Party Like It’s…Time for the Museum to Close

News subtitle

Two final celebrations this week put an exclamation point on the Hood Museum’s closure for expansion.

Image
Image
Hood Museum intern Eva Munday ’16, left, created this design for the paint-by-numbers mural activity.
Hood Museum intern Eva Munday ’16, left, created this design for the paint-by-numbers mural activity. Here she and Hood Images and Art Start Instructor Neely McNulty draw Munday’s design on the gallery walls. (Photo by Matt Zayatz)
Body

The galleries may be empty and the walls may be bare, but the public is invited to two final events in the Hood Museum of Art this week—the last hoorah before construction begins on the renovation and expansion project that will keep the building shuttered until 2019.

Digital Arts eXhibition

From 7-10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18, the museum will host the fifth annual Dartmouth Digital Arts eXhibition (DAX), featuring juried student work in film and media studies, computer science, studio art, sonic art and digital music, engineering, theater, and more. Audience members will also have the chance to help judge the Neukom Institute’s first “Turing Test of Creative Arts,” in which computers attempt to create dance music, poetry, and short stories indistinguishable from human works.

DAX highlights the creativity that fuels work at the intersection of art and technology. The event is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Neukom Institute, the Department of Computer Science, the Digital Arts Program, and the Digital Musics Program, with additional support from the departments of film and media studies, studio art, music, and theater, the DALI Lab, and Thayer School of Engineering. For details, visit the DAX website.

The Writing’s on the Wall: Party at the Museum

On Saturday, May 21, the community is invited to the Hood’s closing party. Don’t look for Abenaki baskets, Picasso prints, ancient pottery or any other works from the Hood’s collections—they are now safely stored for the duration of the construction project. Instead, participants will have the chance to create their own works to adorn the Hood’s empty walls and spaces.

Organized art activities will include building sculptures from everyday objects, cutting silhouette portraits, painting a mural by the numbers on the gallery walls, and other projects using chalk, textiles, and (after dark) black light paints.

In a sense the special exhibition is the building itself, says Hood intern Katherine Healy ’16, who helped plan the event, which is co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost.

“Buildings are more than just what’s held with in them,” Healy says. “It’s all about getting people to engage with the Hood one last time before the renovation. People will get to leave their mark on the museum, as hopefully the museum has left a mark on them.”

The family-friendly party begins at 3 p.m. Throughout the afternoon, the public is invited to make art in the galleries; enjoy performances from local bluegrass and folk duo Etna Old Time, student jazz group The Pickpocket Trio, and the Dartmouth Asian Dance Troupe; and watch screenings of Night at the Museum and How to Steal a Million.

After dark, the black lights go on and the gallery mural painting begins, while 802DJ hosts a dance party on the second floor.

For a complete schedule, visit the Hood Museum website.

Hannah Silverstein, MALS '09