Jeffrey Abt


Vitae


 
Current as of September 2009
 
 

EDUCATION

 

        Master of Fine Arts (with honors), 1977, Drake University

 

        1971-72, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, Jerusalem

 

        Bachelor of Fine Arts (with honors), 1971, Drake University


EXPERIENCE

 

       Professional

 

1989 - Present: Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Wayne State University

 

        2007 - 2008: Interim Assistant Dean, College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, Wayne State University

 

        1989 - 1994: Chairman, Department of Art and Art History, Wayne State University

 

        1987 - 1989: Acting Director, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

 

        1986 - 1987: Assistant Director, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

 

        1980 - 1986: Exhibitions Coordinator, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

 

        1978 - 1980: General Manager, Billy Hork Galleries, Ltd., Chicago, Illinois

 

        1977 - 1978: Curator of Collections, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas

 

1973 - 1977: Instructor, Adult and Community Education, Des Moines Public Schools [also completed commissions, see “Artwork” below]

 

        Other

 

        1982 - 1987: Resident Head, The College, University of Chicago

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARIES

 

        Who's Who in America, 1990–present

        Who's Who in American Art, 1992–present

        Who’s Who in the Midwest, 2000–present

        Contemporary Authors Online (Gale), 2003-present

 

 

WORK IN PROGRESS

 

        Series of paintings exploring the poetics of display, transience, and abandonment

 

American Egyptologist: James H. Breasted and His Oriental Institute [book under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press]

 

Abstraction and Assimilation: The Jewish Museum of New York and Its Avant-Garde Exhibitions, 1957-1971 [book project]


 ARTWORK

 

        Works in public and corporate collections

 

        Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa

        Dow Automotive, Auburn Hills, Michigan

        Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (Detroit branch)

        The Kemper Group, Chicago, Illinois

        Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota

        Nelson-Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri

        Polk Technologies, Southfield, Michigan

        Southern Graphics Council Archive, University of Mississippi

        Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania

        Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas

 

Exhibitions (most recent and significant only – complete list available on request)

 

                Solo:     “Jeffrey Abt: New Work,” Wayne State University, November 2004

                                                 Review:        Nick Sousanis, “Jeffrey Abt: Visual Ravel,” thedetroiter.com [website: www.thedetroiter.com, 17 November 2003

 

“Dislocations: Recent Work by Jeffrey Abt,” Worthington Arts Council, Worthington, Ohio, August-September 2000

                                                 Reviews:      Jeanne C. Fryer-Kohles, “Dislocations: Recent Work by Jeffrey Abt,” Dialogue: Voicing the Arts, 23, 6, (November/December 2000): 55-56

Candy Brooks, “‘Dislocations’ art exhibit opens. . . ,” This Week in Worthington, 23 August 2000

 

“Museums of Absence: Jeffrey Abt -- Images and Texts, 1989-1999,” Wayne State University, November 1999

                                                 Reviews:      Keri Guten Cohen, “Exhibit celebrates prolific professor: Abt’s complex pieces reflect probing mind,” Detroit Free Press, 28 November 1999

Audrey Nicole Taylor, “Abt looks back on career and art,” South End [interview, WSU student paper], 1 December 1999

 

                             “Jeffrey Abt: Paintings and Drawings,” Cary Gallery, Rochester, Michigan, 1998

                                                 Reviews:      Frank Provenzano, “Abt depicts an orderly world in need of rearrangement,” Observer & Eccentric, 29 March 1998

Suzanne Chessler, “ABT-solutely Fabulous,” Detroit Jewish News, 6 March 1998

                                                 Citation:      “Best gallery exhibits [of 1998],” Observer & Eccentric, 20 December 1998

 

                                “Jeffrey Abt: Paintings and Drawings,” The Cliff Dwellers, Chicago, 1997

 

                                “Jeffrey Abt,” Dobrick Gallery, Chicago, 1986, 1982

 

 

                Group:  "Home: Origins, Places, Connections," Attleboro Arts Museum, July 2009 (juried [by Nick Capasso], national)

 

“Analogous Spaces,” Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent, Belgium), curated by Guy de Tré, Pieter Uyttenhove, Wouter Van Acker, and Sylvia Van Peteghem, May 2008 (juried, international – in conjunction with Ghent University conference)

 

“Convergence: Ways of Seeing,” Business of Art Center, Manitou Springs, Colorado, November–December 2007 (juried [by Holly Parker], national)

 

“Fourth International,” Shore Institute of Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ, October-November 2007 (juried [by Ben Goldman], national/international)

 

“My Private Utopia,” Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI, September-October 2007 (curated by gallery co-directors, invited, regional)

 

“The Ineffable Object,” Art Gallery, Cleveland State University, September-October 2007 (guest curator Jeanne Grossetti and Robert Thurmer, Director, invited, national)

 

“Banned,” Midlantic Gallery Arts Consortium, Perkasie, PA, September 2007 (juried, national)

 

“Hands Off!,” 621 Gallery (non-profit), Tallahassee, Florida, September 2007 (juried [by Robert Fichter], national)

 

“Ways of Seeing: Work of Jeffrey Abt, Richard Hardin, and Jim Jones,” Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, Southern Utah University, February 2007 (curated by Andrew Marvick, Director, invited, national)

 

“Ragdale Foundation 30th Anniversary Exhibition,” Chicago Cultural Center, November 2006-January 2007 (juried by Margaret Hawkins, ArtNews, national)

 

“Genetic Imprint,” (Southern Graphics Council annual conference), Madison, Wisconsion, April 2006, (invited, national – work exhibited as part of Print Language as Content program sponsored by the University of Iowa printmaking department)

 

“Dark-Light,” University Gallery, Pittsburgh State University (Kansas), February-March 2006 (juried by Joyce Tenneson, national)

 

“New Directions ‘05,” Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie (New York), October-November 2005 (juried by Steven Evans, DIA Beacon, national)

 

“Beyond the Lens: Digital Printmaking,” Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center (Michigan), January 2005 (invited, regional)

 

“Link,” Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit and detroit contemporary, November-December 2002 (invited, regional)

                                                 Review:        Keri Guten Cohen, “Artists’ group returns with eclectic show,” Detroit Free Press (1 December 2002)

 

“actual size -- 8½" x 11",” detroit contemporary, October-November 2001 (invited, regional)

                                                 Review:        Glen Mannisto, “Actual Size”, MetroTimes, 21 November 2001 (painting reproduced)

 

“Art and Technology: The Polk Competition,” Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Birmingham, Michigan, May 2000 (juried, regional), Polk Collection purchase prize

                                                 Review:        Diana Wing, “Art and Technology. . . ,” Mirror Newspapers, 18 May 2001

 

“The Poem on the Page,” Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago, 1999 (invited, national)

 

“Art and Technology: The Polk Competition,” Scarab Club, Detroit, 1997 (juried, regional)

 

        Other

 

Print portfolio: “PLAC II (Print Language as Content),” Department of Printmaking, University of Iowa, 2005.

 

                Artists book:      Water: Sheba's story, Poems by Alice Ryerson Hayes, drawings by Jeffrey Abt (Charlottesville: Bookwrights Press, 1997)

 

               Sculpture commissions:    The Waldinger Foundation, Des Moines, Iowa, 1975

                                                                         Iowa Jewish Guild, Des Moines, Iowa, 1974

 

 

 PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS

 

[Does not include editorial contributions to exhibition catalogues and checklists published under my supervision while directing exhibition projects at the Wichita Art Museum; University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center; Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; or Wayne State University.]

 

        Books

 

A Museum on the Verge: A Socioeconomic History of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1882-2000 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001).

 

                Award:                                  See “Honors and Awards” below

 

                Reviews (scholarly):                Reesa Greenberg, RACAR (Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review), 28 (2001-2003 [published 2004]): 83-85.

Tasslyn Lesley Frame (Case Western Reserve University), Michigan Historical Review, 29, 1 (Spring 2003): 133-34.

 

                Reviews (popular press):       Joy Hakanson Colby, “How the DIA Rode Out Money Woes,” Detroit News, 22 January 2002

Vincent Carducci, “You Paying?: Managerial Skeletons in the DIA’s Closets,” [Detroit] MetroTimes, 3-9 April 2002

Linda Chomin, “Author Takes a Critical Look at DIA,” Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, 6 January 2002

 

                Notices:                                “Books to Read” section, Michigan History vol. 86, no. 2 (March/April 2002)

 

The Book Made Art: A Selection of Contemporary Artists' Books (Chicago: University of Chicago Library, 1986) [exhibition catalogue].

 

The Printer's Craft: An Exhibition Selected from the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Library, 1982) [exhibition catalogue].

 

 

        Articles (most recent and significant only -- complete list available on request)

 

“A Prehistory of the Detroit Institute of Arts Reinstallation,” Curator: A Museum Journal, 52, 1, (January 2009).

 

“Origins of the Public Museum,” Blackwell Companion to Museum Studies, ed. Sharon J. Macdonald (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing), 2006.

 

“Drawing Over Photographs: James H. Breasted and the Scientizing of Egyptian Epigraphy, 1895-1928.” Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation (Fall 1998).

 

“The Breasted-Rockefeller Egyptian Museum Project: Philanthropy, Cultural Imperialism, and National Resistance.” Art History (December 1996).

 

“Toward a Historian’s Laboratory: The Breasted-Rockefeller Museum Projects in Egypt, Palestine, and America.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (1996).

 

        “Museum, History.” The Dictionary of Art (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1996).

 

“James H. Breasted and the Oriental Institute, 1894-1935.” Research Reports from the Rockefeller Archive Center (Spring 1993).

 

“A History of Art Collecting and Museums at the University of Chicago” (co-authored with Richard A. Born). The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Guide to the Collections (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990).

 

        Reviews (most recent and significant only)

 

The Museum Establishment and Contemporary Art: The Politics of Artistic Display in France after 1968 by Rebecca DeRoo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). In Museum and Society 4, 2 (July 2006).

 

Review essay: “Of Unicorn Horns, Museums, and the Search for Knowledge.” On the Pober Publishing 2000 reprint of the 1904 edition of David Murray, Museums: Their History and Their Use. In: Museum News (published by the American Association of Museums), 82, 1 (January/February 2003).

 

Review essay: “Looking, Marking, Thinking, and Thinking About Thinking About Marks and Their Makers.” On Whitney Davis, Replications: Archaeology, Art History, Psychoanalysis (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996) and James Elkins, Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts ([same press], 1997). In: Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation XVI, 1, (2000).

 

 On the Museum's Ruins by Douglas Crimp (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993). In Criticism XXXVI, 3 (1994).

 

       Scholarly Papers and Addresses (most recent or significant only)

 

“Form, Content, and the Absence of Jewish Identity in Modernist Painting,” symposium on “Art, Religion, Identity,” University of Glasgow, Scotland, (September 2008).

 

“In Storage: George Gustav Heye, His Collection, and the National Museum of the American Indian,” College Art Association annual meeting (February 2007).

 

“Museums and the Inconvenience of History: Practice, Criticism, Theory,” keynote address for Museums and Galleries History Group international conference, Newcastle, United Kingdom (September 2006).

 

“Museums and Religion: Modernity, Secularism, and Their Discontents,” University of Leicester, United Kingdom, for conference: “The Museum: A World Forum” (April 2006).

 

“Temples of Art? Museums and Religion” (session chair’s introduction), College Art Association annual meeting (February 2006).

 

“Artists and the Making and Remaking of Museums” (session chair’s introduction), College Art Association annual meeting. February 2003.

 

[Respondent,] “Optics and Seeing: Looking for Lenses,” College Art Association annual meeting. February 2002.

 

        “Museology and the Absence of History,” College Art Association annual meeting. February 2001.

 

“The Group Critique: Authority, Ritual, Hegemony, Performance” (session chair’s introduction), College Art Association annual meeting. February 2000.

 

“The Detroit Institute of Arts Crisis: A Socioeconomic Prehistory, 1885-1995,” American Association of Museums annual meeting. April 1999.

 

“The Sciences Versus the Humanities: A National Academy of Sciences Colloquy, 1914-1922,” Humanities Center symposium, Wayne State University. February 1996.

 

        “Exhibiting Freud's Museum,” College Art Association annual meeting. February 1991.

 

“Collecting, Museums, and the Shaping of Art History” (session chair's introduction). College Art Association annual meeting. February 1990.

 

“Teaching and Theory” (session introduction for symposium: “The Ends of Theory”) Detroit Institute of Arts and Department of English, Wayne State University. February 1990.

 

        Occasional Publications (most recent and significant only)

 

“Reinstalling the DIA — Rethinking the Museum’s Role,” [Detroit] MetroTimes, 21 November 2007, “web feature” with abbreviated version in print edition: http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12043

 

“Disciplining Museum History, Museums and Galleries History Group Newsletter (June 2007).

 

        “Deciphering Artworld Codes,” dcJournal [Detroit]1, 1(Summer 2000).

 

“The Detroit Institute of Arts: A Report on Governance, Economics, and Planning, 1885-1998,” Occasional Papers Series, College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, Wayne State University ( March 1999).

                        Review (popular press): Curt Guyette, “Art of finance,” MetroTimes, 7 July 1999

 

“Forbidden Subjects: How Artists Innocently Run Afoul of the Law,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 March 1997.

 

“The Complex Visual Language of Australia's Aborigines,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 February 1989.

 

       Occasional Papers (more recent or significant only – complete list available on request)

 

        “The DIA and Cultural Philanthropy in Detroit,” Phi Beta Kappa Detroit Chapter, 4 May 2003

 

“The DIA’s Bumpy Road: A Short History of Past Problems and Hoped-For Solutions,” Detroit Institute of Arts, 9 June 2002.

 

 

 HONORS, AWARDS (Awards and purchase prizes related to exhibitions and individual works of art are listed under the appropriate categories above)

Benard L. Maas Prize for Achievement in Jewish Culture and Community, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, 2007

        Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, Wayne State University, 2003

Henry D. Brown Memorial Lecture, Michigan History Conference, 2003 (Title: “Museology and the Lost Lessons of History: The Detroit Institute of Arts”)

Award of Merit (publication category), Historical Society of Michigan, 2002 (for Museum on the Verge, see under “Publications and Papers, Books,” above)

        Honorary Member (lifetime appointment), Board of Directors, Detroit Artists Market, 2002

Convocation Speaker, Southern Utah University, 2001 (Title: “Looking, Marking, Thinking, and Thinking About Marks and Their Makers”)

 

 GRANTS

 

        External

 

        Kaufman Memorial Trust, 2007 (Museum studies project)

 

        Reva and David Logan Foundation, 1998 (Detroit Institute of Arts project)

 

        Kaufman Memorial Trust, 1998 (Detroit Institute of Arts project)

 

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Summer Stipend” program, 1993 (Oriental Institute project)

 

Rockefeller University, Rockefeller Archives Center travel grant, 1992 (Oriental Institute project)

 

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Travel to Collections” program, 1991 (Oriental Institute project)

 

Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1984 (for census of illuminations in Byzantine manuscripts at the University of Chicago)

 

        Fellowship, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, 1971-1972

 

        Internal (Wayne State University)

 

        Humanities Center, Fellowship, 2006

 

Office of Research, Educational Development Grant, 2005 (co-authored with Tamara Bray, Anthropology)

 

        College of Fine Arts, Dean’s Creative/Research Grant, 2005

 

        Office of Research, University Research Grant, 2003 (for Oriental Institute project)

 

Office of Research, Research Stimulation Award, 2002 (for Association for Museum History organizing conference [co-sponsored with New York University])

 

        Humanities Center, Fellowship, 2002

 

College of Fine Arts, matching grant, 2002 (for Association for Museum History organizing conference [co-sponsored with New York University])

 

         Office of Research, Educational Development Grant, 1999

 

        College of Urban, Labor, and Metropolitan Affairs, Fellowship, 1998 (Detroit Institute of Arts project)

 

        Office of Research, Research Assistant fund, 1997 (Detroit Institute of Arts project, archival research)

 

        Office of Research, Research Stimulation Award, 1997 (Oriental Institute project)

 

        Humanities Center, Fellowship, 1995

 

        Office of Research, Educational Development Grant, 1995

 

[Numerous additional grants, received as principal investigator for institutional projects, from government agencies including the Institute for Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Illinois Arts Council; and private philanthropies including the Joyce Foundation, Sara Lee Foundation, and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.]

 

 

 SERVICE

 

       Scholarly

 

        2002-Present, 1996-2001: Editorial Board, Wayne State University Press (Chair, 1996 - 2001)

 

        2006-Present, Editorial Board, Museum History Journal

 

        2008, 2007, 2004: Referee, book proposal, Princeton University Press

 

        2004, 2002: Referee, book proposals, Blackwell Publishers

 

        2004-Present: Great Lakes Series Advisory Board, Wayne State University Press

 

        2002: Referee, professorial promotion application, Portland State University

 

        2001, 2000, 1999: Referee, book proposals, Harcourt Brace Publishers

 

        2002, 2001: Referee, book proposals, University of Missouri Press

 

        1998: professorial promotion application, Drake University

 

1995: Chair, External Review Panel, Department of Art graduate programs, University of Minnesota, Duluth

 

1985 - 1986: Editor, The Book and Paper Group Annual (a journal of the American Institute for Conservation)

 

 

       Public and Professional (national and significant regional only)

 

        2007-Present, member, Program Committee, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

 

2006, 2005, 2004, 1999, 1998, 1995, 1994: Grant Reviewer, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship competition, U. S. Department of Education

 

        2004-2008, Trustee, Reva and David Logan Foundation, Chicago, Illinois

 

2001-Present, Honorary Member, Board of Directors, Detroit Artists Market; 1999-2001, Board Chair; 1996-1999; Board Secretary; 1992-2000, Board member

 

1996 - Present, National Advisory Council, The Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois; Trustee, 1985 - 1996

 

        1998 - Panel member, Museum grants program, Michigan Council for Art and Cultural Affairs

 

1994 - 1997: Panel member, U. S. Customs Facility art commission, U. S. General Services Administration

 

        1990 - 1996: Library Advisory Board, Detroit Institute of Arts

 

         1992 - 1994: Education Advisory Board, Detroit Institute of Arts

 

         1990 - 1992: Intercultural Programs Advisory Committee, Detroit Institute of Arts

 

1988, 1989: Grant Reviewer, General Operating Support Program, Institute of Museum Services, a federal agency

 

[Also served on numerous Wayne State University and University of Chicago committees at university, college, and departmental levels; separate list available on request.]

 

 

       Symposia and Colloquia Organized

 

“World’s Fairs and Expositions,” Association for Museum History in collaboration with the Center for Education and Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution, 2005.

 

“Museums, the University, and the City: Museum Studies Purposes and Opportunities,” Wayne State University, May 2005.

 

Association for Museum History, conferences: October 2005 (Smithsonian Institution); November 2003 (University of Chicago); February 2003 (New York University).

 

“The Visual Arts in a Technological Age: A Centennial Rereading of Walter Benjamin,” Wayne State University, April 1992.

 

“A Nation Without Sovereignty: Nineteenth Century Polish History and Culture,” Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, May 1989 (funded by the NEH).

 

“The First Amendment and Freedom of Artistic Expression,” Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, November 1988.

 

“Tradition and Conflict: Black Chicago's Response to the 1960s,” Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, May 1987 (funded by the NEH).

 

        “Architectural Planning in a Historic Context,” University of Chicago, May 1983.

 

 

 PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

 

        American Association of Museums

                and affiliate: Committee on Museum Professional Training

        Association for Jewish Studies

        Association for Museum History (co-founder)

        Museums and Galleries History Group, United Kingdom

        College Art Association