Electric Paris: Illuminating 19th Century Paris

Artist Discusses Facial Reconstructions for Archeological Remains of Newly Found Hominid

Seniors: Register for Jan 26 Field Trip to Bruce Museum Quilt Exhibit

Museum Lecture: ‘Curating Outside of Outsider Art’

Bruce Museum

By David Gurliacci | July 12, 2016

Bruce Museum

By David Gurliacci | April 9, 2016

Art Exhibits

By David Gurliacci | January 16, 2016

Art Lecture 2015

By David Gurliacci | October 14, 2015

This talk on how artificial lighting influenced how artists saw Paris (from 7 to 8 p.m., Tuesday, July 12 in the Community Room at Darien Library) takes place while the Bruce Museum in Greenwich exhibits “Electric Paris” (through Sept. 4). Here’s the Darien Library announcement:

Paris was already known, metaphorically, as the “City of Light” since the Enlightenment period, but this appellation took on a new and different currency in the second part of the 19th century. The rapid proliferation of artificial lighting illuminated the spectacle of the city’s pleasure-loving nocturnal activities and entertainment spaces. Parisians embraced the blazing illumination as a new metropolitan signature and undeniable proof of their city’s rapturous allure.

John Gurche, paleo-artist, will discuss his facial reconstructions for the new hominid species Homo naledi, recently discovered in South Africa at a lecture Saturday, April 9, at the Bruce Museum. The “Marianne Smith Memorial Lecture” is titled “The Story of Homo naledi: From Fossil to Face”

Reception with light refreshments begins at 6:30 p.m, lecture at 7 p.m.

Free for Bruce Museum members, $15 non-members. Please register on Eventbrite.com. In 2014, National Geographic sent artist and anatomist John Gurche to South Africa to study the newly discovered fossil remains of a previously unknown species of human ancestor. The purpose of the study was to look at bony clues pertaining to what the creature looked like.

Senior Moments, Darien Library’s monthly coffee and conversation program designed specifically for seniors, takes a field trip to The Bruce Museum for a guided tour of their new exhibit, “And Still We Rise: Race, Culture, and Visual Conversations” on Tuesday, Jan. 26 from 2 to 3 p.m.

Using the powerful medium of story quilts, this exhibition narrates nearly four centuries of African American history, from the first slave ships to the first African American president and beyond. Through 40 quilts from artists of the Women of Color Quilters Network, the exhibition reveals the stories of freedom’s heroes, ranging from Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass to the Tuskegee Airmen. Story quilting expands on traditional textile-arts techniques to record, in fabric, events of personal or historical significance. Through the accessibility of their colors, patterns and symbols, the quilts of “And Still We Rise” relate narratives that enable conversations about sensitive topics from our national history, furthering the discussion of racial reconciliation in America.

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Fall 2015 Bob and Pam Goergen Lectures: Topics in Contemporary Sculpture – Judith Scott – Curating Outside of Outsider ArtWednesday, Oct. 14 – 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. (Lecture at 7:30)

Catherine Morris, Sackler Family Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, will address the work of Judith Scott, who for the past two decades has astounded audiences with her sculptures of found objects, fastidiously enveloped in yarn, thread, fabric, and other fibers. Scott began her career in 1987 at the Creative Growth Art Center-a visionary studio art program in Oakland, California, that serves artists with developmental and physical disabilities. Ms. Morris will address the questions Scott’s work raises in curatorial decision-making in relationship to biography, abstraction, and otherness in contemporary sculpture. Lecture begins at 7:30 pm, with open galleries and refreshments from 6:30 p.m.

Members $5, $10 for non-members.