Grand Opening: On the Edge Exhibition

This weekend marks the grand opening of the exhibition On the Edge: Medieval Margins and the Margins of Academic Life. It will be on display at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery. The grand opening celebration will take place on Monday, May 21st from 5-7pm, with the curator’s introduction to the exhibit at 6pm. Refreshments will be served and the celebration is open to the public.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992) by University of Chicago art history professor Michael Camille (1958-2002), a work that looks at the playful and parodic images in the margins of illuminated manuscripts. Inspired by Camille’s work, the exhibition explores the symmetry between medieval margins and the modern margins of academic life.  Camille studied the uncommon: the strange, remarkable, and extraordinary images at the edges of the medieval world, bringing to light to the confluence of the serious and the playful, the sacred and the profane. The serious and the playful also converge at the University of Chicago, and “On the Edge” features medieval manuscript marginalia paired with student photographs that capture the margins of campus life. The photographs show what happens outside of the classroom at the University, highlighting quintessential traditions such as the Scavenger Hunt.

“On the Edge” invites viewers to contemplate the juxtaposition of manuscripts and photographs of campus life, to compare one margin to another, and to discover how the medieval resonates with the modern.

On the Edge will be on view from May 19 – August 10, 2012.

More information is available here.

Bryn Mawr and Berlin State Museum Collections in ARTstor

Berlin State Museums

  • Greek, Hellenistic and Roman sculptures
    This first release of images from the Berlin State Museums includes 301 images of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman sculptures from the Collection of Classical Antiquities. Read more…

Bryn Mawr College

  • Classical Antiquity Lantern Slides
    The collection includes over 325 images — examples of classical architecture, architectural decoration, and sculpture – digitized from lantern slides held at the Bryn Mawr College Visual Resources Center. Read more…
  • Plans of ancient and medieval buildings and archaeological sites
    Through a partnership with ARTstor, the Visual Resources Center at Bryn Mawr College will be contributing a collection of site plans for key ancient and medieval architectural monuments and archaeological sites. There are approximately 8,000 black-and-white slides depicting archaeological and building site plans, particularly relating to the classical and ancient Near East, as well as medieval Europe. Read more…
  • Archaeological excavations from the Mellink Archive
    Through a partnership with ARTstor, approximately 4,000 images from the Mellink Archive at Bryn Mawr College will be added to the Digital Library. The images will depict archaeological sites in Turkey, including numerous images of sites that Mellink excavated herself. Read more…