How do we insert ASK into this eclectic mix? What would get people’s attention during First Saturdays and compel them to download and use the app? We started by simply trying to raise awareness: we distributed dedicated palm cards about the app to as many people as possible.This helped, but didn’t really net a big jump in numbers. We then tried a few different programming ideas:

• The first idea was pop-up gallery talks (about 10 minutes long) led by ASK team members, who would encourage visitors to continue the conversation via ASK at the end of the talk. Most people were just happy to participate in the talk and then went on their merry way.
• The second test was offering an ASK experience using the model of a First Saturday program, which included a set meet-up time and (free) tickets. This didn’t work at all. We only had a handful of takers.
• The third test built on the more programmatic idea, but went beyond a general invitation to “explore with an expert” and instead offered a more guided experience around a specific theme. This worked a bit better, with a few more participants, who enjoyed the opportunity to explore around a theme.

Former ASK team lead, Monica Marino, leads a pop-up talk during a First Saturday in 2015. While participants enjoyed the talks, this didn’t translate to app usage.

Even after these tests, however, we still hadn’t landed on a formula that worked. At this point, you might be asking yourself why we didn’t just wave the white flag and move on. Simply put, First Saturdays are our busiest times, with anywhere from 5,000‒12,000 visitors (and occasionally more) over the course of the evening. That’s a lot of potential ASK users. We weren’t ready to give up yet!

After some months of testing these approaches, we held an ASK team meeting and batted around ideas for what to do next. One of the team members (shout out to Roko!) half-jokingly suggested offering people a free drink — after all, First Saturday is like a big party. We all chuckled, but also wondered if that could be the answer. After confirming with our legal counsel that we could, indeed, offer such an incentive, we ran a test doing just that: every 25th user would receive a free drink (beer, wine, soda) on us. We included the incentive on all the printed materials (large printed schedule, handouts) for First Saturdays and also printed dedicated palm cards. Did it work? You bet it did.

We rolled out the drink incentive idea for the October 2016 First Saturday with great success. We advertise on the printed handout for the night (center) as well as a dedicated palm card (right front/back). We then hand out physical coupons (left) that the winner takes any of the bars set up around the Museum.

The average use rate and number of chats has tripled with the incentive. That’s a staggering figure. What’s more, our engagement is still pretty good. We measure engagement by the average number of exchanges, which in general over the course of the project has improved from about 13 messages in 2015 to 15 in 2016. For First Saturdays before the incentive, we averaged in that 13-message range. With the incentive it’s a bit less, an average of 10. Since one of our big concerns was that people would download the app simply to ask if they won, that’s not too shabby a result. In fact, only a handful of people have cut right to the “did I win?” question. For most, the incentive seems to provide an ready-made excuse to start a conversation, and they keep using it even if they ask (and find out if) they won.

This phenomenon brings to mind an observation ERm made as part of our recent evaluation: some people feel pressure to ask a question, which is contributing to their “app-rehension” (ha-ha). What other kinds of easy ways in might we provide to ameliorate this pressure? We have kicked around the idea of offering other incentives and even a competition around the questions people ask (a great idea from Bloomberg Philanthropies). For now, we’ll continue to offer the drink incentive on First Saturdays and as long as our engagement stays true to the tenets of ASK. After all, it is a party.

Academic Programs Coordinator Eleanor Whitney and artist Jen DeNike conduct a walkthrough of the Rubin Pavillion and Lobby in preparation for TWIRL.

For months, the city has been eagerly anticipating PERFORMA, the performance art biennial that is literally “happening” all over New York for the month of November. PERFORMA was founded in 2004, with the mission to support the presentation of performance by visual artists and the efficacy of “live art” within the visual arts. The discipline and practice of performance has been important to women artists since the 1960s and 70s, when the art form began to coalesce into a movement in such downtown art pantheons (though then they were just rough spaces and warehouses) as Judson Church, 112 Greene Street and PS1. Performance, like video, is arguably one of the first art forms to be pioneered equally by both men and women artists. Now performance art is generally considered a serious medium, not unlike painting or sculpture, although critics and historians continue to explore ways of defining, codifying and mapping its history and current importance. When PERFORMA organizers approached curators and educators at the Museum last year about hosting events in conjunction with this year’s consortium of arts organizations around the city–and the representation of Brooklyn venues is stronger than ever before –we jumped at the chance to participate!

This Saturday’s program features original performances by Terence Koh, and Brooklyn based artist, Jen DeNike, whose meditative and dreamlike video, Happy Endings, 2006 is currently on view in the Center through January 10th, 2010 in Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video. Jen’s performance on Saturday titled TWIRL, will include an award-winning fifty-piece student marching band from Weehawken, New Jersey, along with baton twirler, Erica Henschel, and a few other surprises. When we met with Jen last spring, all immediately hit it off, and were thrilled at the possibility of hosting her unique spectacle in the beautiful Rubin Pavillion and Lobby. Because Jen’s performance coincides with our monthly blow-out First Saturday, we know that hundreds of people will be milling about the area early Saturday evening. We also hear that local photographers are invited to shoot the bands on Saturday and post photos to the Brooklyn Museum’s flickr group. You can shoot the performances too! Jen is enthusiastic about organizing a critical mass to capture many and varied perspectives, and crowd views of the performance as it unfolds.

Jen DeNike’s performance TWIRL begins at 6PM on Saturday, in and around the Rubin Pavillion and Lobby.

Check out this recent interview with Jen about her art and performance on ArtOnAir.org!

TWIRL artist Jen DeNike visits the Weehawken Marching Band as they prepare for a Halloween parade led by Vice Principal Steven Spinosa.

]]> /2008/08/15/a-public-programs-recap-for-july/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:53:35 +0000 /feministbloggers/2008/08/15/a-public-programs-recap-for-july/ July was a hot month for programming in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art! First off, Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, with the assistance of sign language interpreter Jina Porter, gave a gallery talk on our current exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End as part of the Target First Saturday events.

(Ladan Akbarnia and Jina Porter explaining Ghada Amer’s photo series of her various public works installations for the crowd. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Akbarnia was very insightful in her take on Amer’s work, at one point questioning the attitude of Muslim women towards their veils and other traditional head and body coverings.

(Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere describing her extensive work with circumcised women. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Concurrent with the gallery talk was a screening of the film Moolaadé, directed by Ousmane Sembène, which addresses female circumcision. Afterwards, Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere graciously led a heated discussion of the film and female circumcision in general. Moving from semantics to female circumcision in Brooklyn and the West’s misconceptions of the practice, and emotions understandably ran high as audience members volleyed back and forth on this controversial issue.

On Saturday, July 12th, Curator Maura Reilly gave a public tour of the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, which is on view in the Center’s main galleries through October 19th.

(Maura Reilly presenting her take on Ghada Amer’s work. Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Reilly discussed the artist’s appropriation of the aesthetics of male Abstract Expressionists such as Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock, and also suggested that Amer’s use of stitching – a traditionally-female endeavor – in some of her work is part of a reclamation of female sexuality and artistic autonomy. Like Akbarnia’s talk earlier in the month, Reilly touched on Amer’s investment in portraying both the social and political disenfranchisement and personal empowerment of Muslim women.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Also on July 12th, the Center hosted filmmaker Katrina Browne for a showing of her documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. Presented in partnership with PBS’s P.O.V., a showcase for independent nonfiction film, the documentary chronicles Browne’s discovery that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in American history.

Don’t forget to stop by this Saturday at noon for the reading of excerpts from Live Through This—The Art of Self-Destruction, edited and read by Brooklyn-based feminist performer Sabrina Chapadjiev. Chapadjiev will lead a discussion following the reading with artist Fly and poet Nicole Blackman completing the panel. Thanks to everyone who came last month for your continuous support of the Center’s public programs!!

This month’s Target First Saturday events at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art here at the Brooklyn Museum includes a screening of the film Moolaadé. Directed by Ousmane Sembène, this award winning film tells the tale of six young girls who are about to be circumcised and the subsequent attempts to protect the girls from this trauma. “Moolaadé” is the name for the magical protection one of the village women uses on the girls to prevent their imminent circumcisions.

The showing of the film begins at 6pm and is followed by a discussion with Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, who has worked extensively with, and as an advocate for, circumcised women. If you can’t make it at six for the film, stroll on over to the galleries to see Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, give a talk on Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at 7pm. Free tickets for both of these events are available at the Visitor’s Center at 5pm!

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

The exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, continues to occupy our thoughts here at the Museum. In particular, the “Happily Ever After” section of the exhibition has struck a chord recently with its exploration of fairy tales and their impact on the psyche of young girls. Starting in 1992, Ghada Amer began to use some of the most treasured Disney cartoons and story book characters, like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Tinkerbell, Little Red Riding Hood, and even Barbie in her work. She really began to take an interest in how female stereotypes and roles of submission and passivity are perpetuated in fairy tales, myths, and toys, and how they function in the formation of children’s identities. Amer herself explains, “When we were young girls, fairy tales made us believe that we were all princesses who were going to meet a prince one day and live happily ever after.” If you missed Maura Reilly, Curator of the exhibition and the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s talk with the artist this past March, you’ll have another great opportunity to learn more about this topic, and other artworks in the exhibit Ghada Amer: Love Has No End when the artist speaks this weekend as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturday events.

(Barbie Loves Ken, Ken Loves Barbie, 1995/2002, Embroidery on cotton. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.)

Who Shot Rock will be guest curated by the distinguished photography historian Gail Buckland, who began her career in the early 1970s collaborating on a book with Cecil Beaton (The Magic Image: The Genius of Photography). I will design the exhibition and be the liaison between the Museum and Gail, and report here on the progress we make. As the exhibition is about 18 months away, I thought it would be a good time to give you a brief preview of how far along we are.

Gail has been researching the exhibition since 2006 and has met with over 100 rock and roll photographers to review their work. Often, she has been able to identify vintage prints from their personal archives during these visits. And so this exhibition will provide an opportunity for museum visitors to see these original prints as well as learn the names of the photographers who shot some of the world’s most iconic images. For example, Jimi Hendrix with his burning guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, photographed by Ed Carraeff. There will 175 works in the exhibition and we are just beginning to clear image rights, so you’ll have to wait for a preview of these great works nearer to the end of the Summer.

The exhibition will cover the rock and roll era from the 1950s to the present and will be organized in 6 sections with the following working titles: Behind the Scenes; Live Performances; Crowds and Fans; Portraits; Young Artists; Conceptual Images & Album Covers. Together these will represent the varied approaches to rock and roll photography . . . which is as varied as the artists themselves. Though not a compendium of everyone in the history of rock, the exhibition will include Ike Turner, Little Richard, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Tina Turner, and Amy Winehouse. And of equal note, the photographers William “Popsie” Randolph, Barry Feinstein, Mick Rock, Richard Avedon, David Gahr, Pennie Smith, Jean-Paul Goude, Henry Diltz, and Max Vandukul.

A final checklist is near, and we are about to send out loan forms. Gail will be writing the book through the Summer. Once the loan forms have returned by Summer’s end, the design of the exhibition will begin.

The reeds along the shore around the Mut Temple were cut down late last year as part of a joint USAID/American Research Center in Egypt project to study the sacred lakes in the Amun and Mut Precincts. For the first time in years, we can walk the shoreline around the temple — or we could if the space weren’t still covered in camel thorn as well as a few remaining reeds. Cutting and hauling this prickly growth was made even more difficult by the steep slope on which they were growing.

Amazingly, after only 4 days, our workmen had cleared the vegetation from the slopes around the Mut Temple, and from Temple A and the whole front of the precinct. That’s a lot of camel thorn and grass that had to be hauled away to a spot where the dried weeds won’t present a fire hazard. Loading a truck with camel thorn is almost as much fun as cutting it in the first place. Since it’s almost noon, the man on the truck bed grabs a snack while waiting for the next batch of weeds.

This is view to the southeast of the rear part of Temple A, now clear of vegetation. Despite how it may look in photos, the precinct is not in an isolated spot in the desert. The main road to the airport runs just to our south, and apartment buildings are growing to the east as can be seen in the background here.

Jacobus (Jaap) van Dijk, of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, joined us on the 8th. Now that the vegetation is gone, he and I could spend part of that day examining the outer walls of Temple A looking for ancient graffiti.

We found this double graffito of a standing figure of the goddess Ma’at (the feather on her head identifies her) and a kneeling figure with arms raised in adoration. Such pious graffiti are not unusual on the exterior walls of temples. Some are quite elaborate and include inscriptions praising the god or goddess or recording the name of the person who carved the graffito.

The real work this week took place in Chapel D, the small Ptolemaic chapel just inside the Taharqa Gateway in the west area of the precinct. Restoring what is left of the chapel is one of our main conservation goals this season. The west wall of the middle room is of particular concern, as you’ll see.

While stone masons define the front edge of the middle room’s foundations, two other workers gently brush the loose earth from between the blocks of the west wall.

Before the wall could be taken apart, each piece of stone had to be numbered and the numbers keyed to a photograph. Otherwise reassembling the many pieces and putting them back in their original places would be very difficult. By the way, the numbers are not written directly on the stone but on an applied material that can be removed easily once the work is done.

We all thought the chapel’s west wall was made up either of two rows of stone or of one row of solid bocks that had split vertically. Much to our surprise, we discovered that the wall actually consists of two thin rows of blocks forming the exterior and interior surfaces of the room with a filling of small blocks and rubble between them. In the photo on the left (taken from above), the exterior facing is at the bottom of the photo and the decorated interior facing is at the top. In the photo on the right, the upper course of the decorated wall has been removed and the composition of the wall’s core is more clearly visible.

This shoddy construction method and the thinness of the decorated blocks may explain their poor condition.

As an aside, Chapel D is not the only structure on the site constructed of pieces of this and that. Temple A’s 2nd Pylon, built in the 25th dynasty and shown here, is also a hodgepodge. The south wing (top of picture) is made up almost entirely of re-used blocks, most taken from the site’s temple of Ramesses III that seems to have been out of use by then.

The north wing of the pylon has a mud brick core faced with sandstone blocks. Most are pieces of colossal statues, such as this upside-down torso and head, that have been cut apart and their rear surfaces smoothed to form the pylon face.

Now, back to Chapel D.

On the left, our conservator, Khaled, stabilizes a deteriorated block before it is removed from the wall. On the right, our mason, Mohamed Gharib and his son and assistant, Tarek, work on blocks that have already been removed.

The wildlife in the precinct can be beautiful, such as this flock of egrets taking flight from the shores of the isheru. However, some of it can be dangerous, such as the season’s first scorpion, photographed by Jaap before it was killed.

Starting in January we’ll be posting a weekly dig diary, as we have the past few years. If you want to follow the Brooklyn team’s work, check the website on Fridays starting in January. If you aren’t familiar with the precinct and the Brooklyn Museum’s work there, check out the Mut Expedition part of the museum’s website.

In the meantime, here’s a brief overview of the work we are planning for 2008 – just to whet your appetites.

For the past couple of years we’ve been excavating a group of structures built against the Mut Temple’s first pylon in the Roman Period, when the temple was no longer in use. We’ve almost reached the bottoms of the walls, as you can see in this view to the south. In 2008 we hope to finish removing these late structures and the thick layer of earth on which they sit in order to find out what was in this area when the temple was still functioning.

We’re also going to do a little more work in the courtyard of Temple A northeast of the Mut Temple itself. In 2007 we uncovered the stone north wall of the court and the Precinct’s mud brick enclosure wall behind it, both visible in this photo. We don’t yet know what’s in the space between these two walls.

King Taharqa of the Kushite 25th Dynasty enlarged the Mut Precinct to include Temple A, and built a new gateway and processional way leading to that temple. You are looking at the gate from the southwest; Temple A is in the upper right. This year we plan to complete the gate’s excavation and begin restoring it. This work will take us a few more seasons to complete.

The expedition will also continue restoration of the small Ptolemaic Period chapel just inside the Taharqa Gate. What is left of the chapel’s sandstone walls is badly deteriorated. We did emergency conservation of the west (left) and east (right) walls at the end of the last season. This year we hope to dismantle the walls, build new foundations to isolate the walls from ground water and restore the reliefs as much as is possible.

I am very excited that Patrick Amsellem, curator of photography, is working with us on a web project in conjunction with the Goodbye Coney Island? exhibition he curated in the Luce Visible Storage-Study Center. We have created a Goodbye Coney Island? Flickr group which photographers can join and submit their best photo of Coney Island. From this pool Patrick will select four photos to feature in his posts on our blog throughout the run of the show.

This idea came about because the other day I joined Patrick for a discussion of Goodbye Coney Island? and he spoke about the popularity of Coney Island throughout the years as a subject for both American and International photographers. I am a casual photographer, and his comment reminded me how much I enjoy going to Coney Island to take pictures with my Polaroid, Holga and digital cameras. Every time I am there I see countless other photographers strolling the boardwalk in search of the perfect shot to capture the Coney Island’s essence. What a better way to pay homage to this fabled part of New York, I thought, than to engage some of the photographers in our community in conjunction with this exhibition of more than fifty photographs from the Brooklyn Museum’s holdings that traces its evolution over the past 125 years. We look forward to seeing the photographs everyone will choose to post!

To participate please join the Goodbye Coney Island? group on Flickr:

What is Flickr?

Flickr is a Web site where digital photos can be uploaded for sharing via the Internet. Basic accounts on Flickr are free of charge.

I’ve got a Flickr account. How do I find the Goodbye Coney Island Group?

The Goodbye Coney Island? Group can be found here. Once you join the group (click “Join this Group?” and confirm), you can share your photo by submitting it to the group’s pool.

I’ve joined the group, but how do I add my photo?

Go to your photo’s page, click on “Send to Group,” and then select “Goodbye Coney Island?” from the drop-down list. That’s it! Entries are limited to1 photo per person, so pick your best!