CU Art Museum News - CU Art Museum January 2021 Newsletter

The CU Art Museum will remain closed to the public while the university continues to monitor the impacts of COVID-19.

We miss you and are committed to bringing the museum into your home by examining artwork in the collection as seen through a variety of personal perspectives. Please check out our virtual Close Looking programs and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

This month Hope Saska, curator of collections and exhibitions, responds to an artwork in our collection.

A lion grips the hind quarters of a bellowing bull and sinks its teeth into the bull’s muscular flesh. The two animals seem to tumble together with the bull’s strong neck wedged between the loin’s forepaw and body, and the bull’s horn dangerously close to the lion’s heart. The coin’s form reinforces a sense of cyclic motion; the animals are locked in battle for eternity, spinning around and around.

This silver coin was minted approximately 2500 years ago. Made in Acanthus (Akanthos), a polis (city) on the first knuckle of the eastern-most Greek peninsula, the imagery on the coin represented the fierceness and power of the ancient civilization. Exchanged for goods or services, coins such as this reminded both giver and receiver that every transaction was made under the ruler’s watch.

When I first selected this coin for my newsletter contribution, the keywords circulation and exchange stood out as apt for linking our present to the coin’s past. Afterall, coins are tokens that move from one hand to the next, agreements that connect us in unpredictable ways. Today’s coin shortage is a result of the pandemic where the hand-to-hand exchange of money feels risky and most of us are shopping online lest the virus be transmitted among those we encounter. In this context I am reminded that this coin, with its nearly perfect surface was preserved because at some point during its lifetime it was removed from circulation, most likely hidden away or buried in response to looming danger. Whoever saved this coin in hope of better days could not imagine that it would find a home at the CU Art Museum where it provides a direct link with the past. Thankfully, John Nebel gifted the museum this coin with exactly that intent in mind.

This coin is accessible as high-resolution images via our public database. While the museum is physically closed, artworks may be accessed through images in learning sessions conducted on Zoom. In fact, this past fall my colleagues and I have served more classes remotely (and potentially more students) than we serve in a typical in-person semester. Our student employees took their love of art to website posts and programs. Instead of lamenting the closure of our galleries and study center–a loss of interaction with students and visitors that my colleagues and I dearly miss–I want to conclude this post with another term associated with exchange. Currency. Sparking associations with flow, immediacy and electricity currency jumps barriers and passes in volts through wires. Friends, the museum remains current.

Image credit: Macedonian, acanthus tetradrachm, c. 470 BCE, silver, 1 inch diameter. Gift of John Nebel, 2019.06.02. Photo by Wes Magyar, © CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder. 

Virtual Activities

During our COVID-19 closure we’ll be sharing artworks from our collection so that you can do some close-looking exercises from wherever you are. Invite a friend and do it together (virtually or physically distanced) to spark conversation or do it by yourself for some relaxation.

Feel Good Fridays goes remote! You are invited to this weekly workshop to learn about a work of art and then participate in a related mindfulness practice. The powerful, guided meditation can undo stress, soothe the nervous system, and help you feel relaxed and revitalized. If practiced regularly, the meditation teaches a method for feeling calm, easeful, and resilient, even when facing life’s challenges. Meditations are open to students, faculty, staff, and the public. All are welcome and there is no need for past experience with meditation. Registration is required.