When the Anderson Collection at Stanford University opens to the public on Sept. 21, it will be an anniversary of sorts. It was a half century ago almost to the day that a life-changing notion dawned on Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson while they visited the Louvre Museum in Paris for the first time. So utterly captivated were the Atherton couple by the modern works they viewed there–as well as at the nearby Jeu de Paume museum–th…

Stanford University’s riches keep accumulating but, this time around, rather than an announcement of a staggering increase in their endowment or the construction of a sports arena worthy of a prince, they’ve received the core of what many consider one of the finest privately-held collections of 20th-century post-war art. The Anderson family, who live in an affluent neighborhood near the university, has given Stanford 121 primo works…

This past Friday, the Anderson Collection hosted a talk entitled “Animating the Inanimate,” during which artist Basil Twist spoke about his abstract experiments in puppetry and visual arts. Twist is a San Francisco-born, New York-based puppeteer brought in by the Stanford Arts Institute as part of the Mohr Visiting Artist Program. He is acclaimed for performance pieces, including “Symphonie Fantastique” and “The Rite of Spring,” which is a balle…

  Sept. 17: How nice to start at the top of Mt. Tamalpais with Sound Summit, an annual concert sponsored by the Roots & Branches Conservancy for the benefit of fire prevention, water conservation and visitor services on Mt. Tam. The headliners are Wilco, fresh from a stint at the Fillmore, plus Los Lobos, the Stone Foxes, and Bill Frisell doing his album Guitar in the Space Age, which ought to sound very cool in the Mountain Theater aro…

The audience for Nick Cave’s Soundsuits isn’t really the audience. To put it another way, people looking at the artist’s tall, bright, faceless garments from the outside are part of the audience. But another important audience member is the one wearing a Soundsuit: the person inside. Although visitors to the new exhibition can’t try on the suits, seeing them in person is just as good and not quite as tricky. At the two-…

by Mimm Patterson / Palo Alto Weekly >An exhibition of works by Nick Cave at the Anderson Collection features a number of his Soundsuits,full-body-sized sculptures that are sometimes worn as costumes and performed in. They conceal the wearers’ identity to leave no indication of race, gender or age. Photo by James Prinz Photography. The stuff we hold on to, those things we collect — dried flowers from our senior prom, the cassette mi…

Over the past decade, many university leaders and donors have come to the same conclusion: investment in the arts is essential to building a competitive institution in an increasingly global world. This year, around half a dozen new museums and arts centres are opening on campuses across the country, from Columbia University in New York to Rice University in Texas. They come on the heels of recently completed projects at Stanford in California,…

If you’d been dragging your feet on getting to Palo Alto for the Anderson Collection’s Nick Cave exhibition (of Soundsuits, not Bad Seeds fame), now is the time. In addition to person-sized sculptures made for shimmying, the free collection displays Abstraction and the Movies March 1-17 only. Curated by current Stanford undergrad Carlos Valladares, Abstraction and the Movies pairs works from the Anderson Collection with images and posters from f…

Manuel Neri’s Chromatic Chaos Apparent in Manuel Neri’s works with plaster figures is a kind of dualism: they reference classical forms while also radiating contemporary anxiety and subjectivity. John Seed 2 hours ago Manuel Neri, “Joan Brown Seated, (1959) aluminum with Alborada patina; oil-based pigments with yellow glaze, cast 1963, re-patina applied 2016, 30 1⁄4 x 12 1⁄2 x 27 inches; pedestal: 30 x 19 x 27 inches (all photos…

Getting it down on paper A different aspect of the Anderson Collection on view by Sheryl Nonnenberg / Palo Alto Weekly Philip Guston’s untitled ink-on-paper work is featured at Anderson Collection’s latest exhibition. Image courtesy of Anderson Collection. Visitors to the Anderson Collection at Stanford University can experience a wide range of art movements (virtually every major development after 1945) and media. The museum…

Celebrated abstract painter explores the visual possibilities of cross-cultural aesthetics and expression through large-scale geometric works June 18, 2020 STANFORD, CA–In the Stanford tradition of providing a home for art and artists who advance dialogue on contemporary issues, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University will welcome visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron to campus for the 2020-2021 Presidential Residency on the Future of the Arts. “…

Artist Wendy Red Star was usually a sleepy freshman during her 9 a.m. intro to art history class at Montana State University during the early 2000s. But one morning, her professor projected a slide of John Gast’s American Progress (1872) onto the lecture hall’s massive screen. It jolted her awake. The iconic painting is meant to promote the idea of Manifest Destiny, centering on an oversized Lady Columbia who illuminates a path for white settler…

Reviews Stephanie Syjuco: White Balance/Color Cast | Anderson Collection at Stanford University BY Rachel Heise Bolten, January 3, 2023 Stephanie Syjuco’s exhibition White Balance/Color Cast, on view through March 5, manufactures histories, real and counterfeit. Her work includes photographs, though she does not call herself a photographer – she teaches sculpture as an associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Her pictures…

Stepping into the Wisch Family Gallery at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University evokes a polar desert’s quiet and dangerous beauty. Centered amidst  large-scale photographs of a pristine white, icy environment, an otherworldly ultramarine-blue sphere measuring slightly over 3 feet in diameter rests on a bed of what appears to be snow. The sphere, representing Rigil Kentaurus, the third-brightest star in the night sky, is a key element o…

“I am interested in change of scale: how the observer affects the object of observation; space as a void; non-space existing in time. By altering the scale and context of the grid (as a scientific tool of measurement), the grid becomes an artistic tool of perception.” — Lita Albuquerque The most unprecedented, remote and isolated locations were used to host a global project, made an unconventional space for art installations in the t…