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  Manual / Issue 14 / Shadows

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Andrea Achi; Emanuel Admassu; Anita N. Bateman; Makeda Best; Gina Borromeo; Rashayla Marie Brown; Shuriya Davis; Akwaeke Emezi; Tayana Fincher; Melanee C. Harvey; Kate Irvin; Sade LaNay; Dominic Molon; Oluremi C. Onabanjo; Kevin Quashie; Matthew Shenoda; Kelly Taylor Mitchell; and Leslie Wilson

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Shadows. This anti-visibility is not the same as being invisible, rather it is the power to operate against systems of imperial domination, including the gaze. It asks: How do we force the gaze to surrender? What if explanation were off the table? By enabling a petit marronage that can be expressed in the visual and symbolic use of shadow, the gaze is challenged. This issue of Manual and the accompanying exhibition (opening at the RISD Museum Fall 2020) posit that the right to opacity de-burdens contemporary work by artists who identify as Black and/or queer and/or feminist and/or non-binary and/or OVER IT—whatever sociocultural constriction “it” signifies. Opacity extends to artists who are simply not interested in explaining themselves or offering the emotional labor that is expended for inclusion. This right says, “I have given enough.” It also legitimizes and reclaims the shadow as a place of refuge, instead of being a place from which to escape. –Anita N. Bateman
  The RISD Museum’s fourteenth issue of Manual shines a light on the shadow, centering the black body as a site of possibility, liberatory self-awareness, radical non-conformity, and joyful defiance. This issue serves as a companion to the exhibition Defying the Shadow. Manual 14: Shadows opens with an excerpt on the shadow from W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, followed by an introduction by Dr. Anita N. Bateman, who elucidates: “Operating in the shadow comes with a legacy of resistance, both in spiritual and ideological forms.” Softcover, 108 pages. Published Fall/Winter 2020 by the RISD Museum. Manual 14 (Shadows) contributors include: Andrea Achi, Emanuel Admassu, Anita N. Bateman, Makeda Best, Gina Borromeo, Rashayla Marie Brown, Shuriya Davis, Akwaeke Emezi, Tayana Fincher, Melanee C. Harvey, Kate Irvin, Sade LaNay, Kelly Taylor Mitchell, Dominic Molon, Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Kevin Quashie, Matthew Shenoda, and Leslie Wilson. This issue complements the RISD Museum exhibition Defying the Shadow, curated by Dr. Anita N. Bateman.

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  Manual / Issue 13 / Storage

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Christina Alderman; Isaac M. Alderman; A.H. Jerriod Avant; Matthew Bird; Hannah Carlson; Wai Yee Chiong; John Dunnigan; Maria Morris Hambourg; David Hartt; Elaine Tyler May; Claire McCardell; Denise Murrell; Ingrid Schaffner; Holly Schaffer; Tanya Sheehan; John W. Smith; Mimi Smith; Sassan Tabatabai; Allan Wexler; and Fred Wilson

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Storage. Manual 13 opens with an introduction by Fred Wilson, who confides, “You can look at all the opulence on display in a museum and begin to understand that something nefarious might be behind it. Storage, for me, is where the action is.” "Museums usually make choices for viewers, their curators presenting what they think most important within a category. They can be so good at doing this that visitors sometimes don’t realize there’s anything else to see: they don’t realize the nature of the decisions behind an exhibition, and they accept that the elites have made a judgment about which shoe is the shoe to see. Visitors can learn about what’s great, but they don’t necessarily consider the process of discernment."–– Fred Wilson

  The RISD Museum’s thirteenth issue of Manual unpacks the idea and reality of storage—objects museums don’t put on view, works made as containers of various sorts, and more metaphorical considerations about how meanings and narratives are stored. This issue serves as a companion to the Raid the Icebox Now series of exhibitions on view at the RISD Museum through November 2020, in which nine contemporary artists and design collectives use the museum and its collections as a site for critical creative production and presentation. Raid the Icebox Now marks the 50th anniversary of Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol, held in 1970 at the RISD Museum. Softcover, 120 pages. Published Fall/Winter 2019 by the RISD Museum. Manual 13 (Storage) contributors include: Christina Alderman, Issac M. Alderman, A.H. Jerriod Avant, Hannah Carlson, Wai Yee Chiong, John Dunnigan, Maria Morris Hambourg, David Hartt, Elaine Tyler May, Claire McCardell, Denise Murrell, Ingrid Schaffner, Holly Shaffer, Tanya Sheehan, John W. Smith, Mimi Smith, Sassan Tabatabai, Allen Wexler, and Fred Wilson.

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  Manual / Issue 12 / On Further Review

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Anita N. Bateman; Laurie Anne Brewer; Elon Cook Lee; Becci Davis; Jessica Deane Rosner; James Gabbarelli; Ronnie Goodman; Bethany Johns; Kevin McBride; Walter Mettling; Nell Painter; Allison Pappas; Pamala A. Parmal; Susan Scanlan; Lorén M. Spears; Shiyanthi Thavapalan; and Nick White

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. On Further Review. This issue uncovers narratives once central to objects’ histories but that now have been systematically obscured, inadvertently overlooked, or otherwise lost. Softcover, 96 pages. Published 2019 by the RISD Museum.(On Further Review) contributors include Anita N. Bateman, Laurie Anne Brewer, Becci Davis, Jamie Gabbarelli, Bethany Johns, Elon Cook Lee, Kevin McBride, Walker Mettling, Jessica Rosner, Suzanne Scanlan, Nell Painter, Allison Pappas, Pamela A. Parmal, Shiyanthi Thavapalan, and Nick White.

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  Manual / Issue 10 / Polychrome

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; David Batchelor; Gina Borromeo; Nicole Buchanan; Catherine Cooper; Darby English; Mara L. Hermano; Elon Cook Lee; Josephine Lee; Dominic Molon; Maureen C. O'Brien; RISD Museum 2017 Summer Teen Intensive Students; and Elizabeth A. Williams

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Polychrome. "In art, especially, polychrome invites us to the dialogue that colors are always having amongst themselves. A history of polychrome could be a series of poems exchanged among colors. The exchange might exhibit something like perpetual newness, again and again revealing differently bent hues and movingly novel blends. It would be a short-line poetry, excruciatingly sensitive to tone. Its speakers would have no names, so it would confuse the psychology of human orientation. In this connection, a warning against rendering polychrome as a pure positive seems in order: the parties to this dialogue talk at cross-purposes, always on the brink of divorcing. Polychrome can offend and destroy. It conscripts discrete colors in order to sacrifice them. Does polychrome offend by mocking our own failure to connect? In any case, polychrome has an advanced idiom for dealing with conflict. It’s at home with uncertainty."
  —Darby English, from the introduction to Issue 10: Polychrome.

  Softcover, 80 pages. Published 2018 by the RISD Museum. Manual 10 (Polychrome) contributors include David Batchelor, Gina Borromeo, Nicole Buchanan, Catherine Cooper, Darby English, Mara L. Hermano, Elon Cook Lee, Josephine Lee, Evelyn Lincoln, Dominic Molon, Maureen C. O'Brien, RISD Museum 2017 Summer Teen Intensive Students, and Elizabeth A. Williams.

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  Manual / Issue 11 / Repair

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Markus Berger; Gina Borromeo; Linda Catano; Thomas Denenberg; Daniel Eatock; Brian Goldberg; Ramiro Gomez; Kate Irvin; Anna Rose Keefe; Olivia Laing; Steven D. Lubar; Lisa Z. Morgan; Maureen C. O'Brien; Barry Schwabsky; Sharma Shields; Jessica Urick; and Liliane Wong

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Repair. "Can we find in the detail, in the stitch and the weave, an ecology of care, a model for activating new forms of life, ones that might reject or reimagine an economic and cultural order based on novelty, disposability, and the monadic self? Can they help us learn to live together in a broken world?"
  —Brian Goldberg and Kate Irvin, from the preface to Issue 11

  This volume complemented the exhibition Repair and Design Futures, on view at the RISD Museum October 5, 2018 through June 30, 2019. Softcover, 96 pages. Published 2018 by the RISD Museum. Manual 11 (Repair) contributors include Markus Berger, Gina Borromeo, Linda Catano, Thomas Denenberg, Daniel Eatock, Brian Goldberg, Ramiro Gomez, Kate Irvin, Anna Rose Keefe, Olivia Laing, Steven Lubar, Roberto Lugo, Lisa Z. Morgan, Maureen C. O’Brien, Barry Schwabsky, Sharma Shields, Jessica Urick, and Liliane Wong.

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  Manual / Issue 9 / Out of Line

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Fida Adely; Reginald Dwayne Betts; Stefano Bloch; Mimi Cabell; Namita Vijay Dharia; Douglas W. Doe; Jared A. Goldstein; Lucinda Hitchcock; Jan Howard; Kate Irvin; Douglas Kearney; Amber Lopez; Jeffery Moser; Sheida Soleimani; and Craig Taylor

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Out of Line. The nineth issue. This issue of *Manual*—themed Out of Line—is a collection about the way that lines disrupt, point outward. In poetry, the attention to detail one takes in crafting a line is all about making the line disappear, making something it holds to take front stage. . . . The space between the lines creating the image . . . the space around that argues for the importance of all that the lines hold. Manual 9 (Out of Line) complemented Lines of Thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to Now, presented in collaboration with the British Museum, on view at the RISD Museum October 6, 2017 to January 7, 2018.

  Softcover, 76 pages. Published 2017 by the RISD Museum. Manual 9 (Out of Line) contributors include Fida Adely, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Stefano Bloch, Mimi Cabell, Namita Vijay Dharia, Douglas W. Doe, Jared A. Goldstein, Lucinda Hitchcock, Jan Howard, Kate Irvin, Douglas Kearney, Amber Lopez, Jeffrey Moser, Sheida Soleimani, and Craig Taylor.

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  Manual / Issue 8 / Give and Take

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Mary-Kim Arnold; Emily Banas; Pia Camil; John Dunnigan; Claudia J. Ford; Kate Irin; Josie Johnson; Dom Molon; Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi; Alexandra M. Peck; Robert W. Preucel; Wendy Red Star; Jessica Urick; and Kelly Walters

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Give and Take. The eigth issue. Manual 8 (Give and Take) explores interaction, transaction, and social exchange and indebtedness.

  "The earliest known use of the expression “give and take” can be traced to horse racing. It referred to races in which larger, stronger horses carried more weight, and smaller ones, less. Implied therein is an accounting for relative capacities. In such a race, the goal remains the same—crossing the finish line first—but introducing this variable highlights the relationship between the competing horses. A win is only meaningful if each horse can be considered in relation to the others.

  "We . . . find ourselves in a historical moment that makes our interconnectedness both more visible and more complex. Boundaries—physical, geographical, ideological—have become more porous, and the institutions that have provided structure—while always deeply flawed—have shown themselves to be more vulnerable than some of us would have liked to believe. Old systems are breaking down, giving way. New ones will take hold." —Mary-Kim Arnold, from the introduction to Issue 8: Give and Take

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  Manual / Issue 6 / Assemblage

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor; S. Hollis Mickey, Editor; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Eric Anderson; Taylor Elyse Anderson; Bob Dilworth; Christina Hemauer; Roman Keller; Mariani Lefas-Tetenes; Simone Leigh; Leora Maltz-Leca; Ingrid A. Neuman; Tara Nummedal; Todd Oldham; and Britany Salsbury

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Assemblage. The sixth issue. An assemblage is both an act and a result-the work of gathering and conjoining as well as the state of having been gathered and conjoined. This issue of Manual pieces together works made out of practical necessity and others that marry dazzling embellishments for optimal effect, examining how history (or one version of it) was (and is) pastiched from disparate sources, how fashionable textile samples were collected, and more (always more). An assembly of assemblages, an assortment of intended and unintended interrelationships, Manual issue six is the sum of its parts and the parts themselves, a dynamic gathering of artists and authors, objects and interpretations, mash-ups and remixes, lemons and lightbulbs, vibrantly inter-animating each other.

  Softcover, 68 pages. Published 2016 by the RISD Museum. Manual 6 (Assemblage) contributors include Eric Anderson, Taylor Elyse Anderson, Bob Dilworth, Christina Hemauer, Roman Keller, Mariani Lefas-Tetenes, Simone Leigh, Leora Maltz-Leca, Ingrid A. Neuman, Tara Nummedal, Todd Oldham, and Britany Salsbury.

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  Manual / Issue 7 / Alchemy

  Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor-in-Chief; Amy Pickworth, Editor; Markus Berger; Rachel Berwick; Stephen S. Bush; CA Conrad; Florence Friedman; Doreen Garner; Michael Grugl; Kate Irvin; Mimi Leveque; Dominic Molon; Douglas R. Nickel; Emily J. Peters; Elizabeth A. Williams; Bryan McGovern Wilson; and Diming Stella Zhong

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Alchemy. The seventh issue. Manual 7 (Alchemy) prompts the unexpected and emergent to manifest.

  "To engage as an alchemist/artist is to be the perpetual student of the present moment, to synthesize culture, so-called science, and the implications of existential borders into a discipline that is repeatable, a practice. Art and alchemy are not singular, unified pursuits. Their practitioners are trans-disciplinary, disjointed, and solitary in their practice, and their labor and the ordering of their lives become porous, overlaid in the pursuit of other-than or beyond-dominant modes of understanding.

  "Alchemy and art are not about finding resolution, but building the capacity for curiosity, formulating questions that invest fields of knowledge with possibility, prompting the unexpected and emergent to manifest." —Bryan McGovern Wilson, from the introduction to Issue 7: Alchemy

  Softcover, 76 pages. Published 2016 by the RISD Museum. Manual 7 (Alchemy) contributors include Markus Berger, Rachel Berwick, Stephen S. Bush, CA Conrad, Florence Friedman, Doreen Garner, Michael Grugl, Kate Irvin, Mimi Leveque, Dominic Molon, Douglas R. Nickel, Emily J. Peters, Elizabeth A. Williams, Bryan McGovern Wilson, and Diming Stella Zhong.

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  Manual / Issue 4 / Blue

  Amy Pickworth, Editor; Sarah Ganz Blythe, editor; S. Hollis Mickey, editor; Lawrence Berman; A. Will Brown; Linda Catano; Spencer Finch; Jessica Helfend; Kate Irvin; Dominic Molon; Maggie Nelson; Ingrid Neuman; Margot McIlwain Nishimura; Karen B. Schloss; Anna Strickland; Louis van Tilborgh; Oda van Maanen; and Elizabeth A. Williams

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Blue.The fourth issue. Indigo blue, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, zaffre blue, indanthrone blue, phthalo blue, cyan blue, Han blue, French blue, Berlin blue, Prussian blue, Venetian blue, Dresden blue, Tiffany blue, Lanvin blue, Majorelle blue, International Klein Blue, Facebook blue. The names given to different shades of blue speak of plants, minerals, and modern chemistry; exoticism, global trade, and national pride; capitalist branding and pure invention. The fourth issue of Manual is a meditation on blue. From precious substance to controllable algorithm to the wide blue yonder, join us as we leap into the blue.

  Softcover, 64 pages. Published 2015 by the RISD Museum. Proceeds from RISD Museum publications support the work of the museum. Manual 4 (Blue) contributors include Lawrence Berman, A. Will Brown, Linda Catano, Spencer Fitch, Jessica Helfand, Kate Irvin, Oda van Maanen, Dominic Molon, Maggie Nelson, Ingrid A. Neuman, Margot Nishimura, Karen B. Schloss, Anna Strickland, Louis van Tilborgh, and Elizabeth A. Williams.

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  Manual / Issue 5 / Unfinished

  Amy Pickworth, Editor; Sarah Ganz Blythe, Editor; S. Hollis Mickey, Editor; Jen Bervin; Jean Blackburn; Gina Borromeo; Laurie Brewer; A. Will Brown; Bolaji Campbell; Dennis Congdon; Jeremy Diller; Jan Howard; Kate Irvin; Maureen C. O'Brien; Emily J. Peters; Siebren Versteeg; Elizabeth A. Williams; and C. D. Wright

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Unfinished.The fifth issue. Loose threads unknotted. Ideas unrealized. Outlines left bare. Function unperformed. Patterns uncut. Luster removed with time and wear. We rarely examine unfinished things. The unfinished is easily overlooked in favor of the fully rendered and complete, but consider those sketchy lines, those fraying ends: the unfinished has potency. The unfinished offers evidence of process, reveals traces of technique, trembles with latent possibility. The essays, images, and projects presented in the fifth issue of Manual attend to the fluid potential of objects that are in some way incomplete.

  Softcover, 68 pages. Published 2015 by the RISD Museum. Manual 5 (Unfinished) contributors include Jen Bervin, Jean Blackburn, Gina Borromeo, Laurie Brewer, A. Will Brown, Bolaji Campbell, Dennis Congdon, Jeremy Deller, Jan Howard, Kate Irvin, Maureen C. O’Brien, Emily J. Peters, Siebren Versteeg, Elizabeth A. Williams, and C. D. Wright.

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  Manual / Issue 3 / Circus

  Amy Pickworth, Editor; Sarah Ganz Blythe, editor; S. Hollis Mickey, editor; Gina Borromeo; Alison W. Chang; Michelle Clayton; Jim Drain; Daniel Heyman; Andrew Martinez; Ellen McBreen; Thangam Ravindranathan; Rebecca Schneider; Susan Smulyan; and Gwen Strahle

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Circus. The third issue centers on the theme of "Circus." Includes analyses of various pieces in the museum's archive, a fold-out poster by Jim Drain, and a selection of artworks owned by the museum that loosely address said theme.

  Softcover, 62 pages. Published 2014 by the RISD Museum. Manual 3 (Circus) contributors include Gina Borromeo, Alison W. Chang, Michelle Clayton, Jim Drain, Daniel Heyman, Andrew Martinez, Ellen McBreen, Thangam Ravindranathan, Rebecca Schneider, Susan Smulyan, and Gwen Strahle.

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  Manual / Issue 2 / Lorem Ipsum

  Amy Pickworth, Editor; S. Hollis Mickey, editor; Sarah Ganz Blythe, editor; James Allen; Alison W. Chang; Kenneth Goldsmith; Daniel Harkett; Cyrus Highsmith; Jan Howard; Kate Irvin; Antoine Revoy; and Nancy Skolos

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Lorem Ipsum.The second issue. In potently meaningful and deliberately meaningless ways, this issue, “Lorem ipsum,” celebrates text. The standard placeholder text used by designers and printers, lorem ipsum isn’t really Latin. Mangled over centuries of use, the passage has become meaningless and untranslatable—and yet it is highly useful in that in its incomprehensibility, it occupies space. Over the centuries and across many inventions and innovations in type and printing, lorem ipsum has acted as a space filler and form shaper in conventional printing, desktop publishing, and electronic typesetting. Join us as we read and read into calls to action, incantations, prayers, portrayals, missives, notes, proclamations, and musings.

  Softcover, 60 pages. Published 2014 by the RISD Museum. Manual 2 (Lorem Ipsum) contributors include James Allen, Alison W. Chang, Kenneth Goldsmith, Cyrus Highsmith, Jan Howard, Kate Irvin, Antoine Revoy, and Nancy Skolos.

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  Manual / Issue 1 / Hand in Hand

  Amy Pickworth, Editor; S. Hollis Mickey, editor; Sarah Ganz Blythe, editor; Robert Brinkerhoff; Maureen O'Brien; Sheila Bonde; James McShane; Elizabeth Williams; and Kate Irvin

  Manual, a journal about art and its making. Hand in Hand. The inaugural issue of The Manual, a twice-yearly publication by the RISD Museum. The theme of this first issue is “hand in hand,” a phrase first recorded in the 16th century. Its early usage described the clasping of palm to palm, but the term has since come to encompass more than this literal meaning. To be hand in hand is also to be connected, joined, concurrent, well matched. Thumb through these pages to find rigorous, imaginative musings as artists and academics make solid contact, gesture wildly, and put their fingers on the pulse of new ideas. In your grasp, an open invitation to explore objects and materials, and the meanings and makings of things.

  Softcover, 48 pages. Published 2013 by the RISD Museum. Proceeds from RISD Museum publications support the work of the museum. Manual 1 (Hand in Hand) contributors include Sheila Bonde, Robert Brinkerhoff, Kate Irvin, James McShane, Maureen C. O’Brien, and Elizabeth A. Williams.

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  The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Rhode Island

  Alison W. Chang

  Exhibition Notes, Number 41, Summer 2012. RISD Museum was the recipient of fifty contemporary works from the celebrated collectors Dorothy and Herb Vogel. Both worked as civil servants throughout their lives so they never had extraordinary means with which to build a collection, but acquired more than 4000 works since their marriage in 1962. Their commitment to minimal and conceptual art is well-known, but their taste was much broader and included work rooted in Abstract Expressionism as well as figurative compositions. Most of the collection was given to the National Gallery of Art. The gift to Rhode Island is part of a broader effort to spread their collection across the United States with fifty works going to one institution in each of the fifty states.

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  RISD Business: Sassy Signs & Sculptures

  Alejandro Diaz and Judith Tannenbaum

  Exhibition Notes, Number 42, Fall 2012. Ranging from quaint stereotypes of Mexican identity to current socio-economic and art-world commentary, Alejandro Diaz’s text-based works and installations use language as a form of cultural critique and resistance. Conceptual and campy, his humor infused politics and choice of everyday materials are emblematic of his ongoing involvement with art as a form of entertainment, activism, public intervention, and free enterprise. His projects take place outdoors on city streets as well as inside galleries and museums.

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  Painting Air: Spencer Finch

  Spencer Finch and Judith Tannenbaum

  Exhibition Notes, Number 39, Winter 2012. Spencer Finch, an artist known internationally for artwork that captures fleeting or intangible natural phenomena and sensory experiences, received his MFA in Sculpture from RISD in 1989. In the two decades since, Finch has created drawings, watercolors, photography, and video as well as sculpture and installations—selecting mediums and methods that seem best suited to conveying his fascination with light, color, and atmosphere. His focus of attention ranges from a speck of dust seen in a shaft of light in his studio to grand glaciers in New Zealand.

  As a graduate student Finch worked in the RISD Museum's department of Painting and Sculpture with then curators Daniel Rosenfeld and Ann Slimmon Woolsey and spent many hours absorbing the art of the past and present on view in the galleries. In subsequent years Finch renewed his relationship with the collections from time to time as a visiting artist and lecturer. Last year, in her position as Interim Director, Woolsey invited Finch to create an exhibition of his own work in the new large Chace Center gallery.

  In a subsequent site visit and conversations with Judith Tannenbaum, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art, Finch's interest in choosing works from the Museum's storage vaults emerged, and the project expanded to include the adjoining gallery. Like many museums, the RISD Museum is only able to display a small percentage of its rich holdings at any given time; many objects remain inaccessible to visitors due to limited gallery space and a variety of other reasons. The precedent for inviting an artist to serve as curator and delve into storage dates back to Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol. Mounted at the RISD Museum in 1970, this seminal exhibition inspired similar projects nationally and internationally in more recent decades.

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  Pilgrims of Beauty: Art and Inspiration in 19th Century Italy

  Crawford Alexander Mann III

  Exhibition Notes, Number 38, Spring 2012. In the 19th century Italy was the most desirable destination for travelers from every corner of Europe and beyond. Thousands crossed mountains, even oceans, to go there, leaving their "barbarous” homelands to study and admire Italy’s unsurpassed aesthetic and cultural riches. A poem in the New England Magazine in 1831 described the goals and ideals of visiting Italy on a European Grand Tour, calling those who did so "pilgrims of beauty.” Like religious pilgrims of centuries past, these lovers of art participated in a ritual journey, a powerful shared experience of Italy’s magnificent landscape, history, architecture, and museums. In response to everything seen, felt, and imagined while exploring Italy, 19th-century artists and tourists created and purchased a variety of new works of art. Many visited repeatedly or settled for extended stays in Rome, Florence, Naples, and Venice, making Italy an important meeting point for artists and patrons. The vibrant atmosphere enriched the careers of many of the era’s great artists.

  This exhibition presents the vast array of media and materials in which they worked, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, furniture, and jewelry. Furthermore, the diversity of themes and styles among these objects, from Neoclassicism through Post-Impressionism, demonstrates that Italy remained an important center for artistic training and a consistent source of inspiration throughout a century of revolutionary changes in the worlds of politics, science, and art.

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  Dan Walsh | Uncommon Ground

  Judith Tannenbaum

  Exhibition Notes, Number 40, 2012. Dan Walsh has been devoted to abstract painting since he arrived in New York in the early 1980s. Naturally his work has evolved over the past three decades, but he has remained consistently attached to Minimalism’s basic language of geometry and grids.

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  Tristin Lowe Under the Influence

  Tristin Lowe

  Exhibition Notes, Number 36, 2010. The moon, Earth's only satellite, has been a source of mystery and wonder since the beginning of recorded history, and probably before that as well. Inspired to understand its powerful presence and effects— from gravitational pull, tidal flow, and magnetic fields to its impact on animal and human behavior— artists and writers as well as scientists have studied the moon for centuries.

  Using low-tech but labor-intensive methods and materials, sculptor Tristin Lowe has created an interpretation of the moon to fill the Museum's Lower Farago Gallery. Lunacy is an inflatable sphere, about twelve and a half feet in diameter, that is covered in white felt, an ancient fabric, formed through a process of matting and pressing, that absorbs energy, light, and sound. The felt surface, composed of fourteen sections sewn together, is astonishingly hand-worked. Myriad raised craters and rings approximate rather than replicate the moon's terrain.

  Lowe's previous interpretations of animate and inanimate objects, often made from unexpected materials ranging from bourbon and smoke to fabric and fur, are characteristically comical and absurd. In contrast, his current work, which focuses on outer space, planets, satellites, black holes, gravity, and orbital motion, seems more subdued and contemplative but equally surprising.

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  Collision

  Judith Tannenbaum

  Exhibition Notes, Number 37, 2010. Collision is an experiment in exhibition-making. It began when painter Jackie Saccoccio invited a group of artists (seventeen, including herself) to contribute works of their own choosing to a show in which paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, prints, videos, and various hybrid forms would literally collide: butting up against each other, overlapping, and even altering one another in an improvisatory fashion. Depending on their placement in the gallery as determined by the individual artists, the works could become entirely subsumed in the larger communal cacophony.

  Most often group exhibitions in museums are conceived and organized by a curator, who selects the works of art and decides how they will be displayed in the gallery space. If the exhibition includes living artists, the curator consults with them about requirements for presenting their individual work, but the overall installation is determined by the curator. In the case of Collision, the RISD Museum took a leap of faith, giving up a significant amount of its normal control, as the exhibition became a collaborative effort among Saccoccio, the participating artists, and the RISD Museum’s staff. Several artists added another layer of collaboration by inviting still more artists to assist them in making their works for the show.

  The RISD Museum has a tradition of inviting artists to “guest curate” exhibitions going back to Andy Warhol’s legendary Raid the Icebox I, in which the artist made a wonderfully quirky selection and installation of objects from the Museum’s storage vaults in 1969. More recent examples of artists creating exhibitions here by juxtaposing their own work with objects from storage include Jim lsermann’s Logic Rules (2000), Betty Woodman’sII Giardino depinto (2005), and Carl Ostendarp’s Pulled Up (2009), while projects by David Wayne McGee and Alexis Rockman featured their own paintings placed within the context of the Museum’s permanent collection galleries. Collision, however, represents the first time an artist has invited other artists to participate in creating a group exhibition at the Museum.

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  Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles

  Joanne Dolan Ingersoll and Amy Pickworth, Editor

  Exhibition Notes, Number 28, Spring 2008. Evolution/Revolution brings together the textile work of designers from the U.S., Britain, Europe, South and Central America, and Japan, and draws philosophical parallels between these contemporary artists and those of the Arts and Crafts Movement of 19th-century Britain.The exhibition is organized around the themes of Storytelling, Experimentation and Materials, Collaboration, and Art and Life—key ideas that spring from the Arts and Crafts spirit.

  One of the most widely influential art and design movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Arts and Crafts Movement was an aesthetic and political response to a world stripped of meaning by the Industrial Revolution. It sought to right this wrong by championing beauty and truth in everyday objects, and in the process profoundly changed architecture and the decorative arts. Members of the movement were especially appalled by the inhumane work conditions created by the factory system. By celebrating the honesty and authenticity of hand work and the traditional arts, they sought to reconnect the makers and users of objects through a more holistic approach to work itself. The movement offered a model for reform; work would be more meaningful if factories did not dominate production, and life would be better if cheap machine-made goods were replaced by objects that were carefully designed and crafted. The movement, abhorred badly designed goods but did not necessarily reject technology out of hand. Rather, it sought to use it in ways that facilitated, rather than fragmented, the process of making.

  Arts and Crafts philosophy has continued to influence new generations, as we see in the work of the contemporary artists and designers of Evolution/Revolution. Like their predecessors, these new designers grapple with mass production and consumerism. Using state-of-the-art technology as well as traditional methods, they are redefining what “handmade" means. By developing humane and ingenious solutions to contemporary problems such as sustainability and cultural preservation, they, like the Arts and Crafts artists of the 19th century, are the creators of a new tradition.

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  Designing Traditions: Student Explorations in the Asian Textile Collection

  Kate Irvin, Laurie Anne Brewer, and Anais Missakian

  Exhibition Notes, Number 32,Summer 2008. RISD’s newest generation of textile designers source the RISD Museum’s vast Asian textile collection in this popular collaborative project and biennial exhibition. Traditional craftsmanship sparks contemporary creativity as objects inspire innovative new textiles and garments.

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  From Dürer to Van Gogh: Gifts from Eliza Greene Radeke and Helen Metcalf Danforth

  Emily J. Peters

  Exhibition Notes, Number 30, Summer 2008.The Museum of Art was founded simultaneously with the Rhode Island School of Design in 1877 by a group of women led by Eliza Radeke's mother, Helen Adelia Rowe (Mrs. Jesse) Metcalf. RISD’s stated purpose was to educate artists in drawing, painting, modeling, and design for the benefit of industry and art, and to educate the public so that they could appreciate and support art and design. The creation of a museum collection was inseparable from these objectives. Both Eliza Radeke and Helen Danforth, as heirs to those aspirations, made extraordinary individual gifts to all departments of the Museum, especially to drawings, prints, ancient art, textiles, American furniture and decorative arts, and European and American painting. Drawings and prints were essential components in the overall educational goals they set, as well as being personal passions for both women. Between them, they presented over 1,300 works on paper to the Museum. In concert with the Museum’s directors and curators and with dealers overseas and at home, these women made truly remarkable contributions to the holdings of 19th century French drawings, but the collection is also decidedly rich in Old Master and American drawings.

  Although both women had wide-ranging tastes and purchased exceptional drawings of all types, a few broad generalizations may be made about the kinds they sought and favored. Eliza Radeke was inspired by works on paper as germinations of artistic ideas, seeing in them instructive potential. Sketches, including figure studies, animal studies, landscapes, and portraits, all fit this ideal. She often selected a notable subject or exquisite technical example over a well-known artistic name. Helen Danforth's gifts reflect her interest in acquiring works by the most important artists and thereby increasing the prestige of RISD and its Museum. She enhanced the holdings with many finished presentation drawings by the greatest names in the history of art. Both approaches have enriched the collection in innumerable ways.

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  After You're Gone: An Installation by Beth Lipman

  Judith Tannenbaum and Beth Lipman

  Exhibition Notes, Number 33, Fall 2008. In July 2006, RISD Museum director Hope Alswang and curator Judith Tannenbaum encountered Beth Lipman’s 2o-foot-long glass tableau entitled Bancketje (Banquet), then on exhibit at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. This tour de force, created in 2003 (now in the permanent collection of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.), inspired The RISD Museum to invite the artist to visit its galleries, as well as collections in storage, in order to create an exhibition here. In October 2007, Lipman visited the Museum and was particularly excited by its American period rooms in Pendleton House and the decorative arts collections. She returned in March 2008 to work with students in RISD’s Glass Department. With their assistance in the hot shop, she produced several topiary sculptures and parts of the full-size glass settee featured in this installation, which she decided to entitle After You’re Gone. From her home base in Wisconsin, Lipman created glass “wallpaper” based on an 18th-century French pattern sample in The RISD Museum’s collection, two “ portraits” in glass, 500 snails, and two squirrels. The installation also incorporates Laid Table (Still Life with Metal Pitcher), a large circular sculpture, which she made in September 2007 with this exhibition in mind.