yale university 2

Chloe Oliver 

Professor Nevins 

The Museum Experience

May 9th, 2024

Yale University 2

Because I am an undergrad student I am centering my paper again around Yale University Art Gallery. As I have already written about the overall history and my first impression of the Gallery I will be diving into the Yale University scandal of stolen art. I believe this is important because museums are meant to immortalize history. If they get the story wrong then the whole mission of art and storytelling is ruined. One misrepresentation can soil the museum's goal of celebrating cultures.

On April 4th 2022, over 2 years ago, Yale University, a short walk from Albertus, identified the items that were accused of being stolen. It is said that the university returned the items to the New York District Attorneys office a few days earlier on March 30th. They were reported to be repatriated later this year. This means that the pieces will be returned to their countries of origins. In a parallel timeline there is a new york art dealer being investigated for smuggling thousands of south Asian  artifacts into the country. His name is Subhash Kapoor. 9 of the 13 antiques at yale were connected to the art dealer. 12 are india artifacts and 1 is from Burma. I wondered if I saw any of these pieces at the museum growing up. These artifacts were valued at 1.2 million. The artifacts were mostly sculptures. https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2022-04-04/yale-turns-over-stolen-art-amid-smuggling-investigation

My favorite floors of the museum were the modern art areas. I got the general impression that modern art explored more mediums and expressed it with fresher life. Although exploring the first few floors was fascinating, I was encapsulated by the sculptures made out of different materials and the mixed media that was presented on the higher floors. The next artist that I will be diving into is an artist featured on the top floor. 

This piece I was particularly drawn to. First I will describe my personal reasons as to why I was drawn to it and then I will go into the history of the art. At first I was drawn to the newspaper style, it looked like it was real and not made by the artist but otherwise added on to by the artist. And then, I saw the red lettering. This word can be shocking to some and I wanted to know more about the intention of the artist.From my perspective I thought the artist was taking back the word as it shows women standing together. 

This piece was made by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. She is an American woman born in 1940. I learned the piece is part of a collection called woman house and was made in 1973 when the artist was 33. The blurb tells us that the artist designed this piece for one of the first large feminist art exhibits. The space was to celebrate and educate woman artists. The artists traveled and supported many movements and universities and is a professor of art at Yale. The artist worked mostly in the graphic design department of the womanhouse. She taught her students how to link their own creativity to their innate social responsibility. A theme in her class was to locate public news outlets and bring truth and passion to the ordinary everyday seen things. For example, a student wrote rape on a map of LA where they took place at the time. It these kinds of shocking and thought provoking pieces that make you stop and think. 

After learning about the artist this piece makes me feel a little bit more sad. The cheerleaders are spelling the word cunt, I think it might be to take back the word however, it makes me feel as though this age group is unfit for this word. Overall, I believe it is supposed to be empowering. https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/sheila-levrant-de-bretteville-community-activism-and-design