Press Release Archive

General information about the Des Moines Art Center
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (August 16, 2006)
Warhol Ball Comes to the Art Center
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (July 2006)                                      
Des Moines Art Center presents the Works of Cecily Brown
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (September 2005)
Des Moines Art Center Brings Latino Community Together for Day of the Dead
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (May 17, 2005)
Des Moines Art Center Receives $1 Million Wallace Foundation Award
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (March 1, 2005)
Des Moines Art Center Director Susan Lubowsky Talbott Resigns To Become Director of Smithsonian Arts Division
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (March 2005)
Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985
On View Now at the Des Moines Art Center
February 24 — May 22
Press Release

Des Moines, Iowa (January 2005)
Art Center’s New Exhibition Brings Fun and Sun to Downtown Des Moines
January 17 — April 22, 2005
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(September 2005)
Des Moines Art Center Brings Latino Community Together for Day of the Dead

Coming together to celebrate death as a part of the cycle of life, a crowd of more than 2,000 is expected at the Des Moines Art Center’s fifth annual Day of the Dead Celebration on Sunday, October 30, 2005. The event will be held from 1 – 4 pm and is free and open to the public.

Historically rich and complex, the Day of the Dead Celebration dates back to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture and is a symbolic time for the living to remember departed relatives and friends with special customs and ceremonies.  In preparation, families traditionally spend time creating altars to honor loved ones, and preparing special food including pan de los muertos, (the traditional bread of the day) that will be available at the celebration.

Festivities will include a band, a Hispanic dance performance, a theatrical tribute, a native blessing, family art workshops, traditional refreshments, a cash bar, and much more. As in the past four years, a deceased local leader of the Latino community will be honored and an elaborate altar dedicated to the deceased leader and the dead will be constructed and on view in the main lobby from October 30 – November 7.

Mariachi Zapata – a six member Mexican folk band from Omaha whose focus is to foster the interest and growth of mariachi music, will provide musical entertainment. The band first performed in 1990 and has since entertained audiences across the Midwest at major community events.

The education halls will be decorated with student artwork inspired by Day of the Dead festivities.  In addition, West Des Moines Community School District students in the elementary and junior high school Spanish programs will be sharing their knowledge of Day of the Dead in Studio 5 of the Art Center from 1 – 3:30pm. Led by Tammy Dann, and other area Spanish instructors, students will read poetry and stories, act out skits, and share their own experiences related to the holiday.  What’s more, family art activity workshops from 1 – 3:30 pm will provide the opportunity for children and adults to make miniature skeletons in a coffin out of air dry clay and to make ‘papel picado’ – creative festive banners out of brightly colored tissue paper used in many Mexican celebrations.

As in years past, the grand altar in the lobby will honor a leader of the Latino community, chosen by a community advisory group. An original play entitled Ladders written by playwright and Day of the Dead artistic director, Lorenzo Sandoval, in collaboration with Kent Newman, Paula Plasencia, and Brad Schabel, will portray the dramatic reflections of the 2005 Day of the Dead honored leader, his life, and milestones he encountered in his faith journey in life. Two performances are scheduled for 2:00pm and 3:00pm in Levitt Auditorium. 

The 2005 Day of the Dead Honorary Leader is
Father Tom Pfeffer (1934 – 2004)
A native of Des Moines, Father Tom Pfeffer, known affectionately by many local Latinos as Padre Tomas, was first and foremost a progressive and visionary Catholic priest. He was also considered by many local Latinos as the Patriarch of Des Moines’ Latino community. One of only a few Spanish speaking priests in Des Moines, Padre Tomas had a strong respect and love for the Latino community. Through his dedicated work at Visitation Catholic Church and Dowling Catholic High School, his tireless promotion of the Holy Family School and its supporting Inner-City Youth Foundation and his efforts in the community at large, he helped make Des Moines a better place to live for everyone – especially Latinos. Padre Tomas, always passionate about life, was a tireless servant for the less fortunate and a strong advocate for immigrant rights. He was truly a nice person and wanted to be remembered that way as he grave is marked by his self written Spanish epitaph: “Que buena gente.”


Celebration Schedule of Events

1pm – 4pm
Music by Mariachi Zapata in the Lobby

1pm – 4pm
Traditional Refreshments in the Restaurant and Cash Bar in the Lobby

1:25pm – 1:45pm
Aztec Dancing by Hispanic Dance Group of Marshalltown in Front Entrance

2pm
First performance of Ladders play in Levitt Auditorium

3pm
Second performance of Ladders play in Levitt Auditorium

1pm – 3:30pm
Studio 1 Papel Picado Family Art Activity

1pm – 3:30pm – Studios 2, 6
Miniature Skeleton in a Coffin Family Art Activity

1pm – 3:30pm – Studio 5
Day of the Dead Inspired Performances and Artwork by West Des Moines School District

The Art Center’s Day of the Dead Celebration is sponsored by Iles Family Funeral Homes and Homesteaders Life Company. 

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Des Moines, Iowa (May 17, 2005)
Des Moines Art Center Receives $1 Million Wallace Foundation Award

Rory MacPherson, senior program officer for The Wallace Foundation of New York, appeared at the Des Moines Art Center today to announce that the Art Center has been selected as one of six arts institutions nationally to receive an Excellence Award in its inaugural year. The Excellence Awards program was created by The Wallace Foundation to recognize organizations that have effectively built participation in the arts with imaginative efforts to broaden, deepen, and/or diversify their audiences.

The Art Center is being honored with a $1 million endowment gift from The Wallace Foundation for establishing audience participation building and enrichment programs in partnership with more than 60 community groups. The grant will be used to expand the Art Center endowment to include a fund that supports continuing participation-building activities, such as the center’s annual “Day of the Dead” celebration which draws in up to 2,000 diverse participants annually, with an emphasis on the Latino community.

“The goal of The Wallace Foundation Excellence Awards is to encourage organizations to sustain and expand the impact of their work with local constituencies and to draw national attention to the importance of participation- building to the health and growth of the arts field,” said Christine DeVita, President of The Wallace Foundation. "The Excellence Awards honor organizations that have made a commitment to engage people more deeply in the arts as part of their organization's DNA. The Awards are an important part of our efforts to develop and share effective ideas and practices for enhancing arts participation and bringing the transformational benefits of the arts to all.”

In 2000, the Art Center received a $1.25 million Wallace Foundation Leadership and Excellence in Arts Participation (LEAP) grant which was spread over a four-year period. As a result of the work that was done with that money, the Art Center was notified by the Wallace Foundation earlier this year that it would be among only six other organizations nationally to receive the Excellence Award.

“We were excited and honored in 2000 to receive the LEAP grant,” said Art Center acting director, Jeff Fleming.  “To follow that up with this $1 million Excellence Award as a result of what we were able to accomplish with the LEAP grant is just an incredible honor for us. We are extremely grateful to The Wallace Foundation for this recognition, and for the opportunity to significantly grow our endowment.”

The Art Center is required to match the grant on at least a one-to-one basis and create permanent endowments or revolving cash reserves that will be committed to continuing participation-building initiatives. 

Gifts of the Muse research findings presented

Following the Excellence Award announcement, local leaders of arts and culture organizations and Iowa community foundations were given the rare opportunity to hear MacPherson present findings from Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts — a research study commissioned by The Wallace Foundation which concludes that giving individuals repeated rewarding experiences with the arts over time is a necessary first step before other, more public benefits of the arts can be realized. These other benefits include exposure to new perspectives, sharpened learning skills among young people, expanded capacity for empathy, and stronger social bonds in communities.

“We believe with the Des Moines Art Center that reaching out to new audiences and inspiring our youngest to ‘fall in love’ with the arts is vital to the health and growth of our society,” said MacPherson.  “We commissioned the Gifts of the Muse study because, after a decade of helping to draw new audiences to the arts and building knowledge about how to do that, we saw a need to better understand Why the arts are so important to individuals and communities.”

The Wallace Foundation

The Wallace Foundation is an independent, national foundation dedicated to supporting and sharing effective ideas and practices that expand learning and enrichment opportunities for all people. Its three current objectives are: strengthening education leadership to improve student achievement; improving out-of-school learning opportunities; and expanding participation in arts and culture. More information and research on these and other related topics can be found at www.wallacefoundation.org or by calling 212.251.9783.

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Susan Lubowsky Talbott, director of the Des Moines Art Center since October 15, 1998, is leaving April 15 to take a newly created position at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Talbott will become director, Smithsonian Arts–programs, policy and planning, effective May 2. The Smithsonian Arts division, led by Ned Rifkin, Under Secretary for Art, includes the Archives of American Art and seven museums; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City; Freer Gallery Gallery of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; National Museum of African Art; National Portrait Gallery; Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Renwick Gallery. Her departure from the Art Center was announced by Dennis Young, president of the museum’s board of trustees.

Young said, "Susan dedicated her talent, time and energy to the success of our world class institution. She distinguished the Art Center on so many fronts in addition to making significant contributions to its artistic and financial success. All the Trustees join me in thanking her for her dedicated and outstanding service during her time here, and we will miss her."

In her more than six years at the Art Center, Talbott has broadened and increased the attendance of the museum, expanded by opening a branch downtown, and enlarged its world class art collections inside and outside the buildings.

Talbott said she looks back fondly at her years in Des Moines that "started with a honeymoon which never ended."

"It has been an honor to serve this remarkable institution and advance the goals of building community support, expanding a renowned art collection, and presenting important historic and contemporary exhibitions," she said.

In her new post, Talbott will be working with the directors of the Smithsonian’s museums and other organizations to enhance their national and global standing with the goal of increasing public awareness of the visual arts. She will report directly to the Under Secretary for Art.

During her tenure at the Art Center, Talbott:

• Dramatically increased museum attendance ;
• Expanded to downtown Des Moines by opening a branch in the new Wells Fargo Financial building;
• Organized three major exhibitions that traveled nationally and internationally and broke Art Center attendance records: Almost Warm & Fuzzy: Childhood & Contemporary Art, My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation, and Andy Goldsworthy: Three Cairns;
• Worked with the board to initiate an endowment campaign that raised $18 million to help guarantee the Art Center’s financial future;
• Established Art Center partnerships with more than 100 community institutions;
• Acquired over 700 new art works for the Art Center’s collections including works by John Currin, Anna Gaskell, Alex Katz, William Kentridge, Robert Motherwell, Martin Puryear, Kiki Smith, Thomas Struth, Bill Viola, and the Louise Noun Collection of Art by Women. One work she commissioned for Des Moines stands out in Talbott’s mind–sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s Three Cairns, located behind the museum in Greenwood Park, with corresponding installations in California and New York. Three Cairns, Talbott says, fulfilled her goal of making the best contemporary art accessible to the entire population of Des Moines.

"I will sincerely miss this community of civic minded and generous people. I was privileged to work with such a supportive Board of Trustees and highly accomplished staff, all of whom I will miss tremendously."

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Des Moines, Iowa (March 2005)
Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985
On View Now at the Des Moines Art Center

The work of critically-acclaimed artist Ana Mendieta (1948—1985) has come full circle with the Des Moines Art Center’s presentation of the most comprehensive survey to date of over 100 works by Mendieta–an American artist born in Cuba whose most formative years were spent studying at the University of Iowa in the 1970s.

Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972 – 1985 organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Smithsonian Institution and curated by Hirshhorn Deputy Director Olga Viso, opened at the Art Center on February 24 and runs through May 22, 2005.

Born in 1948 in Havana, Cuba, Mendieta fled Castro’s revolution as a 12-year-old and came to the United States in 1961 without her parents. Along with her sister, Raquelín, Mendieta was placed in an orphanage in Dubuque and subsequently lived in foster homes. She later attended the University of Iowa (1969—1977) where she participated in an experimental intermedia program that encouraged a cross discipline exchange between the visual and performing arts, as well as literature and the sciences. The artwork she produced in Iowa led to her critical recognition in the 1980s. This work included sculpture, drawings, performance, and film, focusing on the body and/or the body in the natural landscape. At her untimely death in 1985 at the age of 36, Mendieta played a critical yet under-recognized role in the land, body, and feminist art of the 1970s and 80s, which is only now coming into focus. 

This exhibition includes her lesser-known performance-based works of the early 1970s made at the University of Iowa and continues with the better-known "Silueta" series, or actions in the landscape, made in Iowa and Mexico between 1973 and 1980. The show also includes the "Rupestrian" series, landscape interventions made in Cuba in 1981 that are documented in large prints and photographic etchings, as well as documentation of earthworks executed in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Long Island, Cape Cod, and Canada in the early 1980s. In addition, the exhibition includes film, video, and sequenced slide projections that document her early performance works and time-based actions in nature. Two works from the Des Moines Art Center’s Permanent Collections are featured in the exhibition.

Prior to traveling to Des Moines, this exhibition was hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. It will conclude its tour at the Miami Art Museum, October 2, 2005 to January 15, 2006.

The exhibition is made possible by The Henry Luce Foundation, the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation, and The Judith Rothschild Foundation. Initial research was supported by Craig Robins and a Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Getty Grant Program. Additional support for the exhibition catalogue was made possible through the generosity of Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz and Isabel and Ricardo Ernst. The Des Moines Art Center’s presentation of Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972 — 1985 is made possible with support from the Principal Financial Group Foundation, Inc.

RELATED PROGRAMMING
Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985

Gallery Talk
Thursday, March 10 7 pm
Free Admission
Presented by: Jeff Fleming, deputy director/senior curator and Hans Breder, Emeritus F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Art, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa

Hans Breder established the influential Intermedia Program at the University of Iowa, through which Breder developed a professional and personal relationship with Mendieta throughout the 1970s. Breder will add personal insight to Fleming’s curatorial commentary.

Conversations on Art: The Life and Legacy of Ana Mendieta
Sunday, April 10 1 pm
Levitt Auditorium
Intermission with refreshments
Free admission

This important event brings together four people whose lives have been affected by Ana Mendieta on a variety of levels. Each will deliver a 20-minute talk focused on a particular issue related to the artist.

• Olga M. Viso is the deputy director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and curator of Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972 — 1985. Viso also organized and contributed essays to the exhibition catalogue.
• Julia P. Herzberg is a specialist in art of Latin America and independent curator and her 1998 dissertation, "Ana Mendieta: The Iowa Years: A Critical Study, 1969 through 1977," brought to light critical information about Mendieta’s formative influences and the impact of the Intermedia Program at the University of Iowa
• Raquelín Mendieta is the artist’s sister, the administrator of her estate, and an artist. Raquelín accompanied Ana as they moved from Cuba to Iowa in 1961 through Operation Peter Pan.
• Carolee Schneemann is an artist whom Ana Mendieta knew and admired as an early force in the women’s art movement. Schneemann helped to transform the definition of art, especially discourse on the body, sexuality, and gender.

Film: Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra, 1987
February 24 — May 22
Ongoing in the Art Center Resource Area
Nereyda García-Ferraz, director
52 minutes, not-rated

This video is a portrait of the life and work of Ana Mendieta. Interview footage with the artist and her own filmed records of her earthworks and performances are incorporated to render a vivid testament to her energy and extraordinary talent.

Adult Workshop: "In the Spirit of Ana Mendieta"
Sunday, April 3 1 — 3:30 pm
Studio 1
Admission $25 ($20 members)
Material fee $15
Limit 12 students

Ana Mendieta used her own body in much of her artwork. In this workshop, begin with photos of your body using our studio’s Polaroid camera. With the photos as inspiration, create a mixed media work of art incorporating nature and one of Mendieta’s themes of death, longing, and regeneration.

Guided Tours
We are pleased to offer guided tours of Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972 — 1985 and the permanent collections.
Adult group tours: $2 per person
$20 minimum fee
Student tours: free

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Art Center’s New Exhibition Brings Fun and Sun
to Downtown Des Moines
Exhibition Opening Friday January 14, 5 — 7 pm
Cost is $5 (free to members).
Entertainment will be provided by guitarist Sam Miller.

Gallery Talk with Patricia Hickson, curator
Thursday, February 10 at 7 pm
Admission is free

Des Moines Art Center Downtown will help visitors chase away the winter blues with its latest exhibition, California Dreamin’: Some Sun, Some Fun, and a Couple of Puns,view January 17 through April 22. The exhibition explores themes of sunlight and humor from a variety of California-based art movements including L.A. Pop and Funk Art.

California art gained national prominence in the 1960s through several art movements that emerged from and responded to the unique environment of the West Coast state. The fabled sunshine, extensive coastline, laid-back attitude, and humorous outlook that symbolize California also informed and distinguished its art. In works dating from the 1960s through the 1980s, the fourteen artists in the exhibition engage the light-filled and light-hearted themes associated with Bay Area Figuration and Funk art in the northern part of the state, as well as Finish Fetish, Light and Space, and Los Angeles Pop in the south. California Dreamin’ celebrates sun, fun, and puns in the captivating art of the Golden State. It is curated by Patricia Hickson, associate curator and manager of the Des Moines Art Center Downtown.

Support of the exhibition is provided by Wells Fargo Financial.

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