A Message from the Director

Fall 2008

This fall the Hofstra University Museum’s schedule of exhibitions, programs and initiatives consider the very significant political process, issues of diversity and global community, as well as cultural transformations that our country reflects upon during this presidential election season.

The Presidents: 1933 – 2001: A History of Presidential Conferences at Hofstra University will be exhibited in the Museum’s David Filderman Gallery and the Rochelle and Irwin A. Lowenfeld Conference and Exhibition Hall located in the Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library.  Opening September 8, The Presidents is a component of the University’s Educate ’08 programs related to the third presidential debate on October 15, which takes place at Hofstra. The Presidents exhibition highlights the importance of the presidential conference series that the Hofstra Cultural Center began in 1982 with Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The Man, The Myth, The Era – 1882-1945 and which has included the subsequent presidencies of the 20th century.  The exhibit features work from the collection of the Hofstra University Museum focused on artistic responses to the historical, societal, and global issues of each decade including artists such as Leonard Baskin, Barton Benes, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Patrick Nagatani, and Isaac Soyer.  On view are also archival photographs of world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who attended the conferences, along with other objects that exemplify key aspects of each presidential focus.

On September 11th, the University will host a reception to inaugurate the Museum’s Cultural Diversity Awareness initiative, featuring stunning poster reproductions of art and artifacts from the Museum’s collection that introduce Hofstra students and the public to geographical and cultural information about six regions of the world through objects that date from the ancient to the modern.  This Educate ’08 project, located in seven academic and public buildings on campus, was generously funded by the Hofstra University Office of the President, Hofstra University Office of the Provost, Roslyn Savings Foundation, Pradeep Singh, and Chandra S. Sunkara. 

The Hofstra University Museum highly anticipates the opening of the original exhibition The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali, curated by Hava Gurevich of art2art Circulating Exhibitions on September 23 in the Emily Lowe Gallery.  This power packed biographical photographic essay features works by Annie Liebowitz, Gordon Parks, Art Shay and other major photographers who have captured this iconic figure from his childhood to the present. The exhibition is offered in conjunction with the Hofstra Cultural Center conference The Greatest: From Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, November 13-15, 2008.

As we study and respond to our changing world, the exhibit Sacred to the Memory: Photographs by Robert Reinhardt opening on November 7, in the Rochelle and Irwin A. Lowenfeld Conference and Exhibition Hall, provides a sensitive and photographically poetic look at the iconography of “sacred grounds” in the cemeteries of Scotland, notably the area in and around Edinburgh. 

To engage our audiences with strong connective links to the concepts and themes of our exhibitions numerous public programs and family activities are planned throughout the fall.  Please check the museum’s website or call (516) 463-5672 for additional information.