Frances Day 2024: A Summer Celebration at the Tang

About this event

The family-friendly event honors the museum’s namesake, Frances Young Tang, Skidmore College Class of ’61, and is the perfect introduction, or re-introduction, to the museum’s stellar program of contemporary art exhibitions and events, with tours, art-making activities, food, music, giveaways and more.

This year’s Frances Day features Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld, a new exhibition that fills the museum’s largest gallery spaces with large-scale painted and sculptural works addressing humankind’s strained relationship with the environment and its vast ecological consequences.

In addition to guided tours of the exhibition, visitors can learn about sustainability, take a tour of the trees on the museum's grounds, and engage in multiple art-making projects inspired by the exhibition, including Recycled Earth form Crayons, Illuminated Landscapes, Bug Boxes, and Recycled Map Flowers.

At 5 pm, acclaimed Capital Region musician and performer Taína Asili and her ensemble take the stage for an energetic concert. Asili last performed at the Tang as part of the 2018 Upbeat on the Roof concert series.

All events are free and open to the public. Plenty of free parking is available in lots adjacent to the Museum. In case of inclement weather, activities will be indoors. For more information, visit http://tang.skidmore.edu or call the Visitors Services Desk at 518-580-8080.

Refreshments will include lemonade, water, and cookies during the day. During the concert, more substantial food will be available; beer and wine will also be available for purchase via Visa or Mastercard.

Drop-in Activities 2 to 5 pm

• Try your hand at art-making activities like making recycled crayons and other crafts inspired by Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld

• Take a polaroid in a photobooth using props based on work on view and in the Tang collection

• Learn from Skidmore’s Office of Sustainability about their campus tree inventory, composting tips, and efforts to reduce the College’s ‘environmental footprint’

• Draw with sidewalk chalk and make bubbles (including a bubble-making machine!) outside the Tang

• View the exhibitions: Yvette Molina: A Promise to the Leaves, Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld, Vorágine: Yente and Cecilia Biagini, Elevator Music 49: John Cage—Water Walk, and Hyde Cabinet #25: Kashi Kari Celebrating Tradition and Craftsmanship from Pakistan

• And more!

Timed Activities, 2:15 to 6:30 pm

• 2:15 pm: Tour of Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld: View the new exhibition with Tang Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator Rachel Seligman

• 3:15 pm: Collections Tour: Get a behind-the-scenes view of some of the more than 17,000 objects that make up the museum’s collection with Dayton Director Ian Berry and Collections Registrar Nora Riccio

• 4 pm: Tour of the Trees of the Tang! Interns in Skidmore’s Office of Sustainability will lead a tour of the trees around the museum, based on their sustainable landscapes efforts and campus tree inventory work

• 4 pm: Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld: View the new exhibition with Tang Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator Rachel Seligman

• 5 pm: Taína Asili in Concert: Enjoy Asili’s energetic fusion traversing salsa, rock, reggaeton, Afrobeat, and other global sounds