Loeb Earns Award for Excellence in Exhibition Design

Vassar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center earned a Museum Association of New York (MANY) Award of Distinction in the Exhibition category, which honors “a physical or digital exhibition produced by a cultural organization that articulates content through engaging design and creates a rewarding and memorable experience.”

The winning design was for the physical exhibition, What Now? (Or Not Yet)/Body Matter, a two-part exhibition created to encourage the campus and community to reflect on how collections change and evolve and how artists help us see or shape the past and future. The first version of the exhibition opened in January 2023 and was curated by John Murphy, the Loeb’s Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Alyx Raz, Curatorial Associate and Digital Marketing Manager. Simultaneously, six Vassar students worked to “re-curate” the same object list, rearranging the exhibition, changing the layout, and highlighting different perspectives through new pairings and interpretive text, wall color, exhibition graphic design, and the title, which became Body Matters.

Museums or individuals are nominated by their peers at museums as well as heritage and cultural organizations across New York State. Awardees were honored at MANY’s 2024 annual conference, “Giving Voice to Value,” in Albany, NY, this April.