If you survived the stampede of Black Friday, you’re probably looking forward to the holidays and a chance to unwind. Christmas is a time for family – wouldn’t it be great to spend some time together away from the craziness of the city? Somewhere you could really relax and decompress? Maybe a post-Christmas break to recover from all the merriment is just what the doctor ordered! The gift of a resort vacation could also be the perfect way to say “thanks”, or “I love you”.
US Marriott Resorts vacations offer a relaxing time for you and your family, but you needn’t spend the whole holiday sitting by the pool. A resort getaway doesn’t necessarily mean a break from culture, and there are plenty of great things happening in locations across America you’d usually expect to spend your vacations. We’ve chosen a selection of the best exhibitions being held outside of the major cities for you to enjoy over the holiday period.
Dive into our digest of the United States most surprising art happenings, before having the chance to win your very own holiday happening – details at the end of this post…
Tseng Kwong Chi Disneyland, California, 1989
Gelatin silver print (vintage)
Collection of Martin Z. Margulies
American Scene Photography: Martin Z. Margulies Collection
Nova Southeastern University Museum of Modern Art
Southeast
Soak up the Florida sun in Fort Lauderdale, and while you are there take in the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale’s photographic exhibition from the collection of Miami collector Martin Z. Margulies. American Scene Photography contains over 190 images dating from the early 1900s to today, documenting the narrative of American history as told by 74 artists through expansive landscapes, gritty urban scenes and everything in between. The show runs through 22 March.
Erica Mendoza
UNF Student Residency at MOCA Jacksonville
Also in The Sunshine State, Erica Mendoza has taken up the first ever Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville’s student residency. The sculpture student – a senior at University of North Florida – is putting the finishing touches to her graduation portfolio and an accompanying exhibition of her work in her fifth-floor studio space at MOCA Jacksonville. Visitors to the museum can observe talented maker Mendoza completing around 10 pieces in a 13-week period running from 14 December.
Study for ‘Premonition of the Civil War’, 1935
Salvador Dalí
© Salvador Dalí. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, [Artist Rights Society (ARS)], 2014.
Collection of The Dalí Museum, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL, 2014.
This exhibition was organized by The Dalí Museum and the Museu Picasso, Barcelona,
with the collaboration of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí and is supported by an
indemnity from the U.S. Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Put a bit of weird into your vacation with a visit to the brilliant Dali Museum in St Petersburg. This is a great opportunity to catch the landmark exhibition Picasso/Dali, Dali/Picasso before it heads to the Museo Picasso, Barcelona; the show boasts rarely-loaned works from 20 international museums and galleries, and looks at the influence and rivalry between two of the 20th Century’s greatest artistic geniuses. Paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture all feature at the show, which runs until 16 February.
John Divola, Untitled, 1979,
gelatin silver print, 14 3/4 x 18in.
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Museum purchase, 1985.12.7
© John Divola, Photo: Pablo Mason
Fabrications: Landscape Photography from the Collection
West Coast & Southwest
There’s more to the West Coast than LA and San Francisco, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego the constructed landscape, its possibilities, complications and failings are explored in Fabrications: Landscape Photography from the Collection. The antithesis of the sprawling vistas of Ansel Adams, the work featured in this exhibition begins in the 1970s at a time when the landscape genre was undergoing dramatic changes, examining the immediate contemporary environment with critical frankness and, at times, irony. The show runs through 4 January.
Coronado Island Marriott Resort & Spa
With views of San Diego
ROBOLIGHTS
Kenny Irwin
Palm Springs plays host to ROBOLIGHTS, described by artist-creator Kenny Irwin as the largest residential light display in the country, and we are all aboard his crazy sleigh-ride. The event is held on a four-acre house plot; throughout the year it’s home to a brilliant collection of 230 giant robots, but at Christmas it really comes alive with the addition of a gazillion lights that make the DeVito/Broderick shenanigans in Deck the Halls seem tame by comparison. ROBOLIGHTS burns brightly nightly through 6 January.
Jenny Holzer, Ribs, 2010.
Eleven LED signs with blue, red and white diodes,
text: U.S. government documents, 58 1/4 x 5 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches each.
Courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York.
© 2010 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay
Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns
The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art delves into creative output of the post-9/11 world with Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns. As the fog of war begins to lift, this exhibition reveals a generation of artists who have striven to collect and reveal previously unreported information. Using legal procedures, Freedom of Information Act requests, government archive searches and insider connections, the international artists have created 37 artworks from the fascinating, frightening and incredible documentary evidence – works which offer a timely reminder of the need for open government. Closing date is 11 January 2015.
JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa
Hybridity: The New Frontier
21c Cincinnati
Photo, GLINTstudios
Midwest
Hybridity: The New Frontier takes the viewer on a journey to the boundaries of natural science where the organic meets the fabricated, exploring the evolution of species and spaces in contemporary art. Hosted by 21C in Cincinnati, Ohio, the collection of sculpture, still and video imagery presents landscapes, flora and fauna as they are and as they are imagined to be. Influenced by Romanticism and Surrealism, landscapes which were once pastoral are reimagined as both endangered and dangerous anthropocenes – a manufactured nature shaped by global commerce, technology, and the futuristic species who are evolving within them.
Mark Mothersbaugh. 1964
Monument to the conquerors of space, 2012.
Ink jet on paper, 43 x 65 in. Courtesy the artist.
MCA Denver. Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia
When Mark Mothersbaugh isn’t busy with his band DEVO, the polymath can be found working away on his visual art career which began in the 1970s, prior to the group’s founding. His oeuvre includes drawing, sculpture, photography, video, and even rug-making, and the full range of his talents are on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia runs through 12 April 2015.
Pick Your Package Contest
US Marriott Resorts offer fantastic getaway destinations across the United States, with unrivalled facilities including pools and spas, incredible restaurants and bars. Many Marriott sites feature golf courses too, and family fun in the shape of water slides, lazy rivers and drive-in movies. The only tricky part is deciding where to go, and what to do! This season, Marriott Resorts are running a Pick Your Package promotion, which puts you in charge of the holiday experience. There are four specially-selected packages to suit every guest, and they are:
Spa La La: standard room accommodations and two 50-minute spa treatments
Two for Tee: standard room accommodations and two rounds of golf and access to practice greens/facilities
Credit Is King: standard room and $100 nightly resort credit
Something Suite: suite accommodations and $50 kids credit
Once you’ve decided which package suits you best, head to Marriott.com to choose from one of the many fantastic destinations – the US Marriott Resorts group includes 35 JW Marriott, Autograph Collection, Renaissance and Marriott Resorts and Gaylord properties across the country, so you’ll be spoilt for choice!
Win:
We Heart has partnered with Marriott Resorts to bring you a chance to win one of the four Pick Your Package vacations, and entering couldn’t be easier…
How to Enter:
Simply comment on this post, answering the following question:
If you could give the gift of a Marriott U.S. Resort to your friends or family, which resort would you send them to and why?
Four winners will be selected. Please note the competition is only open to US residents aged 18 and over.
* This post is brought to you by Marriott.com. As always, all opinions are firmly those of We Heart.
