Living and Arts Briefs

Published on February 15, 2008

Mead hosts free noon gallery talks

The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College is offering a regular respite of art for the overcommitted starting Feb. 15.

A new series of free lunchtime gallery talks called "Ten Minutes With a Masterpiece" invites visitors to a noon to 12:10 immersion in a single work of art most Tuesdays and Fridays during the spring semester. The talks will be presented by students in the museum's volunteer docent program, and will be followed by light refreshments.

The museum holds a collection of more than 16,000 works of art, including American and European old master paintings, ancient Assyrian carvings, African sculpture, Japanese prints and Mexican ceramics. Five galleries display regularly refreshed selections from the permanent collection.

Starting Feb. 28, the museum presents "The Third Space: Cultural Identity Today," a special loan exhibition of contemporary videos, paintings, photographs and mixed-media works that explore cultural identity in a global society. The show will be on view through June 8.

The Mead is free, fully accessible and open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Thursdays until 9 p.m. For more information, call 542-2551, or visit the Web site www.amherst.edu/mead.