Category: Cool Things

A few weeks ago, we asked for your input about Preview on an online survey. The aim of the survey was to find out how readers like you use Preview. Of course, this survey was from a self-selecting group, so it is in no way scientific, but it does offer some understanding of what a sampling of readers value in this part of the Times Union.

Here are some of the results:

• More than 75 percent of readers say they use Preview throughout the week or longer, which suggests that many people find the information of enough value to have the publication stay around the house.
• Nearly 89 percent of readers turn to movie-related coverage every week or almost every week, making it the most read subject.
• Nearly 88 percent of readers turn to the Coming Attractions section every week or almost every week.
• More than 82 percent of readers turn to the Calendar every week or almost every week,
• Music, theater and exhibits/museums followed, with 69 percent of readers turning to them every week or almost every week.
• On the other end of the spectrum, however, nearly 77 percent of readers say they rarely or never read any content having to do with classical music or dance.

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Lisa Dorin has been appointed the new deputy director for curatorial affairs at The Williams College Museum of Art starting March 4.

An alumna of the Williams graduate art history program and a former assistant curator there, she is currently the associate curator of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dorin graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in art history and studio art and received her master’s degree from Williams in 1998. She has been associated with the Art Institute of Chicago since 2005, where she was initially hired as the assistant curator of contemporary art. Dorin has extensive experience working with new media and living artists. At the AIC, she curates the acclaimed focus exhibition series that presents emerging artists in solo shows. Recent focus projects have featured artists Monica Bonvicini, Richard Hawkins, Sharon Hayes, and William Pope.L.

The Williams College Museum of Art, which houses more than 13,000 works of art, is widely considered one of the finest college art museums in the country.

For more information, go to http://www.williams.edu.

— Azra Haqqie

The Arts Center of the Capital Region announced today that Royah Ansari is the new Director of Arts in the Community.

In her new role she will work to create community programming and administer the regrants and scholarship programs.

An RPI graduate and a fan of Troy, Ansari touted up the city and its arts scene in a 2008 Times Union article about young professionals. In response to the question “Where do you go in the area to see beauty?” She said, “The Troy Night Out After Party. It’s a perfect example of why I love the area. It’s all different types of people, all ages having a great time, socializing, smiling. It’s something beautiful happening organically.”

Here are more details from the Arts Center:

Ansari received her BS in Management and Marketing and her MBA with a concentration in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has most recently worked as a business consultant for a number of local businesses, including Dark Sky Company, the Troy BID, and Agora Games. Ansari was also a Project Manager and Producer at Agora Games in Troy; a Marketing and Sales Director for Groff Networks in Troy; Manager of the electronic arts series “iEAR presents!” at RPI; and the Founder and Co-Owner of the Shake Shake Mamas Café, also in Troy.

Ansari will be an integral part in growing The Arts Center’s community arts programming and expanding the organization’s presence in the region. She will manage all contract service and arts in education programming with community groups and schools. In addition, she will lead the upcoming design and creative thinking programs and oversee the re-grants and scholarship programs.

It’s a small Death Star, after all.

The AP is reporting that George Lucas is calling it quits and cashing in, for more than $4 billion.

The news brings with it some ominous news: Star Wars Episode 7, slated for release in 2015, with plans to follow it with Episodes 8 and 9 and then one new movie every two or three years.

Ian Berry, associate director at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, has been named the museum’s third director.

On Dec. 1, Berry will succeed John Weber, who is leaving after eight years to be the founding director of the Institute of the Arts and Sciences at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Berry joined Skidmore as the Tang’s founding curator in 2000 after serving as assistant curator at the Williams College Museum of Art. He is a 1995 UAlbany graduate in art history; and a 1998 graduate with a master’s in curatorial studies from Bard College.

Berry pioneered the current practice at the Tang of working alongside faculty on large-scale interdisciplinary projects and is a regular speaker on interdisciplinary and inventive curatorial practice and teaching in museums. His curatorial projects in collaboration with faculty and students include large-scale interdisciplinary exhibitions that combine such items as scientific equipment, Hudson River School landscapes, Rube Goldberg cartoons, and Shaker furniture with new art from around the world. He is currently at work on career-spanning survey exhibitions on artists Corita Kent and Nicholas Krushenick.

“I am honored to serve as Dayton Director of the Tang Museum,” Berry said. “It is a pleasure to be part of a great team that lives the museum’s mission in every part of our daily work. The Tang is a model for college and university museums, and I look forward to many great things in our future.”

Berry has chaired the Visual Arts Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts and has served on the artistic advisory committee for the PBS series Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century, among many other advisory groups. He has served as juror, panelist, committee member, and advisor to many regional arts organizations. Berry also served as consulting director of the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College during 2006-12, and was the Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay University in 2009-10. He has held leadership and committee positions in several professional organizations including the College Art Association and Association of Art Museum Curators and has served on several museum director search committees.

The Palace Theatre and the Albany Parking Authority have announced free parking in the Quackenbush Square Garage, one block from the Palace at Broadway and Orange Streets.

The garage opens two hours prior to each event and closes two hours after. Present your Palace ticket for free entry.