Dear Colleagues,  

As we put the finishing touches on our fall exhibitions, we’re excited to share the many ways that you can incorporate TUAG’s exhibitions and programming into your curriculum! 

On July 28th Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) opens two exhibitions that spotlight the legacy of student-centered artmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts in its 150th year: Arnold Kemp: Not One Thing, a homecoming solo exhibition of one of the school’s most notable graduates, and SMFA at 150: Looking Back, a polyvocal history of a century and half of arts education in Boston, as told by alumni artists and curators. These thought-provoking exhibitions showcase a range of media—from video and sound installations to sculpture and painting—and shed light on the power of the archive and poetry to share histories, craft new narratives, and challenge stereotypes.

Arnold J. Kemp: Not One Thing is the first institutional survey of work by the Chicago-based artist Arnold J. Kemp (b. 1968, Boston). The exhibition focuses on Kemp’s performative and material tendencies of masking, traced through his sculpture, painting, printmaking, photography, and plays from the last decade. Since the late 1990s, Kemp has created art objects that reference dualisms and multiplicities in the psyche, relating often to Blackness and the profound influence of West African aesthetics on modernism. Building upon his use of masks, doppelgängers, and surrogates, the artist makes many Arnold Kemps emerge with equally poignant emphases on beauty, horror, and play. Kemp’s masks are not only about obfuscation.

Not One Thing boldly asserts and simultaneously invites deeper contemplation of such polyvocality in Kemp’s first Boston exhibition since his time as a combined-degree student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University (BA/BFA ’91). The survey includes a new sculptural commission and an evening of experimentally composed performances featuring Kemp’s theatrical works.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (now SMFA at Tufts), Tufts University Art Galleries is thrilled to present a look back at the art school’s history—as told by alumni artists and curators. ​ 

Beginning with its origins in the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1876, the exhibition traces key movements and alumni of the school: from the Boston Expressionist painters to the radical break in curriculum in 1968 to the printshop anti-war poster takeover following the Kent State shooting to the lighter fare of the 1990s-era SMFA Cheerleaders and Kaiju Big Battel that started as live performances in the atrium. 

Collaboratively curated by SMFA alumni, former faculty, and TUAG curators, Looking Back takes an episodic approach to the art school’s past—focusing on rumor and lore as the powerful tools in crafting a community. In doing so, we offer a polyvocal and admittedly incomplete snapshot of a century and a half of artmaking and education in Boston—told through the archives, first-person narratives, and a collage of fragmented memories to create an authentic portrait of a properly messy and wonderfully creative institution. 

Fall Exhibitions & Teaching Resources  

Fall Exhibitions Preview Slides 

Arnold Kemp Press Release 

Arnold Kemp Website 

Article: The Emancipatory Formalism of Arnold J. Kemp (2021) 

SMFA at 150 Press Release 

SMFA at 150 Website 

Arnold Kemp Education Guide  

SMFA at 150 Education Guide  

 General Resources 

Archive of Past Exhibitions’ Education Guides 

Land Acknowledgment Learning Resource 

Language Learning with/in the Galleries 

Search the Permanent Collection Online 

Collection Guide: Adorning the Body 

Collection Guide: Climate Change + the Environment 

Collection Guide: Portraits and Identity 

Collection Guide: Protest Art

GROUP VISIT PROTOCOLS (BY APPOINTMENT  ONLY) 

All Tufts classes or student groups must make an appointment before visiting, so we can be prepared for  your  visit, monitor capacity, and avoid two large groups attempting to visit the galleries at the same time. 

If you would like to schedule a small group or class session in the gallery, please contact me,  elizabeth.canter@tufts.edu, even if you do not wish to co-teach the class with me or receive any gallery-led instruction.    

Additionally, select works from Tufts University Permanent Collection can be shown in Koppelman to small groups.  Please reach out to make arrangements. 

VIRTUAL VISITS  

For larger or online classes, please contact me to discuss your learning objectives. Class content can be curated using permanent collection objects, videos, and still images of current exhibitions, and supplemental readings. I can work one-on-one in collaboration with you to create a live session via Zoom or an asynchronous assignment using Canvas, the TUAG app, and other virtual materials to best serve your curricular needs.