calendario eventi  :: 

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13/1/2011

Three Exhibitions

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha

Vera Mercer: Still Lifes
Gallery 2
curated by Hesse McGraw

VERA MERCER: STILL LIFES is an exhibition of 11 major photographic works by the Omaha-based photographer Vera Mertz Mercer. STILL LIFES is Mercer's first ever solo exhibition in the United States and seeks to establish a critical dialogue in her home surrounding her current work. Mercer's large scale photographs of food — vegetables and animals — are decadent and comical, grotesque and alluring. Although the works connect with the compositions of 17th Century Flemish and Dutch still life painting, their direct use of food as subject and visual strategies are wholly contemporary. The works are unsettlingly rich yet possess a levity and tenderness that open up their rigorous construction.

Mercer's first photographs surrounding food were made in 1960 in the legendary Paris marketplace Les Halles, just prior to its demolition. Those naturalistic and evocative images document the raw materials of the market — monolithic beef sides, blood smeared aprons, a decapitated steer head — and its butchers' culture. The Les Halles images, alongside photographs of Parisian cafes, were installed as large scale murals in the French Cafe, a restaurant opened in Omaha in 1969 by the Mercer family and designed by Cedric Hartman. After producing additional murals for restaurants in Hong Kong and Tokyo, and opening additional restaurants in Omaha, Mercer began to arrange and photograph still lifes in 2004. Working out of her studios in Omaha and Paris, the still lifes are meticulously composed, lit predominantly with candles, and their contents are often taken straight to the kitchen after being photographed. Mercer’s iconography revolves around an omnivore's sense of food, and these deep-hued images careen from a seemingly alert deer's head poised on a platter or a skinned supine rabbit to an elegant, but melancholically reclining red headed woodpecker who shares its plate with perfectly ripe rasberries and a slumping slab of brie. These works' extreme scale, spatial depth, sensuous lighting and adventurous compositions far exceed traditional food photography; they occupy space more closely associated with contemporary painting or performance.

About the artist:
Vera Mercer was born in Berlin in 1936. After initially studying modern dance, Mercer moved to Paris in 1958 with her then husband, artist Daniel Spoerri. Along with Spoerri, she was a member of the avant-garde community now known as the "Nouveaux Réalistes.” Often serving as the photographer for this group, Mercer was first known for her portraits and documentation of Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Eva Aeppli and Spoerri and of artists including Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Mailer and Andy Warhol. After meeting her current husband Mark Mercer in Paris, the two moved to Omaha in 1970 where they began to organically develop the Old Market district. Over the last 40 years the Mercer's have transformed the Old Market neighborhood through an artist's sensibility, achieving a sustainable urban anomaly that is unique in the United States. Now the owners of two restaurants, the Mercers continue to play integral roles in Omaha’s art and food communities. In 2011 her work will be the subject of a major retrospective at the CENTRO DE LA IMAGEN in Mexico City.

VERA MERCER: STILL LIFES is curated by Hesse McGraw, Bemis Center curator.
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication VERA MERCER: PHOTOGRAPHS AND STILL LIFES, edited by Matthias Harder.

Description: Opening Reception | Friday, January 14, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. | FREE
Gallery Talk with Humberto Chavez and the curator | Saturday, January 15, 12:00 noon | FREE
Still Life Dinner with Paul Kulik and Julie Friederich | Date to be announced

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Another Nebraska: Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellows
Gallery 1

Artists:
Jamie Burmeister (Gretna), Mary Day (Omaha), Anthony Hawley (Lincoln), Michael Morgan (Lincoln), Francisco Souto (Lincoln), Therman Statom (Omaha), Peter Walkley (Omaha), Liz Vercruysse (Herman), Mary Zicafoose (Omaha, Bemis AIR 2008)

The Bemis Center is proud to present Another Nebraska, an exhibition of the 2010 Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship awardees. The nine exhibiting artists work across myriad media and contemporary art strategies. Their work spans kinetic sculpture, conceptually driven installation, meditative paintings and drawings, iconoclastic uses of clay and glass and exuberant tapestries woven with technical mastery. Collectively, the works and practices of these nine artists represent the crucial role living artists play in expanding the conventions of our state. Artists bring political nuance, social humor, intellectual rigor, cultural tolerance and a visual pulse to Nebraska. The exhibition highlights the necessity of public support for living artists and recognizes the vitality of contemporary art production in Nebraska.

The Nebraska Arts Council (NAC) awards the Individual Artist Fellowship (IAF) every three years to visual artists living and working in Nebraska in recognition of exceptional work. In 2010, NAC awarded a total of $23,000 to nine artists. For this competitive fellowship, an external jury unfamiliar with the applicant pool awards the artists based on the merit of their submitted work, with respect to their chosen medium. The 2010 jurors were Lynn Basa, public artist/public arts consultant (Chicago, IL); Robert Manchester, senior curator, Yellowstone Art Museum (Billings, MT); and Adam Kleinman, independent curator and writer (New York, NY). In 2004, the Bemis Center began a tradition of further honoring these artists by presenting an exhibition of the awardees. This year marks the third IAF exhibition presented by the Bemis Center and its most ambitious incarnation, with works installed across 5,000 square feet of gallery space, an additional intervention that spans the building and a concurrent exhibition at the Fred Simon Gallery at the Nebraska Arts Council. This exhibition presents new work by the nine artists and has created specific opportunities for individual artists to expand their practice. The exhibition at both venues provides the public with a critical opportunity to recognize the value living artists bring to the public life of our state.

Another Nebraska is organized by Hesse McGraw, Bemis Center curator.

The exhibition program is presented by: Omaha Steaks
Sponsored by: Clark Creative Group, Nebraska Arts Council, Quail Distributing, Sherwin Williams, The Sound Environment, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Upstream Brewing Company and Warren Distribution
Additional support from: Boyd Jones Construction

January 14 - April 9, 2011
Description: Opening Reception | Friday, January 14, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. | FREE
Gallery Tour with the artists and curator | Saturday, January 29, 12:00 noon | FREE

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Kenneth Adkins, Dan Crane + Victoria Hoyt | Underground
The exhibition program is presented by: Omaha Steaks

Kenneth Adkins
Kenneth Adkins New Works on Paper
Sculptor and painter Kenneth Adkins creates images that are haunting, arresting and utterly compelling. Whether through a luminous wedding gown or a foreboding residence, the artist communicates the depth of his emotions by using rich surface textures and layered media applications. Adkins has exhibited widely, and his work is included in private collections as well as in the Joslyn Art Museum’s permanent collection.

Dan Crane
Dan Crane Dadz House
Dan Crane is interested only in stimulating the character of those around him and putting all the pens back in the pen jar. Why do you always forget to put them away? Did you just remember the time that you were embarrassed at the party? Dan Crane doesn’t mind. He likes it real. Are you feeling guilty about the socks you stole form JCPenny’s? Dan Crane won’t tell on you. What are you trying to learn here? You’re probably already intimately familiar with Dan Crane (at least on a subconscious level, admit it). Despite that, you have no idea what he is capable of laying upon you. The wizard, the statistician, the jester; all hats Dan Crane can wear, all he is capable of dismissing as well. Fear is the mind killer. Interpretation is an option. Experimentation, an incentive. There are only so many ways to learn, and this bird don’t fly solo. We’ll see you there.

Victoria Hoyt
Victoria Hoyt The Problems of Getting Together
Victoria Hoyt illustrates the narratives, both true and mythological, that explain the human experience. She delights in pattern, free play, mixed meanings and small humor. An Omaha native, Hoyt received her B.A. from Gustavus Adolphus College and currently is an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

January 14 - February 26, 2011
Gallery Talk: Thursday, February 3, 7:00 p.m.

Image: Vera Mercer Crab #6

Opening Reception Friday, January 14, 6 - 9p.m

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
724 S 12th Street, Omaha, NE 68102
Open Tuesday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

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