Virtual Yale

at home: In Conversation | Bridget Riley's Drawings: From Studio to Museum
March 2, 2023

Join panelists Cynthia Burlingham, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, Hammer Museum, and Director, UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Los Angeles; Jay A. Clarke, Rothman Family Curator, Prints and Drawings, The Art Institute of Chicago; and Rachel Federman, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, for a discussion about Bridget Riley’s drawing and studio practice. The conversation was moderated by Rachel Stratton, Postdoctoral Research Associate, YCBA.

Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas
March 2, 2023

Upon seeing an adorable Koala sitting on an eucalyptus branch in Australia, few would expect the beloved marsupial to emit a booming bellow to alert potential mates or rivals of its presence. But this powerful roar is just one of koalas’ many surprises, which delight and astonish in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s new book, “Koala: A Life in the Trees.” Clode explores the enigmatic koala’s 24 million years-long saga of evolutionary adaptations, conservation triumphs, and endangerment catastrophes, and the prospects for their future following the 2019 bushfires that devastated Australia’s koala populations.

Listen to this conversation with Clode about the ancient ancestors, ecology, evolving relationship with humans, and uncertain fate of Australia’s bellowing marsupial here.

The Art of Collecting Small: A Collector’s Roundtable
March 2, 2023

In honor of the opening of Thinking Small: Dutch Art to Scale, join three distinguished collectors of 17th-century Dutch art, George Abrams and Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, for a conversation about the uniquely personal experience of collecting and engaging directly with works of art. Selections from the Abrams and the Van Otterloo holdings are featured in Thinking Small, a student-curated exhibition that highlights an intriguing array of objects from the 17th-century Netherlands that were designed to elicit slow, intimate, and contemplative responses on the part of their audiences. Moderated by Marisa Bass, Professor in the History of Art. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.

Enjoy the discussion and exhibit here

The World in Maps, 1400-1600
March 2, 2023

This exhibition presents many of the most historically significant manuscript maps from the late medieval and early modern period from the Beinecke Library’s vast collection of maps. It is focused on portolan charts - large, colorful charts that showed the shoreline of the Mediterranean, and were used by sailors to navigate from port to port. These maps were crucial to the expansion of European trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Yale University Library has one of the most significant map collections of this period and owns some unique items not found in any other collection. When the holdings previously in the Map Room in Sterling Memorial Library were consolidated with Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library collections in 2018, it formed the largest single repository of portolan maps in North America.  

Explore the collection here

Toward Freedom: The Power of Art Inside Prison Walls
March 2, 2023

Grounded in themes of tribulation, redemption, and hope, ISM Fellow and theater professor Dr. Ron Jenkins joins Ariana Hones (M.Div. ‘23) in conversation on the transformational power of Dante’s Divine Comedies inside prisons. In this episode, Dr. Jenkins discusses his course, Gospel, Rap, and Social Justice, and his use of Dante’s poetry to create theater pieces with currently and formerly incarcerated people. He states, “bringing Dante and art into prison is a way of humanizing a dehumanizing situation.” Dante serves as both a mirror reflecting the injustices in our prison systems as well as a catalyst for freedom.

Listen to the podcast episode here