The Georgia Museum of Art will participate this summer in Blue Star Museums, a program organized by the National Endowment for the Arts that offers free admission and special discounts to military personnel and their families from Armed Forces Day (May 18) through Labor Day (Sept. 2).
Blue Star Museums is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families, in collaboration with the Department of Defense and participating museums across the United States. The University of Georgia has repeatedly been ranked one of the top military-friendly institutions in the country.
“We are grateful to the Georgia Museum of Art for participating in this summer’s Blue Star Museums program and we hope military families will take this opportunity to create meaningful, lifelong memories,” said Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. “Whether you are traveling this summer, getting to know a new duty location or exploring what your community has to offer, Blue Star Museums is a wonderful opportunity to create connection and find inspiration.”
“Military families love Blue Star Museums, and we couldn’t run this program without the National Endowment for the Arts and the museums across the nation who show they care by participating,” said Blue Star Families CEO Kathy Roth-Douquet. “Access to museums enriches military families, creates wonderful family memories and helps us feel connected to our communities so that we can thrive and do the hard job we have to do for the country. I am delighted for us to launch the 14th year of this very special program.”
John D. Kehoe (American, 1927 – 2016), untitled, ca. 1997. Marble, 17 3/4 × 13 × 11 1/8 inches (with base). Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Charles and Lynne Knapp. GMOA 2022.330.
Although admission to the museum is always free, the Museum Shop is offering a 10% discount for military personnel and their families. The museum’s online exhibition “Recognizing Artist Soldiers in the Permanent Collection” is available on the museum’s website and has been updated with new artists since last summer (including Richard Burnside and Jack Kehoe). The exhibition includes artists who served in conflicts from the Revolutionary War through the Korean War and is organized chronologically.
Each work of art includes details about the artist’s military service, enriching our picture of both military and artistic life. The exhibition also contains a link to a contact form through which visitors can submit ideas for other artists to include. You can find “Recognizing Artist Soldiers” at georgiamuseum.org, under “online exhibitions.”
The exhibition “Kei Ito: Staring at the Face of the Sun,” on view at the museum through July 14, focuses on nuclear war and the possibilities of healing and reconciliation. Ito’s grandfather survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and described the day as if there were “hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.” Ito uses camera-less techniques, exposing light-sensitive material to sunlight for the length of a single breath. In this way, he ties the invisibility of radiation (whether from the sun or nuclear weaponry) to the life-breath of the human body. Ito’s work also connects nuclear war’s impact abroad to the effects of nuclear testing on “down-winders” on the American continent. As a result, he underscores our collective inheritance in the nuclear age, as both the attacker and the attacked suffer at an apocalyptic, global scale.
The Museum Shop discount is available to anyone with a military ID, which includes Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, as well as members of the National Guard and Reserve, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and NOAA Commissioned Corps and their family members.
The nationwide list of participating museums is available at https://www.arts.gov/initiatives/blue-star-museums.