Exhibition Organized by UMBC's Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture and Curated by Maurice Berger

Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts Management
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

This release is available as a pdf file.

For All the World to See: Visual Culture on the Struggle for Civil Rights has been selected as the tenth exhibition of the "NEH on the Road" initiative, a new project of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The exhibition was organized by UMBC's Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

NEH on the Road is designed to create wider national access to the ideas, themes, and stories explored in major grant-funded NEH exhibitions. Under the direction of project director Dr. Maurice Berger, research professor and chief curator of the CADVC, the initiative will adapt the exhibition in a smaller, lower security version and travel it to up to thirty-five more venues, mostly smaller and mid-size institutions across the country over a five-year period from 2012 to 2017. Participation in NEH on the Road will greatly broaden the audience for For All the World to See and will widely disseminate its messages about the power of visual culture to change the world.

John Jeffries, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at UMBC, commented, "We congratulate the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture for this extraordinary achievement. For All the World to See, which has already toured to New York, Chicago, and opens this week at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and which has been named the Outstanding Exhibition in a University Art Museum for 2010 by the Association of Art Museum Curators, exemplifies UMBC's commitment to the the arts, to public education and to scholarship. We thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for the opportunity to bring For All the World to See to new audiences throughout the country."

Through a rich juxtaposition of visual images--including photographs, television and film clips, magazines, newspapers, books, pamphlets and posters--For All the World to See is the first comprehensive attempt to demonstrate how visual culture helped to transform prevailing attitudes toward race in America in the period of the modern civil rights movement. The project, which includes an exhibition, companion book, and comprehensive website, demonstrates the extent to which the rise of the modern civil rights movement paralleled the birth of television and the popularity of picture magazines and other forms of visual mass media, and traces the gradual introduction of African American faces into those contexts. It demonstrates that efforts to combat racism and segregation were waged not only with fiery speeches and nonviolent protests but also, significantly, with pictures, forever changing the way political movements fought for visibility and recognition.

About NEH on the Road
NEH on the Road is a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities designed to create wider national access to the ideas, themes, and stories explored in major grant-funded NEH exhibitions. The program is funded by the NEH and run by the Mid-America Arts Alliance, a non-profit regional arts organization located in Kansas City, MO. (M-AAA is also known nationally for its other traveling arts exhibition program, ExhibitsUSA.) NEH on the Road exhibitions are adaptations of larger projects vetted and approved by the NEH. Each exhibition is designed to fit within 2,000 square feet and features approximately forty actual objects as well as panels, banners, and other supporting materials. NEH on the Road is envisioned as an opportunity for community organizations to create new connections to the humanities for their audiences.

About the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture is dedicated to the study of contemporary art and visual culture, critical theory, art and cultural history, and the relationship between society and the arts. The CADVC serves as a forum for students, faculty, and the general public for the discussion of important aesthetic and social issues of the day. Disciplines represented include painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, digital art, video, film, television, design, architecture, advertising, and installation and performance art.

Since 1989, the CADVC has incorporated a number of public programs into its exhibition programming schedule to further impact the communities it serves. Symposia, lecture series, conferences, film series, visiting artist series, and residencies have all been fundamental in an effort to create an ongoing dialogue about contemporary art and culture. The Center has also initiated a number of projects with Baltimore and surrounding schools to integrate the contemporary artist and their concerns into the classroom. These projects take place on-site at both middle schools and high schools and are team taught by the instructors at these schools, professional artists, and students from the CADVC's Internship Program.

The Center produces one to two exhibition catalogues each year. Each document is fully illustrated and contains critical essays on the given subject by a variety of distinguished professionals in the field. Recent publications include Postmodernism: A Virtual Discussion and Paul Rand: Modernist Design. These books and catalogues are published and are distributed internationally through Distributed Art Publishers.

Since 1992, the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture has actively pursued the organization of exhibitions that contain the aesthetic, theoretical, and educational potential to reach both a national and international audience. Over the years, the CADVC has traveled these exhibition projects to a broad spectrum of museums, professional non-profit galleries, and universities national and internationally. Recent traveling exhibitions include:

- For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights (2010)
- White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art (2003)
- Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations (2001)
- Adrian Piper: A Retrospective (1999)
- Bruno Monguzzi: A Designer's Perspective (1998)
- Minimal Politics (1997)
- Kate Millett, Sculpture: The First 38 Years (1997)

Beyond the scope of these traveling exhibitions, the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture also undertakes projects such as the Joseph Beuys Tree Partnership. As part of the educational mission of the CADVC, one graduate thesis exhibition and one undergraduate senior exhibition are presented each year. This multi-faceted focus for presenting exhibitions, projects and scholarly research publications focused on contemporary art and cultural issues positions the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in a unique position within the mid-Atlantic region.

Public Information
For All the World to See online exhibition: http://www.umbc.edu/cadvc/foralltheworld/
NEH on the Road: http://nehontheroad.org/

Images for Media
High resolution digital images are available for media use:
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/hi-res/
Image in this release: Ernest C. Withers, Sanitation Workers Assemble in Front of Clayborn Temple for a Solidarity March, Memphis, TN, March 28, 1968, Gelatin silver print, Image: 8 1⁄2 x 14 3⁄4 in., Paper: 16 x 20 in., Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Museum Purchase, © Ernest C. Withers, Courtesy Panopticon Gallery, Boston MA
Pamphlet, Frank Cieciorka (Artist), All Power To The People: The Story Of The Black Panther Party, 1970,, 10 x 7 7/16 in., Peoples Press, San Francisco, Collection of Civil Rights Archive/CADVC-UMBC, Baltimore, MD