museum members and guests on Saturday June 11, 2016 at 7 p.m. to celebrate the Museum’s 25th anniversary. In addition to a preview of the exhibitions, the equally significant history of concert programming in Milliken Auditorium will be celebrated with an 8 p.m. concert featuring the musician who initiated what would become the annual Dennos Concert Series.

In 1991 Jeff Haas conceived and organized what would become a very successful jazz series in Milliken Auditorium and with that a season of regular concerts ranging from jazz, blues, folk, classical, and world music was born, bringing rising stars from Marcus Roberts and Joshua Redman to Shemekia Copeland and Esperanza Spalding, along with The Angels of Shanghai and Hanggai to the Milliken stage.

As part of the 25th anniversary celebration The Jeff Haas Quintet featuring Laurie Sears, saxes & flute; Chris Lawrence, trumpet; Jack Dryden, bass; Randy Marsh, drums, and Jeff Haas on piano will present an hour of music that highlights the many legendary jazz musicians who have performed on the stage of Milliken Auditorium – jazz classics from Cole Porter, Ellington and the Gershwin brothers to Monk, Miles and Mingus as well as a few selections from Jeff’s extensive book of originals will be featured during the 8 PM concert.

The Dennos Anniversary Exhibition opening and Jeff Haas concert is open to museum members and invited guests free of charge. Memberships are available by calling the Dennos Museum Center at 231-995-1055. Memberships start at $40 Individual and $60 Family, and include free admission and discounts in the museum store etc. for one year. RSVPs for the evening are strongly recommended to assure seating for the concert. Call 231-995-1055.

The 25th Anniversary exhibitions are sponsored by the Ted and Phyllis Kidd Fund, the Robert and Anne Tucker Fund, The Art and Mary Schmuckal Fund, Richard and Diana Milock and the KATESHIN Gallery.

The 25th Anniversary concert is sponsored by Huntington Bank-Traverse City.

Additional support is provided by L Mawby Vineyards, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Robert T. and Ruth Haidt Hughes Memorial Endowment Fund, and TV 7&4.

The Dennos Museum Center is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday’s until 8 p.m. and Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $6.00 adults, $4.00 for children and free to museum members. For more information on the Museum and its programs, go to www.dennosmuseum.org or call 231-995-1055. The Dennos Museum Center is located at1410 College Drive, Traverse City, MI 49686, at the entrance to the campus of Northwestern Michigan College.


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Photo(s) by The Dennos Museum Center