It’s set to be a typically busy and exciting season on the arts and culture front for the Bowdoin community. The Bowdoin College Arts and Culture fall 2018 calendar has now been compiled and released. To complement the calendar, here’s a sample of some of the treats on offer in the galleries, museums, concert halls, libraries, theaters, and lecture halls of the College over the next few months.
The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
A new exhibition opening October 2, looks at the tragic life of Minik Wallace, a young Inughuit boy who was taken from Greenland to New York in 1897 with his father and other members of his family to spend a year working with an anthropologist. When disease killed most of the other Inughuits, including his father, Minik ended up being adopted by an American family and did not return home for twelve years.
Visitors to the Arctic Museum can also enjoy ongoing exhibits, including the stunning photography of botanist Rutherford Platt (which runs until October 1), Threads of Change: Clothing and Identity in the North (running through December 31, 2019), and an examination of contemporary Alaskan Yup’ik and Iñupiat art, which runs through December 22, 2018. To complement the exhibition, curator Molly Lee from the University of Alaska Museum of the North will be giving a talk on October 3 describing her pioneering fieldwork with Yup’ik basket makers.
Another event to look forward to is the first public screening on September 12 of recently preserved short films taken by Bowdoin Professor of Biology Alfred Otto Gross in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The films, which include previously unknown footage of the last surviving heath hen, have been preserved, digitized, and published online thanks to support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The films are a recent gift to the Bowdoin College Library’s George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives.
Hawthorne-Longfellow Library
A recently opened show at the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library shines a light on Parker Cleaveland (1780-1858), Bowdoin’s first professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. Cleaveland was a polymath who studied mineralogy, geology, astronomy, biology, conchology, and meteorology. In 1816 he published America’s first textbook on geology and mineralogy. The exhibition explores his rich pedagogical and scientific legacy and runs the remainder of the semester.
Ongoing treasures on display at the library include Highlights from the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Papers and Highlights from the George J. Mitchell Papers.
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
As ever, a wealth of offerings await at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. There’s still time to catch Richard Pousette-Dart: Painting/Light/Space, which runs until September 16, as well as two associated events: On September 6, Cambridge University lecturer Jennifer Powell presents new research into the artistic practice and philosophical inclinations of the abstract expressionist painter; On September 14, Sarah Montross, associate curator at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, talks about Pousette-Dart in the context of color TV, psychedelic culture, and visual art of the 1960s.
Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting runs until October 28, and there are several related events to see, including a guided tour on September 18 with assistant professor of art history and cocurator Dana Byrd, a gallery conversation on October 10 with art professor James Mullen, and, on October 17, a talk about camera technology in the nineteenth century and the three cameras that Homer used as part of his artistic practice. The next associated event is on September 7, when author and renowned fly-casting instructor Macauley Lord ’77 will discuss nineteenth-century fishing techniques and Homer’s passion for fishing. That presentation will take place, weather permitting, partly on the Bowdoin quad.
On September 27, the Museum of Art will open a collaborative, site-specific, multimedia art installation, featuring a large-scale wall drawing titled Let’s Get Lost, by linn meyers, a Washington, D.C.-based contemporary artist, who will also serve as the 2018-2019 halley k harrisburg ’90 and Michael Rosenfeld Artist-in-Residence at the College. This important residency will enable students to get to know and learn from meyers over the course of the coming academic year. The previous night, meyers will deliver a talk at Kresge Auditorium titled “Let’s Get Lost: Finding One’s Path as an Artist.”
Visitors have until January 6, 2019, to check out A Handheld History: Five Centuries of Medals from the Molinari Collection at Bowdoin College. The student-curated show allows viewers to experience the intimacy and poignancy of portrait medals spanning nearly five centuries and to consider the lessons they have to impart to contemporary audiences.
Two shows open at the museum next month. On October 4, an exhibition running until February 10, 2019, will highlight the works of two exceptional artist-botanists, watercolorist Kate Furbish (1834–1931) and photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848–1938). From October 11 to April 7, 2019, Among Women: Portraits from the Permanent Collection will explore the artistic portrayal of women in the United States over the last three centuries.
Later in the semester, the museum will be highlighting some of the turbulent events of 1968 with an exhibition of iconic photographs from that watershed year. 1968 – Spring of Discontent: The Photography of Michael Ruetz presents a visual diary capturing many of the events associated with the student movement in Germany and beyond. That runs from November 15 to January 27, 2019, and, on December 4, Jens Klenner, assistant professor of German, will lead a gallery conversation about the exhibition.
Rounding out the calendar year, Material Resources: Intersections of Art and the Environment opens on December 6 and examines artists’ dependence on Earth’s material resources, while presenting art as an integral “material” resource in the study of the environment. That will be on display until June 2, 2019.
Fall lecture series
A series of three monthly lectures by visiting professors will look at aspects of Russian culture and its relationship to the environment. The series is titled “Russian Environment: Nature and Culture” and gets underway on September 26 with a lecture by Thomas Hodge, professor of Russian at Wellesley College. He will be talking about the nature writing of nineteenth-century Russian author Ivan Turgenev.
The series continues on October 22, when environmental studies professor Jane Costlow from Bates College looks at contemporary Russian artists in the Arctic and examines how they represent the country’s far north. On November 15, historian Nicholas Breyfogle of Ohio State University concludes the fall lecture series with a talk called “Protecting the Pearl of Soviet Asia: Post-War Development, Conservation, and Lake Baikal.”
Literary and other cultural events
On September 28, the English department’s visiting writers’ series welcomes Peter Coviello, professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He will read from his recent book Long Players: A Love Story in Eighteen Songs (June, 2018). Korean-American novelist Chan-rae Lee will also be doing a reading of his work on October 30. Both of these events will be in the Faculty Room, Massachusetts Hall.
*NOTE: The Peter Coviello event is a day later than originally advertised in the calendar due to a last-minute schedule change.
A number of faculty book launches are happening this semester. The first occurs September 27, when Director of Writing and Rhetoric Meredith McCarroll talks about her book Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film (University of Georgia Press, October, 2018), which focuses on the “othering” of whiteness through Appalachian stereotypes in cinema.
On October 25, Christopher Chong, assistant professor of mathematics, discusses his new book, Coherent Structures in Granular Crystals: From Experiment and Modelling to Computation and Mathematical Analysis.
Professor of History and Environmental Studies Connie Chiang talks about the experiences of Japanese-Americans imprisoned in the US during World War Two on December 6. Her latest book is called Nature Behind Barbed Wire: An Environmental History of the Japanese American Incarceration (Oxford University Press, September 2018.)
Cultural anthropologist Jennifer Robertson from the University of Michigan will be here on October 12 to present a talk called “Gendering AI and Robots: Robo-Sexism in Japan.” That’s in the Beam Classroom in the Visual Arts Center at 3:00 p.m.
Two award-wining poets—Adrian Blevins and Cate Marvin—will be reading from their work on November 12, in an event at Hubbard Hall’s Shannon Room at 7:00 p.m.
The following day, Congolese photographer Sammy Baloji, currently the Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, will be on campus. He’ll be presenting his work at 7:30 p.m. on November 13 in the Visual Arts Center’s Kresge Auditorium.
Live music on campus
There will be no shortage of exceptional musical offerings on the Bowdoin campus throughout the fall. There are too many to mention them all here, but among the highlights are a series of concerts by Beckwith Artist in Residence George Lopez. On September 24, he kicks off a tribute to the great nineteenth-century Romantic composer Johannes Brams (1833-97) with a solo piano recital. The year-long series continues on November 10, when Lopez is joined by two visiting musicians to perform some chamber music by Brahms. Lopez will also be putting on a number of Music at the Museum concerts, in which he performs music associated with some of the works on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. These get underway on October 18.
On September 29, the Gibson Players will be playing some early twentieth-century chamber music. This is a newly formed group, and three of the four members are Bowdoin faculty or staff. They will be performing the “Soldier’s Tale” suite by Igor Stravinsky, and the “Quartet for the End of Time” by Olivier Messiaen.
The Bowdoin Chorus, led by Anthony Antolini ’63, gets the holiday season off to an early start on October 20 with a performance of “Christmas Jazz.” This concert will be repeated on November 16 and 17. The Bowdoin College Concert Band, directed by John P. Morneau, plays the first in a trilogy of “Friends” concerts for 2018-2019 on October 21. The second “Friends” concert on November 18 will be a very special performance spotlighting the musical talents of Bowdoin alumni, staff, and administration. Highlighting the program will be President Clayton Rose as guest narrator on “A Lincoln Portrait” by Aaron Copland.
Some of New York’s finest contemporary jazz musicians will be playing at the Studzinski Recital Hall on October 1, with a quartet led by drummer/composer Devin Gray, who’ll be presenting original works from the group’s second album.
NPR’s “From the Top” is coming to Bowdoin on October 17, as the preeminent showcase for young musicians records a radio broadcast in front of a live audience at the Studzinski Recital Hall. Tickets are free and available at the Smith Union Information Desk.
There will be an evening of world music on October 19, when Bowdoin’s Middle Eastern Ensemble performs a joint concert alongside the West African Music Ensemble. The latter will be performing again on November 29 in a program featuring music of both the Ewe and Akan people of West Africa. The Middle Eastern Ensemble, meanwhile, will be holding its own concert on November 26, in a program of classical and contemporary music from the Arabic and Ottoman Turkish traditions.
As the semester draws to a close, there will a number of concerts featuring student ensembles, including a performance by the Bowdoin Orchestra on December 6 and two nights of jazz performances by various groups on December 7 and 8.
Theater and dance
The Anton Chekhov classic Three Sisters will be coming to the Wish Theater on November 9, 10, and 11. Simultaneously comic and searing, the play highlights a small Russian town’s dreams, sorrows, and missed opportunities. This production is a new version of the work by acclaimed theater director Libby Appel.
The December Dance Concert will take place on November 30, with further performances on December 1 and 2. The program features choreography by Bowdoin Dance Faculty Aretha Aoki, Adanna Jones, and Gwyneth Jones, with performances by Bowdoin students.
These are some of the highlights of the Bowdoin Arts and Culture Calender of Events, Fall 2018. Also check the Bowdoin online calendar, which is regularly updated, as all events are subject to cancellations or time changes.