MacDowell Downtown

August 2009

As part of its MacDowell Downtown series, The MacDowell Colony is hosting a free screening of the film Kiki Smith: Squatting the Palace tomorrow night as a prelude to this weekend’s 50th anniversary celebration of the Edward MacDowell Medal. Released in 2006 with a running time of 45 minutes, the film (which is directed by Vivien Bittencourt and Vincent Katz) profiles the life and work of this year’s MacDowell Medalist, acclaimed visual artist Kiki Smith. Following Smith as she prepares for, and opens, a 2005 show at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia museum in Venice, Italy, Squatting the Palace provides an intimate glimpse into the work process of this highly sophisticated artist as she conceptualizes and creates sculptures, prints, photographs, and furniture for an eight-room installation.

The work of Smith, who will be in Peterborough on Sunday to accept the MacDowell Medal, covers a diverse array of subjects, from the human body and domesticity, to classical mythology and folk tales. Life, death, and resurrection are leitmotifs in much of her work, and she is widely credited for treating the female form with extraordinary honesty and vulnerability. Exhibiting with PaceWildenstein Gallery in New York since 1994, Smith has shown her work in 150 solo exhibitions at such venues as the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2005, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters; most recently, the Rhode Island School of Design honored her for excellence in printmaking.

The 50th Edward MacDowell Medal in the Arts will be presented to Smith in a public ceremony that begins at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday at The MacDowell Colony, which is located at 100 High Street in Peterborough. MacDowell Chairman Robert MacNeil will award the Medal, along with Carter Wiseman, president of the board, and Cheryl Young, executive director. Novelist, critic, and Colony Fellow Lynne Tillman will be the Medal Day speaker. After the ceremony, guests are welcome to enjoy a picnic lunch on Colony grounds (order a $20 picnic basket online at www.macdowellcolony.org or bring your own). From from 2 to 5 p.m., visitors are invited to stop in at any one of the 28 open studios hosted by MacDowell artists-in-residence. (Be sure to bring your walking shoes!)

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Medal Day, MacDowell is also offering a special collaborative program, “Make Art,” from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. MacDowell visual artists John Bisbee and Wade Kavanaugh will unveil the project at 11:30; participants of all ages are then encouraged to roll up their sleeves and add their creative touch to a site-specific sculpture that will evolve throughout the day. The MacDowell Colony is grateful for the support of Lincoln Financial Foundation, our Medal Day corporate partner, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation for its special grant for family programming.

Since the inception of the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1960, the Colony has awarded it among its seven artistic disciplines. Smith — who joins an impressive list of past recipients including Leonard Bernstein, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Updike, and Merce Cunningham, to name a few — is the 14th Medalist in visual art, following such luminaries as Alexander Calder, Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Bourgeois, and Ellsworth Kelly.

The MacDowell Colony welcomes one and all to join in on this special day marking a cultural milestone. All Medal Day events are held rain or shine and are free and open to the public.

MacDowell Downtown will take place on Friday, August 7th, 2009, at 7:30 p.m. at the Peterborough Historical Society in downtown Peterborough. The series, which occurs the first Friday of every month from March to November, is free and open to the public; refreshments are served.