Skidmore faculty discuss teaching with the Tang
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College opened in October 2000. Designed by architect Antoine Predock, the 39,000-square-foot building is sited dramatically on Skidmore’s scenic campus. The Tang Museum was conceived to:
• Promote active use of the museum by the college community
• Foster dialogue between academic disciplines
• Encourage exchange between the campus and the communities of upstate New York
• Support Skidmore’s unique role in regional and national cultural scenes
Predock’s architectural design for the Tang Museum features spatial intersections, transparency, and flexibility. Its facilities include:
• Two major exhibition galleries
• A 150-person multi-purpose event space
• Two multimedia-equipped classrooms
• Permanent storage for the Tang’s collection
• A rooftop patio for public events
• A spacious, light-filled central atrium for openings and receptions
• A Tang Store with books, design objects, and cultural products
• Prep and workshop space for onsite exhibition design, staging, and construction work
The Tang’s designation as a “teaching museum” signals Skidmore’s intent to make Tang exhibitions and museum use by students and faculty a significant aspect of the interdisciplinary undergraduate liberal arts education it offers. Reflecting this vision, Skidmore faculty have played a central role in creating exhibitions such as A Very Liquid Heaven, co-curated by an astrophysicist and studio artist at Skidmore; The World According to the Newest and Most Exact Observations: Mapping Art and Science, co-curated by a Skidmore anthropologist; and Staging the Indian, co-curated by a member of the College’s Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. The Tang’s mission centrally incorporates a focus on ideas, regular use of museum galleries and collection facilities as teaching spaces, and the principle that artworks can and should be used to help advance knowledge across other disciplines.
The Tang’s programming includes artist dialogues, workshops, and lectures as a direct articulation of Skidmore’s founding vision in which each area of study is connected to a range of other disciplines. Tang exhibitions probe the boundaries of conventional curatorial practice, frequently crossing time-periods and disciplines, and encompassing the display of all types of media and objects to explore intersections between the visual arts, performing arts, natural sciences, and humanities in new ways. Toward this end, in 2004 Skidmore launched a distinctive program bringing MacArthur Fellow and artist Fred Wilson to Skidmore for three spring semesters, working with faculty to use museum exhibitions as a catalyst for curricular innovation. Funded by the Luce Foundation, this initiative is titled “Object, Exhibition and Knowledge” and explores ways in which objects, and their display, can be used centrally in teaching and learning.
As part of its mission, the Tang produces catalogues to interrogate an exhibition’s ideas beyond the gallery, and to provide valuable resources for future study. Catalogues include new writings by professors, scientists, and poets, and interviews with many artists.
The Tang’s website also supports the teaching mission of the museum. It is regularly updated to provide background information on current exhibitions, new programs, and events open to the general public and the Skidmore campus.
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