Proposed-Acquisitions-Winter-2020-master-doc_3.25

PROPOSED ACQUISITIONS  Winter 2020    PROPOSED PURCHASES    Shan Goshorn  Eastern Band Cherokee, 1957–2018  Uncovering the Past  2017  Arches watercolor paper, archival inks, acrylic paint, artificial  sinew  10.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 in (26.7 x 14 x 14 cm)    $8,000    Proposed purchase from The William A Oates Jr ’65 Endowed  Fund for the Museum    The subject of a forthcoming retrospective organized by the Gilcrease Museum, Shan Goshorn  was a multimedia artist acclaimed for her conceptual adaptation of traditional weaving  techniques A self-taught weaver, she introduced Cherokee basketmaking into her practice  beginning in 2008, innovating with patterns and materials in order to “present the friction  between state and tribal governments.” Baskets would typically be fashioned from rivercane, but,  instead, she created splints from archival paper printed with historical text and imagery and used  these to construct elaborate single- and double-weave vessels.     Entitled ​Uncovering the Past​, this piece responds to the history of the Brafferton Indian School  established at the College of William and Mary in the early eighteenth century As Goshorn  learned in the course of her research, the school was constructed in 1723 and the Indigenous  pupils enrolled there were groomed to function as translators and intermediaries between their  tribes and settler colonialists To make the basket, Goshorn incorporated fragments from the  royal charter which outlined the original vision for the school and some of its associated financial  documents In the artist’s own words, “To symbolize the parallel experience of uncovering facts  layer by layer, I chose the traditional Cherokee basketry pattern called ‘Arrowhead Point.’ This is  a valuable story that needs to be made available and shared because it is vastly unknown, even  among native people.”     An incredibly powerful object, and one that is particularly apt for an academic museum collection,  Uncovering the Past​ offers a technical and cultural counterpoint to ​Color in Winter​, the recently  acquired basket by Wabanaki artist Jeremy Frey Mining these archival texts for her constituent  materials, Goshorn generated a basket that illuminates one fraught historical institution, but  simultaneously condenses and permits access to centuries of conflict, subjugation, and  sovereignty In light of her tragically premature passing, there is a very limited inventory of  available artwork, and what remains has recently been added to collections such as the National  Museum of the American Indian and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.         Séan Alonzo Harris  American, born 1968  Salix, Annick, and Dore Munezero  2019   Digital archival print   22 x 17 in (55.9 x 43.2 cm)    One of eight proposed acquisitions from the series, “I Am Not a  Stranger” $900 each (total $7,200)    Gift of Marjorie Lunder in honor of her father Peter H Lunder’s 85th  Birthday    This proposed purchase of eight photographs by Séan Alonzo Harris would establish a lasting  record of a major photography commission by the Colby Museum in collaboration with multiple  community partners In 2018, Harris was invited by the Colby Museum and Waterville Creates! to  photograph people who live and work in Waterville within a studio arrangement inspired by the  photographer Irving Penn The title Harris gave to the series, ​I Am Not a Stranger, ​captures his  commitment to documenting the city’s diversity and the contributions of people who are new to  the area as well as those whose ties go back generations While on display in the fall of 2019, a  complete set of the portraits—fifty-seven in all—was shared between the Colby Museum and  Common Street Arts, and additional selections from the series were on view at fourteen local  businesses and institutions throughout the city The portraits proposed for acquisition in honor  of Peter Lunder were chosen in consultation with the artist to ensure that the strongest and  most compelling images would enter the collection The project was an invitation to consider the  lives and the stories that enrich Waterville, including multiple members of the Colby community.  Included in the proposed group are Lihua Lei, 2006 ​Currents ​artist; Board member and artist  Theresa Secord and her son, Caleb Hoffman, a swim coach at Colby; and Colby Dining Services  employee Ralph Merrow with his family Colby students enrolled in Civic Engagement seminars  utilized the exhibition and the accompanying brochure in their coursework and, if this acquisition  is approved, faculty will continue working with the photographs in the future.     Séan Alonzo Harris was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968, and studied photography at  the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University; Accademia di Belle Arti Lorenzo da Viterbo, Italy;  and the Maine Media Workshops He participated in the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial  and a recent project, ​Visual Tensions​, received a Kindling Fund grant from the Warhol  Foundation He is currently an artist in residence at the Indigo Arts Alliance.         Maya Lin  American, born 1959  Interrupted River: Penobscot  2019   Glass marbles, adhesive  288 × 264 × 58 in (731.5 x 670.6 x 147.3 cm)    $95,000    Proposed purchase from Sandy ’78 and Sissy Buck, ​Laura  Keeler Pierce '07 and M Vassar Pierce Jr.​, Seth A Thayer  ’89 and Gregory N Tinder, the Bruce C Drouin ’74 and  Janet L Hansen ’75 Maine Art Endowed Fund, and the  Robert Cross Vergobbi ’51 Museum Acquisition Fund  This site-specific commission was developed for the  Museum’s 2019 exhibition O ​ ccupy Colby: ​Artists Need to  Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to  Destroy​ Curated by Phong Bui, publisher and artistic  director of ​The Brooklyn Rail​, this exhibition focused on  environmental issues, particularly climate change It  galvanized productive dialogues and collaboration among  artists, faculty, students, and citizens at large, culminating  in associated programming and the publication of a special  issue of ​The River Rail​.     Last semester, I​ nterrupted River: Penobscot​ joined three  other Lunder Collection works by Maya Lin on view in the  Museum Unlike these other representations of waterways  (the Kissimmee River; the Arctic Ice Shelf; the Thames), this  dimensional drawing depicts a Maine-based river In the  course of mapping the Penobscot watershed, Lin took note  of the abundance of dams and, for the first time,  represented this infrastructure through breaks in the  marbles Her tactic calls attention to the extraordinarily  wide-reaching ecological, cultural, and economic impacts  that dam construction has had in the region, and is a  particularly timely topic given ongoing river restoration efforts and the recent removal of some of  these structures Here, as is so often the case in her work, Lin reorients viewers by challenging  the localized, fragmented, or transactional relationships we have to bodies of water and instead  presenting the Penobscot to us in its entirety as a living organism.     Museum staff worked closely with the Maya Lin studio on the realization of this ambitious  installation in the Lower Jetté Gallery, where it became a centerpiece of public and curricular  engagement during the run of the exhibition On view at the same time as W ​ íwənikan…the  beauty we carry​, it also resonated with discussions about the Wabanaki homeland which we  hope to continue.      Confirmation of Purchase    Purchased jointly by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with funds from the Film and  Video Committee; and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, with funds from Bernard  and Barbro Osher.    Theaster Gates  American, born 1973  Do you hear me calling? Mama Mamama or What Is  Black Power?  2018  Edition of + 2AP  Two channel video  Duration: 42 minutes 40 seconds    $75,000      Gifts of the Alex Katz Foundation    Bob Thompson  American, 1937–1966  St John and the Island of Patmos  1965  Oil on canvas  18 x 14 in (45.7 x 35.6 cm)                Martha Diamond  American, born 1944  Span  1990  Oil on linen  72 x 48 in (182.9 x 121.9 cm)                    Chantal Joffe  British, born 1969  Fraser in his Arsenal Top  2019  Oil on canvas  24 1/8 x 18 1/8 x 3/4 in (61 x 46 x cm)                  Chantal Joffe  British, born 1969  Moll  2019  Oil on board  14 3/8 x 11 1/8 x 3/4 in (36.5 x 28 x cm)              Nicole Wittenberg  American, born 1979  Savannah Sound 2  2019  Oil on canvas  72 x 96 in (182.9 x 243.8 cm)            Barnett Newman  American, 1905–1970  Untitled Etching #1  1969  Etching and aquatint on J Green paper  Image: 14 7/8 x 23 ¾ in (37.8 x 60.3 cm)  Sheet: 19 x 29 5/8 in (48.3 x 75.3 cm)          PROPOSED GIFTS    From Michael L Gordon ’66    Joaquin Torres-Garcia  Uruguayan, 1874–1949  Pintura Collage  1917  Oil on board  13 3/4 x 18 3/8 in (34.9 x 46.7 cm)        From Paola Borgatta, Mia Borgatta, and Francesca Borgatta    Isabel Case Borgatta  American, 1921–2017  Maya  1991  Red marble  28 x 10 x 10 in (71.1 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm)          From Terry Winters    Terry Winters  American, born 1949  Red Stone  2019  CP (Colby proof)  Lithograph in colors  on Revere Standard White Felt paper  51 5/8 x 39 in (131 x 99 cm)        From Seth A Thayer ’89 and Gregory N Tinder   in honor of Sharon Corwin    Louise Dahl-Wolfe  American, 1895–1989  William Edmondson  1937  Gelatin silver print  Print size: x 10 in (20 x 25 cm)  Image size: 1/4 x 1/4 in (13 x 13 cm)