Harvard Art Museums to Join in Association of Art Museum Directors Celebration of Art Museum Day on May 18, 2012 with Free Admission and Membership Discount
The Harvard Art Museums announced today that it will offer free admission and a 10% discount on all new membership purchases on May 18 as part of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) Art Museum Day, coinciding with International Museum Day on Friday, May 18, 2012. In 2011, the Harvard Art Museums—along with more than 100 other AAMD member museums across North America—participated in International Museum Day.
In recognition of the important role museums play in their communities, the Harvard Art Museums will encourage visitors to share their museum experiences during Art Museum Day on a special printed form available at the museum and via social media with the hashtag #ArtMuseumDay in a collective public response.
On Friday, May 18, visitors to the Harvard Art Museums will receive free admission to the galleries at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum located at 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Exhibitions on display include Re-View, an overview of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper drawn from the collections of the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums. Visitors will also receive free admission to the special exhibition Lyonel Feininger: Photographs, 1928–1939, a rare look at the avant-garde photography of the modernist painter. See exhibition listings for more detail: www.harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions. A 10% discount will also be offered on all new membership purchases. To join, please go to the admission desk in the Sackler Museum lobby or call 617-495-4544. For more information about membership, visit: www.harvardartmuseums.org/give/members.
“Art museums create opportunities for the public to engage directly with works of art in new and meaningful ways—from transformative educational initiatives to innovative public partnerships,” said Chris Anagnos, Executive Director of AAMD. “AAMD believes that art should be accessible and relevant to all, and we are so pleased that the Harvard Art Museums are joining with us and the global community of museums to celebrate the role museums play in their communities and to encourage visitors to share their museum experiences.”
Participation in the international event highlights the value of the visual arts in society, and provides new opportunities for audiences to participate in wide-ranging programs and record their encounters with works of art.
AAMD member museums—located across the United States, Canada, and Mexico—include regional museums as well as large international institutions. International Museum Day is organized annually around the world by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). AAMD’s Art Museum Day is an opportunity to focus attention on the role of art museums in North America, as part of ICOM’s global celebration of museums.
A comprehensive list of participating AAMD member art museums will be available in the newsroom of the AAMD website (www.aamd.org/newsroom). Note that while AAMD’s Art Museum Day and ICOM’s International Museum Day is formally held each year on May 18th, some institutions shift their celebrations to adjacent dates.
About the Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums, among the world’s leading art institutions, comprise three museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler) and four research centers (Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art, the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis). The Harvard Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Integral to Harvard University and the wider community, the art museums and research centers serve as resources for students, scholars, and other visitors. For more than a century they have been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and are renowned for their seminal role in developing the discipline of art history in this country. www.harvardartmuseums.org.
In June 2008 the building at 32 Quincy Street, formerly the home of the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums, closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, the Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway remains open and has been reinstalled with some of the finest works representing the collections of all three museums. When complete, the renovated historic building on Quincy Street will unite the three museums in a single state-of-the-art facility designed by architect Renzo Piano. www.harvardartmuseums.org/renovation.