The 51 Museum of Art has received the 2011 “Outstanding Exhibition in a University Museum Award” from the Association of Art Museum Curators, for its year-long three-part exhibition “It Happened at 51: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles 1969-1973.” The award was presented at the national organization’s annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts this week. This marks the first time the 51 Museum of Art has been honored by the AAMC.
The AAMC gives Awards for Excellence in the categories of exhibitions museum catalogues. The four other exhibitions category winners were: Outstanding Monographic or Retrospective Exhibition - “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Outstanding Thematic Exhibition – “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde” at SFMOMA; Outstanding Permanent Collection New Installation (or Re-installation) – “Artist’s Eye, Artist’s Hand: American Indian Art Gallery Reinstallation” at the Denver Art Museum. Awards are determined by the organization’s membership.
"Each year the awards become more and more competitive as the nomination pool grows,” says Sally Block, Executive Director of the Association of Art Museum Curators, "As the only awards where curators honor their fellow curators, we are proud of the substantial achievements of the profession and are especially pleased to honor this year’s winners.”
“It Happened at 51” was part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980, a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California. Together, the exhibitions and events told the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major force in the art world.