people viewing a contemporary art exhibit in a gallery

Events

We sponsor a handful of events each semester related to our collections and temporary exhibitions.

Museum Closed Friday, August 21

The Museum will be closed to the public all day Friday, August 21 in observance of a College-wide staff holiday. We will resume our regularly scheduled hours on Saturday, August 22 at noon.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

colorful painting depicting several city blocks in Cleveland
Michelangelo Lovelace, Streetology, 1999, acrylic on textured canvas, 53.5 x 70 inches, Collection of the Akron Art Museum. © Michelangelo Lovelace Estate. Courtesy of the estate and Fort Gansevoort, New York.

Opening Reception—Michelangelo Lovelace: Art Saved My Life

Thursday, September 17, 2026 | 5:00–6:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Lower Lobby and Museum

Join us for an evening of celebration as we preview our major fall exhibition focused on the art of Michelangelo Lovelace, and introduce our new Museum Director Deborah Barkun along with Middlebury’s new Associate Dean for the Arts Michole Biancosino.

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a colorized map of housing inventories in philadelphia

Museum Lecture + Lunch Series: Geographies of Race and Urban Space

Friday, October 2, 2026 | 12:00—2:00pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125 and Lower Lobby

Join us for a lecture and lunch with Peter Nelson, Tamar Meyer Professor of Geography, who will explore the ways in which notions of race have shaped material constructions of urban spaces, their lived experiences, and the lasting impacts on populations of color.

This lecture sits at the confluence of constructions of race, space, and place by drawing on both historical and contemporary examples. Nelson will begin with the creation of ‘Chinatowns’ in the late 19th Century and continue through the rise of the Eugenics movement in the early 20th Century, before arriving at more recent racialized practices surrounding policing and mortgage lending. Much of the material is drawn from Urban Geography, a popular elective course in the Geography Department, so attendees will get a unique taste of a Middlebury classroom.

This event is free and open to all, but $5 donations are welcome.

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a bald black man with a goatie sits reading at a table, behind him a window flanked by royal blue curtains; through the window, a view of a city block
Michelangelo Lovelace, Self Portrait, 1996, acrylic on textured canvas, 50.5 x 37.75 in., © Michelangelo Lovelace Estate. Courtesy of the estate and Fort Gansevoort, New York.

Lecture—Brick by Brick: The Life and Career of Michelangelo Lovelace

Thursday, October 8, 2026 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125

Dr. Jeffrey Katzin, Senior Curator of the Akron Art Museum, will discuss Lovelace’s intensively dedicated fusion of art and life, his simplified but powerful style, and his resonant approaches to politics and Black identity.

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film still showing a filmmaker capturing footage of an abandoned farmhouse in a field of tall grass with a freight train passing in the background
(Credit: Jim Westphalen )

Film Screening and Artist Talk—Vanish: Disappearing Icons of a Rural America

** NOTE: UPDATED TIME **
Thursday, October 15, 2026 | 6:15pm (80 minutes)
Dana Auditorium

Vanish is described as a “eulogy for a rural way of life that is disappearing, but it also serves a clarion call for all of us to preserve what’s left and what matters.” The screening will be followed by Q&A and a reception with photographer Jim Westphalen.

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red-figure vase attributed to the Naples Painter; photographic image of Savannah Marquardt

Museum Lecture—Afterlives of South Italian Vase Painting: Restoration and Fabrication of Ancient Art in Eighteenth-Century Naples
Savannah Marquardt, PhD Candidate, History of Art, Yale University

Thursday, October 29 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125

When the magnificent red-figure vases now recognized as “Ancient Greek” first began to be systematically removed from graves in Southern Italy in the eighteenth-century, they captivated antiquarian audiences. Wealthy collectors were struck by the desire to own—and to improve—ancient history. How were these red-figure vases “restored,” and what were the stakes of this restoration? In considering these questions Marquardt reveals that the afterlife of antiquity in the eighteenth century was predicated on remarkably modern concerns about who is considered capable of making great art and the role of “classical civilization” in the production of modern identities.

Cosponsored by the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Classics Department.

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three art objects to be voted on at the 2026 Purchase Party

Members Event—2026 Friends of the Art Museum Purchase Party

Saturday, November 7 | 5:00pm
Kirk Alumni Center
TICKETS AVAILABLE SOON

Join the Friends for art, music, and dinner from the Arab world as we consider our next gift to the Museum’s collection. Sarah Rogers, visiting assistant professor of history of art and architecture, will present three works of art for possible purchase, and the members of the Friends will vote to determine which work gets added to the collection. The evening will also feature a buffet dinner and beer/wine bar (each event ticket will include one free drink).

If you’re not currently a member of the Friends, be sure to activate or renew your membership to guarantee you’ll be able to vote.