Programs | Fall 2024

Spring semester internships at the Palmer Museum of Art are offered with the goal of providing educational and practical experience in a professional museum setting. Internships require a commitment of 8–10 hours per week. Exact work schedules follow the academic calendar and can be flexible to accommodate class needs. Schedules will be set with supervisors at the beginning of each semester. Some evening and weekend shifts may be required for certain assignments.

Positions are available in all museum departments, including curatorial, education, communications and social media, digital projects, visitor services, collections management, and preparation. Internships are eligible for course credit, volunteer hours, or wages (ONLY for grant-funded projects and students who qualify for Community Service Federal Work Study). 

Find complete info here.

Artist-activist Diane Burko has traveled the globe in search of evidence of humankind’s impact on the natural world. In her monumental painting currently on view in MADE IN PA, Burko bears witness to the unprecedented convergence of global crises—the COVID pandemic, climate change, and sociopolitical unrest—since 2020. Burko will share “before and after” insights about her career, her ongoing engagement with climate scientists and environmentalists, and the “unprecedented” moment we find ourselves living in. 

This program is sponsored by Penn State Sustainability as part of its Sustainability Showcase Series. Outside of this lecture, Burko will participate in a variety of campus events as a Showcase Speaker for the program. Visit Penn State Sustainability’s calendar of events to learn more: https://sustainability.psu.edu/events/. 

To request live captioning or sign language interpretation, please contact Brandi Breslin, bgb56@psu.edu. 

Click here to request a remote attendance option.

Take advantage of this opportunity to register to vote at the Palmer Museum before it’s too late to participate in this year’s election. While you’re here, reflect on the power of art to communicate, question, and inspire change with the Art and Conversation Deck developed by the University of Michigan Museum of Art with our B1G art museum peers. Catch a gallery talk (2 p.m.) on democracy in the Politics and Daily Life exhibition, and stroll through the galleries for inspiration before making your own button that combines visual materials with text and calls to action. PSU Votes will be onsite to register students to vote.

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges and The McCourtney Institute for Democracy. 

Upcoming gallery talks:

• Friday, October 4, 2 p.m. | Politics and Daily Life with The McCourtney Institute for Democracy  

• Friday, October 11, 2 p.m. | MADE IN PA: Bloodline with artist Holly Wilson 

• Wednesday, October 23, 1 p.m. | Politics and Daily Life with Alicia Skeath, graduate assistant and Ph.D. candidate in art history 

• Wednesday, October 2 | 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m., and 1:30 p.m. 
• Thursday, October 24 | 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m. 
• Wednesday, November 13 | 12 p.m., 12:30 p.m., and 1 p.m. 

Multimedia artist Holly Wilson is an enrolled member of the Delaware Nation, one of the five federally recognized tribes of the Lenape, whose ancestral lands include the area now known as eastern Pennsylvania. Based in Oklahoma, Wilson considers herself a storyteller who weaves together a rich a tapestry of narratives that are sacred and precious, personal and universal, powerful and at times volatile. Her monumental sculpture titled Bloodline (2015), which is currently on view in MADE IN PA, explores both the long trail of Native American displacement and the rich lineage of family, history, and identity. Her work can be found in museum collections across the country, including the James A. Michener Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gorman Museum of Native American Art, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Red Cloud Heritage Center, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Generous support for this program was provided by Art Bridges with co-sponsorship from the Penn State School of Visual Arts. 

To request live captioning or sign language interpretation, please contact Brandi Breslin, bgb56@psu.edu. 

Click here to request a remote attendance option.

Join artist Holly Wilson and museum educators to explore the special exhibition MADE IN PA. Discover museum resources for K–12 educators, enjoy independent viewing and discussions in the galleries, and practice suggested lessons in the studio classroom.   

Generous support for this program provided by Art Bridges. 

Upcoming tours:

• Saturday, October 12, 2 p.m. | Roots & Renewal 

• Thursday, October 17, 6 p.m. | Art & Community 

• Sunday, October 20, 1 p.m. | WE ARE: Penn State Connections 

• Sunday, October 20, 2 p.m. | WE ARE: Penn State Connections 

• Thursday, October 31, 6 p.m. | Zombie Adventure Tour 

• Thursday, November 7, 6 p.m. | Seeing Ourselves, Seeing Each Other 

• Sunday, November 17, 2 p.m. | Pop & Politics 

• Thursday, December 5, 6 p.m. | Art & Object 

• Sunday, December 8, 2 p.m. | Art & Community 

As part of Penn State’s Family Weekend, the Palmer Museum of Art offers a full day of drop-in programs to introduce the museum’s brand new, state-of-the-ART building, world-class collections, special exhibitions, and academic resources. A variety of activities will inspire reflection about how art connects us, including tours, in-gallery experiences, and creative art activities related to MADE IN PA and other special exhibitions on view. Meet museum staff, graduate assistants, interns, and volunteers as we share all there is to love about the Palmer. 

Enjoy this advance screening prior to the televised premiere in November. Set against the rich and dynamic backdrop of Renaissance Italy, at a time of skepticism and freethinking, regional war and religious upheaval, LEONARDO da VINCI brings the artist’s towering achievements to life through his prolific personal notebooks, primary and secondary accounts of his life, and on-camera interviews with modern scholars, artists, engineers, inventors, and admirers. The film weaves together an international group of experts, as well as others influenced by Leonardo who continue to find a connection between his artistic and scientific explorations and life today. As the filmmaker and Leonardo admirer Guillermo del Toro says at the beginning of the film, “the modernity of Leonardo is that he understands that knowledge and imagination are intimately related.” 

Following the program, take part in an interactive gallery experience, viewing work by Lawrence and sharing ideas and personal reflections related to migration stories.

A pre-event reception hosted by the CPA’s Student Advisory Council and the Palmer’s Student Ambassadors will begin at 5:30 p.m.

As a Peruvian artist based in Argentina, Bedoya interrogates the global consumption of Andean culture via witty drawings, paintings, and sculptures using found objects. For his series Cultura Trepa-Nación, Bedoya purchases and “trepans” replicas of pre-Columbian ceramics made for tourists by Peruvian craftsmen, amputating the iconic stirrup handles that marked them as ritual objects and covering the resulting holes with Coca-Cola bottle caps—the “American” soft drink originally made from the leaves of the sacred Andean coca plant. His work asks challenging questions of the viewer: does our consumption of these works as “Andean art” insult the original intentions of the earlier Peruvian makers and replicators? Do “authentic,” “replica,” and “fake” matter when it comes to Andean aesthetics?

We’ve got you! Printed, self-guided tours and ARTify (art-music) playlists are available at the Visitor Services desk. Drop in, pick one up, and enjoy a personal art experience.