Tang Museum Garners Accolades

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery wrapped up its fifth year with recognition from three distinguished sources: the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Association of International Art Critics/USA, and the graphic design magazine Step.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has contributed a $40,000 grant in support of the upcoming exhibition, Joachim Schmid, Photoworks 1982-2007, organized by Tang director John Weber. Opening Feb. 3, 2007, the retrospective will cover 25 years of work by the internationally acclaimed Berlin-based artist, including "found-photography" projects, installations, public art works, and publications, and will be accompanied by a catalogue. The Warhol Foundation, established in 1987 in accordance with Warhol's will, advances contemporary visual arts and related curatorial scholarship with grants to cultural organizations that support artists and their work.

The Association of International Art Critics/USA has nominated the Tang's current "Opener" exhibition, Nina Katchadourian: All Forms of Attraction, for an award in the category of best national monographic exhibition. The awards, given by the United States section of the Paris-based association, will be announced in February. Annually bestowed on museums and galleries for "excellence nationally in the conception and realization of exhibitions," the AICA/USA awards are considered the art-world equivalent to New York Film Critics Circle awards. The Tang's Katchadourian show, organized by the museum's curator, Ian Berry, in collaboration with the artist, will compete for the award with nine other exhibitions, some from such major institutions as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Menil Collection in Houston.

The museum's redesigned web site, designed by the New York City-based design firm Flat, won recognition for innovative online design in the annual Best of Web Design issue (September/October 2006) published by Step, a bimonthly magazine for graphic designers. Other winning web sites ranged from advertising (Nike, Nestea Ice, Bombay Sapphire), to entertainment (Spike TV, USA Network, and The Onion), and information, the category whose two museum winners included the Tang and the Museum of Modern Art (for its site on French artist Odilon Redon.)

"We are delighted and gratified by the national recognition these honors represent," said Tang director Weber. "They not only reflect brilliantly on the Tang and Skidmore College but equally recognize the vision, creativity, and dedication of artists Nina Katchadourian and Joachim Schmid, designers Doug Lloyd and Petter Ringbom of Flat--and all those whose vision, creativity, and dedication have helped make possible everything the Tang has achieved since it opened in 2000."