Current Exhibitons | Future Exhibitons Past Exhibitions

Haitian Art from the Hughes Collection
July 7 – September 16, 2007
North Balcony

While in Haiti working for the United States International Communications Agency between 1972 and 1976, Mary Lou and Harry Hughes developed a deep admiration for the arts and artists of Haiti, building a collection of well over 90 works. Prior to their assignment in Haiti, the Hughes were assigned to Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin), where Mary Lou acquired a knowledge of and sensitivity to the African aesthetic that permeates Haitian art.

Organized by Amanda Martin-Hamon, the Spencer’s Public Outreach and Special Events Coordinator and Sean Barker, Education Intern, Haitian Art from the Hughes Collection covers the range of Haiti’s leading painters and sculptors, including Rigaud Benoît, Murat Brierre, Célestin Faustin, Jasmin Joseph, Philomé Obin, André Pierre, and Robert St. Brice. The Hughes Collection includes a variety of styles, depicting historical and religious subjects and scenes of nature and everyday life.

Works from the collection have been included in exhibitions at the Musée d'Art du Collège Saint Pierre, Port-au-Prince Haiti; The Brooklyn Museum, The Milwaukee Art Center; Ramapo College of New Jersey; Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria; Davenport Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin; City Hall, Washington D.C. and in many publications, for example Ute Stebich’s Haitian Art and Seldon Rodman’s Where Art is Joy, Haitian Art: the First Forty Years.

Online Resources:

• Bob Corbett's Haiti Page
• Haitian/Haitian American Curriculum Teacher/Student Resources K-12 (618 KB)
• Haitian Culture Curriculum Guide, Grade K-5 (2.36 MB)

Press:

• Couple share love of Haitian art in Spencer exhibition
  Lawrence Journal-World, August 30, 2007
• Haitian Art from the Hughes Collection: Video Slideshow
  Lawrence Journal-World, August 30, 2007

Sponsored By:


Claimed: Land Use in Western America
June 16 – August 12, 2007
South Balcony Gallery

This selection of photographs, prints, and drawings from the Spencer’s permanent collection documents aspects of westward expansion and development as it emphasizes the notion that we treat nature as a commodity. The exhibition, organized by Kate Meyer, Curatorial Assistant for Prints & Drawings at the Spencer, draws inspiration from the teaching and scholarship of Professor Donald Worster, Joyce & Elizabeth Hall Professor of U.S. History at the University of Kansas.

One theme that drives the exhibition and is integral to Worster’s research is the notion that American environmental history can best be understood as a function of political and economic culture. Natural resources are identified and exploited through diverse practices: mining, irrigation, cultivation, excavation. The marks we make upon the land take many forms: offices, reservoirs, parking lots, furrows, fences. These marks reveal the challenges, failures, and aspirations of a destiny made manifest in the land west of the Mississippi.

Press:

• CLAIMED: Land Use in Western America
  Lawrencian, June 3, 2007
• The American West
  Kansas Public Radio, July 20, 2007

               

• KU Center for Sustainability

Sponsors:

An Abstract Alphabet: New Work by Stephen Johnson
May 19 – August 5, 2007
Central Court

Expanding on Robert Rauschenberg's playful curiosity with new materials, Marcel Duchamp's concept of the "ready-made," and Jeff Koons' modus operandi of art as readily accessible, Stephen Johnson's An Abstract Alphabet explores new ways of pulling abstractions from the real. Originally developed as a concept for a children's book in 2001, this alphabet series has evolved into a body of work that uses a range of materials and interchanges collage, painting and sculpture. For each letter of the alphabet, Johnson has taken an ordinary object and made it unfamiliar, removing functionality to reveal the metaphorical associations that lie within. The Spencer is delighted to present the public debut of this work. The accompanying book, A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet, will be published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Children in fall 2008.

Press:

• A is for artist
  Lawrence Journal-World, May 19, 2007
• Abstract Art; An Audio Slide Show
  Lawrence Journal-World, May 18, 2007
• Adult Art Aficionado’s Appreciate Alliteration
  Present Magazine, June 27, 2007

               

Corporate Sponsor:
The Prints of Roger Shimomura
May 6 – July 29, 2007
White Gallery

Best known as a painter and theatre artist, Roger Shimomura explores his Japanese American identity through a vibrant and provocative stylistic combination of 20th-century American pop art and traditional 18th- and 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints. Through viewing his printed works, one discovers a number of firsts, among them the artist's first examination of place; his first attempt to combat racist stereotypes by appropriating racist caricatures; and his first use of explicitly sexual imagery.

The Prints of Roger Shimomura features selections from more than 30 years of Shimomura's printmaking. The exhibition is offered in conjunction with the May release of The Prints of Roger Shimomura: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1968 - 2005. The book, co-published by the Spencer and the University of Washington Press, features color reproductions of more than 135 prints, along with an introductory essay and artist's notes. It is the first publication to examine systematically a specific body of work within Shimomura's larger oeuvre. Written by PhD candidate Emily Stamey, designed by Professor of Design Patrick Dooley, and supported by the Marilyn J. Stokstad Publications Fund, the book represents a collaboration of KU talents.

This exhibition is made possible by the support of corporate sponsor Morgan Stanley, www.morganstanley.com

Press:

• Reading the fine print; Exhibit, book chronicle history of retired KU art professor’s works on paper
  Lawrence Journal-World, May 6, 2007
• Prints of Roger Shimomura; An audio slideshow about the prints of Roger Shimomura
  Lawrence Journal-World, May 6, 2007
• Breaking Asian stereotypes in an artistic, unusual way
  Topeka ABC Channel 49’s “Good Morning, Kansas”, June 18, 2007

           

Meiji: Japan's Transition into a Global Society
January 13 – June 17, 2007
Asia Gallery

The art of Japan’s Meiji period (1868-1912) reflects a story of transformation, adaptation, and rapid change set against a world of increasing globalization. Literally meaning “enlightened rule,” the Meiji period began after the forced opening of trade by American Commodore Matthew Perry and his fleet of “black ships” in 1853. After two and a half centuries of near isolation, the opening of Japan’s borders created both opportunity and internal conflict. To successfully transition into a world of growing globalization, Japan adopted many institutions and practices from Western nations, with the government employing foreign experts to assist in education and training of professionals, government officials, and the military. At the same time, many Japanese felt it crucial to maintain their traditions and culture in the face of rapid national transformations.

This exhibition was organized by guest curator Alison Miller, KU graduate student in art history.

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A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal
February 17 – May 20, 2007
Kress Gallery, North Balcony & South Balcony

A Saint in the City presents the art and culture of Islamic West Africa through a dynamic popular religious movement in Senegal known as the Mouride Way, and in doing so encourages dialogue about Islam's commonalities as well as its multiple forms throughout the world. Inspired by the teachings of Sheikh Amadou Bamba, a Sufi pacifist, poet, and saint who lived from 1853 to 1927, Mourides have galvanized contemporary Senegal and its Diaspora through hard work and peaceful, steadfast devotion. The vibrant visual arts of Mourides provide a unique opportunity to examine the origins, impact, and varying perceptions of Islam and Sufism, Islam's mystical core.

A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal was organized and produced by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and curated by Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts and Dr. Allen F. Roberts in collaboration with Senegalese community leaders and artists in both Dakar and Los Angeles. It was made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, promoting excellence in the humanities. Additional support was provided by the UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center.

The Spencer Museum of Art venue is supported in part by the Breidenthal-Snyder Foundation, Dave and Gunda Hiebert, and the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

• More about the exhibition
• Conference schedule for "Sufi Arts, Rituals and Performance in Africa"
• Spring 2007 public programming

Press:

• Spencer exhibit focuses on sheik revered in mystic arm of Islam
  Lawrence Journal-World, February 22, 2007
• Pulse video: A Saint in the City
  Lawrence Journal-World, February 23, 2007
• “Art a la Carte” video
  Lawrence Journal-World, February 23, 2007
• Senegal art honors Sufi saint
  The Kansas City Star, May 13, 2007
• Where’s That?
  The Pitch, May 17, 2007
• Spencer Art Museum hosts student night
  The Pitch, May 17, 2007

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Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground: Xu Bing's Book Works
March 3 - April 29, 2007
White Gallery

The arts associated with bookmaking (calligraphy, writing and printing) have played a central role in the career of Xu Bing, one of the most significant artists to emerge from China in the years following the Cultural Revolution. Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground provides an inclusive overview of Xu Bing's involvement with the book as a format for artistic exploration. The exhibition will also include two computer workstations with interactive programs developed by Xu Bing that elaborate his language-based Book Works. Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground: Xu Bing's Book Works has been organized to coincide with Xu Bing's Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Graphics Council during the group's annual meeting in Kansas City (March 21-25, 2007). A planned publication about the exhibition is made possible by the generous support of Arthur V. Neis. An April 26 lecture at the Spencer by Xu Bing is made possible by the Franklin D. Murphy Lecture Fund.

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Made in China: Observations and Understanding
November 18, 2006 – February 4, 2007
North Balcony

Made in China offers a unique window on the world's manufacturing epicenter, as seen through the eyes – and digital cameras – of 24 multidisciplinary KU students and two Department of Design faculty members who made a month-long pilgrimage to China in summer 2006. The exhibition installation diverges from what may be perceived as a typical museum presentation—rather than labeling each work and identifying the artists individually, the photographs are clustered in profusion, affixed to deep red walls with ordinary pushpins, as are dozens of yellow tags with personal quotes revealing students' experiences and observations while abroad.

Organized by design professors Pok-Chi Lau and May Tveit, Made in China: Observations and Understanding represents the latest collaborative effort between the Spencer and the School of Fine Arts, featuring striking photographs and commentaries by KU students who traveled to China last summer for a study abroad program. The exhibition, which may travel to other venues around the state of Kansas, is the creative result and synthesis of two courses offered in the KU School of Fine Arts, Department of Design: "Understanding China through Photography," taught by Lau, and "Made in China: Dismantling the Mantra—Understanding China through Industrial Culture and our Consumer Society," taught by Tveit. The students represented a variety of disciplines, including design, art, anthropology, political science, linguistics, architecture, history, and art history.

"Eyes half closed, they arrived in Hong Kong with luggage from America bearing many personal effects that were made in China—this was an authentic experience for each individual of dragging things back and forth between the manufacturing and the consuming cultures," Lau writes in his essay for the gallery guide.   "....Confidence, awareness and compassion came gradually in every step of their journey, and extended beyond those 26 days. In doing so, we all moved closer to understanding the complex and evolving dimensions of the human experience."

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It Starts with Art! An Exhibition of Children’s Work
May 12 – July 1, 2007
Entryway Gallery

Saturday Children’s Art Appreciation Classes are an exciting part of the Spencer’s regular educational programming. Since summer 2002, the museum has offered classes combining an hour of discussion in the galleries and an hour of art making. With a wide variety of class topics, the program offers something of interest to any child aged 5-14. Each semester features classes related to special exhibitions as well as the permanent collection.

Organized by Lauren Kernes, Youth & Family Outreach Coordinator, this special exhibition features student artwork from the spring semester art appreciation classes. Original books, sculptures, prints, and paintings are on display, as is a video slideshow of students in their classes. For more information regarding It Starts with Art! or upcoming art appreciation classes, contact smakids@ku.edu or call 785.864.0137.

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Art into Art: Inspired Responses
September 22, 2006 – April 29, 2007
Central Court and Galleries

This fall, the Spencer explores how the art in its collection inspires other expressions of creativity, with a variety of programming meant to stimulate important conversations about the creative process. Art into Art: Inspired Responses is a campus and community project inviting creative responses to works of art in the museum, and includes transformations of the Spencer's front entrance, foyer, and Central Court to reflect the theme of visual art inspiring other forms of creativity.

The Spencer thanks Sabatini Architects, Inc., for its corporate sponsorship of Art into Art.

The original inspiration for Art into Art was fairly straightforward: the idea that a work of art, as conceived and executed by an artist, is only part of the art experience. The other part is the response. What is a painting without a viewer, a poem without a reader or a musical performance without a listener? We often talk about the qualities of works of art, but what about the qualities of the responses? Can a response be as creative and inspired as the work of art that stimulates it?

Yes. And a prime example is a book recently published by the Spencer.

Conversations: Art into Poetry at the Spencer Museum of Art collects 27 poems by Elizabeth Schultz, all inspired by works in the Spencer's collection. The book, which includes an introductory essay by Susan Earle, the Spencer's Curator of European and American Art, pairs images of the artworks with Schultz's poems, and is available for $14.95 in the Museum Shop. Schultz's poems will be prominently featured next to the works that inspired them in the Spencer's galleries this fall. Conversations is made possible in part by the generous support of Colette and Jeff Bangert, Janet Hamburg, Carol and Del Shankel, Linda and David Stevens, Georgia and Keith Stevens, Peggy Sullivan, and Marjorie Swann and Bill Tsutsui.

Art into Art also intends to challenge the ways we traditionally expect to see art presented in a museum. In the Central Court, works spanning centuries of art history are hung, salon-style, unhinged from time- or geography-based divisions. This installation of objects from the permanent collection celebrates not only art itself, but what we as viewers bring to it.   The works have inspired poems, songs, dances, and scholarship. The unusual arrangement of paintings, photographs, prints, and sculpture challenges our traditional method of seeing. In combination the works invite comparisons to the presentation of 19 th -century salons, as objects span heights and depths that exceed our traditional gaze across gallery walls. Some works will rotate during the course of this exhibition, while others will stay in place.   Some objects on the wall may seem as comfortable as the face of an old friend, while others are initially unfamiliar. We present these objects as part of a continuum of engagement that includes your reactions and participation.

View programming, including events related to Art into Art: Inspired Responses

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Views of Vietnam
October 14 - December 31, 2006
South Balcony

Views of Vietnam provides a starting point for reflecting on the complex history of Vietnam through works of art available in the Spencer Museum. The period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam is most fully represented in our collections and therefore makes up most of the exhibition, but also included are several ceramic pieces from around 1600, as well as work made since the conflict. The exhibition is also enhanced by several loans from the Wilcox Collection of the Spencer Research Library.

A group of propaganda watercolors by an artist working for the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) and the North Vietnamese Army provides perhaps the most uncommon view in the exhibition. The watercolors, on long-term loan to the museum, do not show combat scenes, but scenes of preparation for battle, life in the base camp, work on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, agricultural work, and possibly a scene of boat people fleeing Vietnam.

The exhibition will also include photographs by Larry Burrows, who provided powerful images of the war to Life magazine; prints by American artists active in the 1960s that reference the war, including Jasper Johns and James Rosenquist; camera work for an article in Esquire magazine featuring senior military staff who opposed the war; and photographs by Han Nguyen, who left Vietnam for the U.S., and Craig Barber, who returned there in the late 1990s to make stunning landscape photographs.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an installation of books about various aspects of the war in Vietnam, with an emphasis on books concerning the arts.

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Using the Past to Serve the Present in 20th-Century Chinese Painting
October 7 - December 18, 2006
Asia Gallery

For China, the 20th century was an era of constant change. The imperial order of the Qing dynasty collapsed and the first Republic of China was established in 1912. The new Republic was soon subject to civil wars and the Second World War, before the Communist Party took over and founded of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, closing China to most of the world.   From 1966 to 1976, the "Cultural Revolution" sought to destroy what were perceived as "pernicious influences" from China's imperial past. In the 1970s, China gradually opened her gates again, finally establishing formal diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1979. China quickly became "the" tourist destination of the 1980s.

Trained in traditional Chinese and Western methods, 20th-century Chinese artists responded in various ways to the continually shifting political landscape. The paintings in this gallery represent the response with the strongest ties to China's past. This genre of painting, known as "guohua," or "National style painting," uses traditional Chinese media, formats, and themes, and draws on the venerable literati painting tradition in emphasizing expressive brushwork.

While guohua artists took pride in preserving and reenergizing the literati tradition, their art was inherently political. This art form from the past lent its cultural prestige to social and political aspirations of the present. Once meant for scholars' studios, brush-and-ink painting moved into public arenas. Artists employed by the government after 1949 brushed tributes to the power and beauty of the motherland, the abundance promised by agricultural and industrial programs, and the joy of all nationalities under Communist rule. Ink painters produced grand works for meeting halls, airport waiting rooms, and hotel restaurants. Eventually, portable paintings sold to foreigners in government shops.

Most of the paintings in this exhibition date either from before the founding of the PRC in 1949 or after 1979, when China reopened to the world. The Spencer's collection was shaped in large part by Dr. Chu-tsing Li, Professor Emeritus of Chinese Art History at The University of Kansas. Dr. Li served as the museum's principal advisor in Chinese art from 1966 to 1991.

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Chairman Mao's Golden Mangoes
Opens September 19, 2006
Asia Gallery, Screen Case

On August 5, 1968, two years into the chaos of China's Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong sent mangoes to the Worker's Propaganda Team during their standoff with the Red Guard occupying the campus of Qinghua University in Beijing. The Red Guard, a mass militia of youth established in 1966 and sanctioned by Mao himself, was then spinning out of control. Mao mobilized workers from factories in Beijing to bring the Red Guard into submission. The gift of the mangoes- exotic fruits presented to Mao by the foreign minister of Pakistan-signified that Mao was now siding with the worker-peasant class instead of the students; he was designating workers as the leading class in the Cultural Revolution.

An unexpected side effect of this benevolent yet highly political gesture was the elevation of the mango from fruit to a "religious" symbol. The last half of 1968 marked the height of Mao's personality cult, and the gift of golden mangoes inspired something close to a religious frenzy. The generous gesture from the god-like Chairman Mao inspired poetry and newspaper articles devoted to the golden mangoes bearing the good will of Mao. Workers lined up to see and sniff the mangoes in awe; when mangoes showed the inevitable signs of decay, they were boiled in huge pots of water, so each worker could share a spoonful of Mao's blessing. Even then, their veneration for the sacred object did not diminish: wax replicas were made to replace fresh mangoes, and the mango was used as a political/religious motif not only on the National Day Parade floats, but also on everyday utensils praising the kind regards of Chairman Mao.

The enthusiasm for mangoes as a demonstration of the worker-peasant class's support for Mao endured for about a year. After 1969, mangoes disappeared from the active symbolic repertoire of Chinese politics. Although the Cultural Revolution symbolism of the mangoes has been largely forgotten, its ephemeral significance is inscribed in the artifacts of the era.

Objects on display are loans from private collections.

The above text was adapted from
"Golden Mangoes of Pakistan-The Life Cycle of a Cultural Revolution Symbol," by Alfreda Murck, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Murck will lecture September 21 at 5 PM in the Spencer Auditorium, supported by the Franklin D. Murphy Lecture Fund. Murck's lecture and this installation are co-sponsored by the Spencer Museum of Art, the Kress Department of Art History & the Center for East Asian Studies.

John Steuart Curry: Agrarian Allegories
August 12 — November 4, 2006
North Balcony Gallery

This monographic exhibition presents work by noted Regionalist and Kansas native John Steuart Curry (1897-1946).   John Steuart Curry: Agrarian Allegories considers both the artist's working methods, and his creation of iconic, Midwestern characters in his development of a regional identity. The exhibition features sketches for projects such as the Topeka Statehouse murals, including designs for the Statehouse Rotunda that were never executed, and costume designs intended for an adaptation of Carl Sandburg's poem, "Prairie." These examples reveal Curry's use of symbols and archetypes such as the farmer, the tornado, and livestock to further his Midwestern pictorial narrative.   The exhibition draws primarily from the Spencer's permanent collection with additional loans from the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University and the Lawrence Arts Center.   Invaluable assistance in documenting Carl Sandburg's "Prairie" on our walls was provided by Candi Baker, Ione Unruh, and Mike Manley.

Curry was born on a farm near the town of Dunavant (near Oskaloosa, in northeast Kansas) and spent his youth in Kansas before leaving for art school in Kansas City, Mo., and later, Chicago. He received major attention in 1931, when the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York purchased Baptism in Kansas. In the 1930s, Curry, along with Thomas Hart Benton from Missouri and Grant Wood from Iowa, earned national acclaim for his Midwestern imagery. The popularity of Curry's work in New York contrasted sharply with its mixed reception in the Midwest, where some Kansans felt paintings of baptisms in cattle troughs and wild weather popularized only negative aspects of the Sunflower State. In 1937, Curry's exposure in Kansas increased when he earned a commission to paint the Topeka Statehouse murals. This project created such tension between Curry's vision of the state and that held by many Kansans that some of the murals were never completed, and those on view in Topeka today were never signed.

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Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing about Collections
June 17 — October 1, 2006
South Balcony Gallery

Organized by Joseph Keehn, Loo Family Intern in Education, and Madeline Rislow, Mellon Foundation Intern in Prints & Drawings, under the curatorial supervision of Steve Goddard, senior curator of prints and drawings.

Beginning June 17 and continuing into fall, the Spencer Museum of Art will explore historical aspects of collecting in Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing about Collections. The exhibition examines the history of museums through the current holdings of several KU repositories:   the Spencer Museum of Art, the Spencer Research Library, and the Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center.

Sixteenth- and the seventeenth-century European curiosity cabinets might be described as microcosmic reflections of the world's wonders.   Inspired by Renaissance ideas with an emphasis on remarkable examples of naturalia and artificialia (natural and human-made creations), these cabinets emphasized the rare, the marvelous and the virtuoso.   Cabinets of curiosities, often known by the German terms " kunst-und wunderkammern," or cabinets of art ( kunst ) and wonder ( wunder ), were encyclopedic in scope and aspired to form a "theater of knowledge."

Collections of curiosity became the catalyst for the eighteenth-century emergence of the modern museum. These more recent collections were also marked by a shift away from notions of theatricality and universality and toward empirical modes of classification generally associated with modern science. Specimens of the natural world and artifacts of cultural heritage often made their way into natural history and anthropology museums while objects classified as art were displayed and stored in art museums.

Cabinets of Curiosity considers these divided collections together and includes objects typically found in early cabinets with highlights from the Spencer Museum of Art's founding collection, which was donated to KU in 1917 by Sallie Cassie Thayer.   The broad and eclectic array of items assembled in Cabinets of Curiosity can also be used to examine the relationship between collecting and colonialism as well as to interrogate ongoing practices of collection and display. While essentially historical in nature, Cabinets of Curiosity offers an opportunity to reflect on the idea of the museum today, as well as to consider its possible future permutations.

Summer in the Central Court
June 17—August 6, 2006
Central Court

This summer in the Central Court, the Spencer brings the outside—in. Organized by Kate Meyer, curatorial assistant in the department of prints & drawings, this small selection from the permanent collection includes quilts inspired by the flora of summer, prints and photographs showcasing Midwestern harvest scenes, and a 15-foot-wide Japanese kite. Beat the heat and enjoy art inspired by four thematic categories: growth, patterns, entertainment and gatherings.

Artists and works that were on view in Summer in the Central Court are listed below by thematic section.

Summer Growth
Lisa Grossman, 86 Bends of the Kaw , 2004; Terry Evans Tractor and Combine, June 22, 1990; Thomas Hart Benton, Threshing, 1941; Thomas Willoughby Nason, Summer Storm , 1940; Grant Wood, Approaching Storm, 1940.

Summer Patterns
Rose Frances Good Kretsinger, Paradise Garden or The Garden quilt, 1946; Christina Hays Malcom, Sunflower quilt , 1884; Currier & Ives, Publisher, Fruits of the Garden , 1871; Anna Atkins, Robinia pseud-acacia America , circa 1851-1854; Louis Lozowick, Sunflowers, 1957; Denise Low and Linda Samson Talleur, Quiltmaker, 1984, Flower Garden quilt , 1984, from Quilting.

Summer Entertainment
Tal Streeter, Flying Red Line, 1972; Jeff Brouws, Twelve Drive-Ins I, 2005; Tom Huck, Playland: The Great Sharkburger Shortage of '95, 1999, from 2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities; Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton, Water Ballet from Underwater , mid-late 1900s; Joseph Judd Pennell, Jack Guddy, Baseball Parade, 1896.

Summer Gathering
Fairfield Porter, July, 1971; Earl Iversen, Kansas State Fair, 1977-1978; Tony Ray-Jones, Fourth of June, Eton, 1967; W. Eugene Smith, untitled , 1958, from Silver Lake; Weegee, Coney Island Beach, 4 p.m., July 28, 1940, circa 1940.

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Gordon Parks At Home and Abroad: A Small Selection
February 7–April 16, 2006
Study Gallery

Presented in conjunction with the KU School of Journalism and Mass Communications honoring Gordon Parks with the 2006 William Allen White National Citation: On display are nine Parks photographs from the Spencer's collection, and also a portrait of Parks made in the late 1970s by Patricia DuBose Duncan.

Gordon Parks, who passed away March 7 at the age of 93, was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, but in a life that spanned ten decades he was in every way a citizen of the world--a Renaissance man known internationally for pursuing a wide array of interests and making art that reflected those experiences. Parks worked as a piano player, a busboy, and a basketball player. He painted, wrote poetry, published books, directed movies, and composed music. Parks was also a gifted photographer with a natural sense of composition and an eye for simple narratives that elicit broader themes. His stark and unblinking photographic portraits of life in the United States have helped to shape our national identity and have provided an uncompromising mirror for the American public. Parks also worked for Life magazine, which sent him around the globe as he continued to tackle issues of race, class, and status in our modern world.

This February, KU's William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications honored Parks with the William Allen White National Citation, presented annually since 1950 to journalists who exemplify the ideals of White (1868-1944), a nationally influential Kansas editor and publisher. Other notable recipients of the William Allen White National Citation have included James Reston, 1950; Walter Cronkite, 1969; Arthur O. Sulzberger, 1974; James J. Kilpatrick, 1979; Helen Thomas, 1986; Charles Kuralt, 1989; Bernard Shaw, 1994; Bob Woodward, 2000; Molly Ivins, 2001; and Cokie Roberts, 2002.

Transformations
February 18—June 18, 2006
Asia Gallery

The spring exhibition in the Asia Gallery, organized by Mary M. Dusenbury, guest curator of Asian art, addresses the human drive to explore, discover and transform the world around us to meet our needs, to satisfy our curiosity, and to delight us. For instance, in the painting Pine Spirit, Chinese artist Wu Guanzhong looks both to the ancient Chinese tradition of shan-shui-hua and to abstract expressionism, transforming both into a highly individual and compelling vision of "mountains and rivers."

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Flowers, Dragons and Pine Trees: Asian Textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art
January 28—May 28, 2006
Kress Gallery

Stacked in boxes and accessible only by ladder, the Asian textile collection at the Spencer Museum was virtually hidden from public view for almost eighty years. Flowers, Dragons, & Pine Trees is the result of fifteen years of quiet work behind the scenes to research, clean, conserve, re-house, photograph, publish and exhibit this little known section of the museum's collections.

The exhibition is made possible by the generosity of the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation, the Breidenthal-Snyder Foundation, Dave and Gunda Hiebert, the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support provided by corporate sponsor The World Company. The Spencer also received a great deal of support for conserving, researching, photographing and publishing the collection. We are grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Japan Foundation, the Getty Grant Program, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and the Blakemore Foundation. A complete catalogue of the Spencer's Asian textiles collection, authored by Mary M. Dusenbury, guest curator of Asian art and organizer of the Flowers, Dragons, & Pine Trees exhibition, was published in fall 2004 by Hudson Hills Press and is available for purchase in the Spencer's Museum Shop. The exhibition focuses on 90 textiles from India, Iran, China and Japan, including:

• Persian velvets and brocades Kashmir shawls Embroideries of northwest India and Pakistan Chinese court/official costume and Han and Manchu women's formal and informal dress Buddhist and Daoist costume and temple furnishings
• Japanese cotton and bast fiber costume, furnishings, and festival textiles

The core of the Asian textile collection was part of Sallie Casey Thayer's original 1917 gift to the University of Kansas of 7,500 objects of Western and Asian art--a gift that founded the KU art museum. Throughout the twentieth century, the Asian textile collection grew almost exclusively through occasional gifts--some magnificent, others modest--until the 1990s, when the museum actively began to seek out a few key objects. In Asia, textiles were important. Worth their weight in gold, luxury silks traversed the trade routes that linked East Asia with the Mediterranean, carrying technical knowledge and new design ideas within their structures. A venerated Buddhist abbot's robe was believed to incorporate his essence and, long after his death, was preserved as a sacred treasure by his followers. In northwest India, women embellished and protected their households and family with layers of embroidered textiles whose strong colors and vibrant patterns stood in sharp contrast to the surrounding desert. A lively interplay (and competition) between designers and craftsmen in Kashmir, France, and Great Britain transformed a simple man's sash into the opulent woman's Kashmir shawl that remained at the height of fashion for an astonishing 75 years, throughout most of the nineteenth century.

The Spencer's Asian textile collection represents great geographical breadth as well as diversity of function, technique, and patronage. The approximately 300 objects include court, merchant, military, theatrical, and folk costume, temple and household furnishings, and numerous discrete pieces of complex weaving, embroidery, and dyeing. The textiles range in date from the fifteenth to the late twentieth century. The largest number come from China, followed by Japan, the Indian subcontinent, Iran, Indonesia, Central and West Asia, and Korea.

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Embodiment
November 8, 2005–February 19, 2006
North Balcony Gallery

Recent discussions about the body and how it can convey our social and cultural identity make use of the concept of "embodiment."  Embodiment expresses the idea that the body and mind form a unity, in contrast to the notion that has prevailed in Europe and America ever since the writings of the seventeenth-century philosopher, René Descartes, that the body and mind form a duality. Works of art from different cultures that concern the body and its adornment offer valuable opportunities for discussing the evolving ideas of embodiment. The wide-ranging selection of objects in Embodiment was specifically chosen to provoke reflection about these ideas without necessarily suggesting conclusions.

Embodiment is presented in conjunction with a History of Art seminar, "Body Art and Embodiment," offered by Gitti Salami, assistant professor of art history. The students in this class are studying body arts of different cultures, paying special attention to the concept of embodiment as a tool for interrogating culture. The exhibition draws from the Spencer's holdings of photographs, prints and Asian art; the Wilcox Classical Collection; and the KU Anthropological Research and Cultural Collection's holdings of Native American, Mesoamerican, African, and New Guinean works.

Spencer Curator of Prints and Drawings Steve Goddard says the exhibition offers a small laboratory for thinking about the concept of embodiment, much as Professor Salami's goal for the seminar is to "wrap itself around the idea that attitudes towards the body and beingness are culturally determined, and that people's sense of who they are in a body is vastly different from one culture to another."

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The Sacred & the Secular: Buddhist Imagery in Religious & Popular Contexts
October 4, 2005 – February 5, 2006
Asia Gallery

Buddhism originated in India in the fifth-century B.C.E., when Prince Siddhartha renounced his privileged lifestyle to discover the truth about existence. He came to believe that all existence is suffering, that desire causes suffering, to cease desire is to cease suffering, and to cease suffering one must follow the teachings of the dharma, or Buddhist law.   Buddhism teaches that our present world is an illusion, and that to break free from this illusion and the cycle of rebirth is to reach enlightenment and become a Buddha. From India, Buddhism spread eastward through Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan, becoming one of the world's major religions.   This fall, an exhibition in the Spencer's Asian Gallery aims to illustrate how Buddhism is manifested in Asian art. Organized by Hillary Pedersen, last year's Carpenter Foundation Intern in Asian art and a KU doctoral candidate in art history, The Sacred & the Secular: Buddhist Imagery in Religious & Popular Contexts opens Oct. 4.

Most of the works selected for the exhibition were created after Buddhism had become well enough established that different schools of Buddhism had emerged--represented visually by very different artistic styles and practices. On view will be prints, paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and Buddhist objects and texts from a variety of geographical sources, including China, Japan, and Tibet.   Some objects have been used in ritual and worship practices, while others incorporate Buddhist motifs and themes as decorative elements in secular objects. The incorporation of Buddhist imagery into non-sacred visual media illustrates an intersection between the sacred and secular realms. Pedersen says the exhibition is intended to provoke thoughts of how religious imagery is used, and about the possible definitions of religious art.

Selecciones: Mexican Art from the Collection
November 12, 2005 — January 8, 2006
Study Gallery

Professor Emerita of English Elizabeth Schultz's recent gift to the museum of four works by Mexican artist Rafael Coronel forms the centerpiece for a small exhibition, Selecciones: Mexican Art from the Collection, on view in the Study Gallery from Nov. 12 through Jan. 8. Associated in the early 1960s with a group of artists known as Los Interioristas (The Insiders), Coronel's artworks from that period respond to the era's global tensions by acknowledging the importance of, and difficulties faced by, the individual in society. Here we present Coronel's paintings and drawings in visual dialogue with highlights from the Spencer's collection of twentieth-century Mexican works on paper.

Within the Study Gallery's intimate space, marked differences and affinities emerge among these works. Coronel's investigation of the individual contrasts with the art of his artistic predecessor José Guadalupe Posada, whose prints frequently emphasize the collective interests and needs of the Mexican people. At the same time, the links between Coronel's images and those by his contemporary Rufino Tamayo prove striking. Both artists contemplate the universal themes of death and spirituality. Collectively, these works span roughly sixty-five years of Mexican art. They prompt consideration not only of Coronel's distinctive contribution to this art, but also of the common sensibilities that can be found among works that share a national artistic heritage.

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Lee Friedlander At Work
September 10—December 11, 2005
Kress Gallery

Organized by the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. Programming for this exhibition is supported in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The Breidenthal-Snyder Foundation generously supports the Spencer Museum of Art venue. When I turned sixty-five I retired from everything but work. So quips Lee Friedlander, who, for the past five decades, has been inexhaustibly chronicling the American social and cultural landscape. Friedlander, one of the foremost photographers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is known for his keen depictions of the worlds of jazz, of television, of urban landscapes and deserts, and of family. And throughout his prolific career, Friedlander has acknowledged the largely anonymous worker, making inventive pictures of the familiar, humdrum, yet overriding role of work in America. Lee Friedlander--At Work not only witnesses the radical change in the American workplace from blue collar to desktop, but also invites us to appreciate Friedlander's profound contribution to photography through one constant thread, the ubiquitous universe of work. At Work explores the saga of the American worker through six photographic series that were commissioned by museum curators, magazine editors, foundations, and businesses: Factory Valleys (1979--80) features images of heavy and light industry located in northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania; MIT (1985--86) records the dramatic shift in the technological landscape along Route 128, Boston's outer loop; Cray (1986) is the visual story of this Wisconsin-based maker of super computers; Gund (1995) depicts Cleveland's steel industry; Dreyfus (1992) is a composite portrait of that corporation's New York City trading floor; and Telemarketing (1995) scrutinizes workers based in Omaha, Nebraska, who help make this recent and explosive sales phenomenon possible.

Prior to its presentation at the Spencer, this exhibition was to be presented in three major European venues in Cologne, Amsterdam, and Paris. All works are gelatin silver prints, on loan from the artist courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

               

Feeding Lawrence/Work+Workplace
September 23 —December 11, 2005

Commissioned by the Spencer to create an original work of video art in conjunction with the exhibition Lee Friedlander At Work, artists Earl Iversen and Luke Jordan, who also are KU faculty members, made Feeding Lawrence/Work + Workplace. Supported by the Sam and Terry Evans Fund and the KU School of Fine Arts, Department of Design, Feeding Lawrence employs the medium of digital video to explore two local businesses that actively “feed” the local community in ways that involve food and communication. By focusing on food and communication, Iversen and Jordan intend for the project to address the work involved to provide for essential and elemental human needs of contemporary community.

View the Feeding Lawrence brochure:

• Brochure exterior (855 KB)
• Brochure interior (358 KB)

Discourse on Discovery: Native Perspectives on the Trail
September 10—December 11, 2005
South Balcony Gallery

This fall, the Spencer will commemorate the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with an exhibition that explores the Corps of Discovery's journey from the Native point of view. Discourse on Discovery: Native Perspectives on the Trail, an exhibition organized by guest curator Joni Murphy, will center on a portfolio of prints by fifteen contemporary Native artists that the museum recently acquired, and will also include a stunning selection of traditional moccasins, borrowed from the KU Anthropological Research and Cultural Collections. The portfolio, Native Perspectives on the Trail, was organized and published by the Missoula Art Museum, and serves as one example of how Native people are expressing their viewpoints on the Bicentennial. The artists of Native Perspectives on the Trail confront American history and replace stereotypical views with artistic statements of humor, irony and passion. From Sacagewea to commercial imperialism, each artist deals with some of the more problematic areas of American social history surrounding the expedition. As homage to the artists involved, the long miles traveled by The Corps, and the varied Indigenous cultures that welcomed and came to the aid of the expedition, Murphy and Mary Adair, curator of the KU Anthropological Research and Cultural Collections, selected 10 pair of moccasins to display alongside the contemporary work.

Murphy says the combination of traditional and contemporary Native art forms reminds us of the roles America's Indigenous peoples play in American cultural history. "The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial presents the opportunity and the environment for education and change," she writes in the gallery guide that will accompany the exhibition. "The sometimes-mythic framework of American history is replaced with a renewed knowledge of cultures and traditions that have long been ignored."

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Quilts: A Thread of Modernism
Through October 30, 2005
North Balcony Gallery

Quilts, a traditional American folk art, are an ideal blend of function and decoration. In the past thirty years they've come off the bed and onto gallery walls. Quilts are popularly viewed as art today because the twentieth-century trend toward modernism has encouraged us to appreciate many of their design characteristics, their flat planes, bright colors and abstracted forms. Modernists have looked to folk arts such as quilts for inspiration, but modernism also changed the way quilts look. Organized by Barbara Brackman, Spencer honorary curator of quilts, assisted by Debra Thimmesch, curatorial intern in European and American art, Quilts: A Thread of Modernism looks at a dozen quilts from Spencer's collection within the context of the modern movement.

Some quilters reflected and others reacted to the influence of European ideas such as the Arts and Crafts movement and the Wiener Werkstatte. Several added a narrative thread giving either symbolic meaning to traditional abstractions or literal meaning with words appliquéd to the surface or written on the reverse. New dyes, colors and fabric print styles reflected new taste in interior design and clothing fashion. Among the quilts exhibited will be two by Rose Kretsinger of Emporia, who achieved a national reputation by incorporating Art Nouveau's sinuous line into traditional floral appliqué.

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Images of the Journey
June 4—September 25 2005  
Asian Gallery

Travel is adventure. Not just the destination, but also the journey itself invites new, enriching experiences. This selection from the Spencer's Asian collection highlights depictions of travel, explorations of places unfamiliar to the artists and representations of artists' journeys. The selected works depict traveling figures, evoke well-known tourist destinations and routes, record artists' experiences of travel, and invite the viewer to experience "virtual" travel through interaction with the images. Organized by Hillary Pedersen, Carpenter Foundation intern in Asian Art.

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Recent Acquisitions
June 18—August 28, 2005
South Balcony Gallery

The diverse works assembled in this exhibition are all recent additions to the Spencer's permanent collection, brought into the fold by purchase, by gift, by bequest. From paintings to photographs, from lithographs to DVDs, from the 1500s to today, they bring greater variety, depth and definition to a collection that now surpasses 25,000 objects. The opportunity to share them for the first time with the public is the primary reason they are hung in the same gallery--why a 1930 Japanese color woodcut shares space with a 1559 Flemish etching, why a 1914 French lithograph hangs near a 2004 German photograph. But their newness to our collection is not the only compelling reason to see these works together.

Viewed collectively, juxtaposed against one another in an intimate space, these disparate works reframe the human condition. Their conversations in contrast ultimately become more about connections than disparities. From their discussions in diversity we may divine our own questions. What can they tell us about ourselves? Seeing them side by side, observing them across from one another, our eyes discern their differences and also their similarities. Through these observations, we may breathe the breath of new possibilities, of fresh interpretations, of deeper meanings.

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Sponsored By:
Daguerreotype to Digital: Photographs from the Collection
January 22—July 31
North Balcony Gallery

This exhibition surveys the history of photography from the 1840s to the present, featuring more than 50 highlights from the Spencer's collection of 4000 photographs. Daguerreotype to Digital: Photographs from the Collection is organized by John Pultz, curator of photography, assisted by Brett Knappe, the 2004-05 graduate intern in photography, who is pursuing a PhD in art history at KU with a specialization in the history of photography.   The exhibition is a resource for the spring semester history of photography survey class taught by Pultz, who is also associate professor of art history at KU, and allows students to see directly, and not through reproduction, representative samples of important photographs from throughout the medium's history. During the semester, students will come in small groups to the gallery several times with Pultz to examine closely and discuss the original works of art and afterwards write short papers on the visits. The exhibition includes many photographs that the Spencer has acquired since Pultz came to KU in 1993, as well as long-time favorites of the collection. Included are examples of early photographic techniques from the 1840s and 1850s, including daguerreotype, tintype, and ambrotype portraits, as well as a calotype print of a French church from around 1855, made from a paper negative. Other nineteenth-century photographs, by Matthew Brady, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins, document the American Civil War and the expansion into the American West that followed. Highlights from the twentieth-century include works by Man Ray, August Sander, Charles Sheeler, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, Irving Penn, and Diane Arbus.

"This exhibition demonstrates the incredible quality and breadth of the Spencer's photography collection," says Pultz. "It also helps us to identify the gaps in the collection and see where we should be adding to it."

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Invisible Revealed: Surrealist Drawings from the Drukier Collection
April 2—June 5 , 2005
Kress Gallery

How do artists respond to the devastation and turmoil of global conflict? In the wake of the First World War, one answer is found in the intensely psychological compositions of the Surrealists, whose work often entertains the interior realms of private thought and dream. Invisible Revealed: Surrealist Drawings from the Drukier Collection offers an opportunity to explore the Surrealist world. Curated by the Johnson Museum's senior curator of prints, drawings, and photographs, Nancy E. Green, Invisible Revealed presents nearly 150 intimate works of art on paper by the leading proponents of the international movement in art and literature known as Surrealism. Surrealism offered an alternative to the rational thinking that had culminated in the tragic events of the First World War. The exhibition includes many examples of Surrealist artists' fascination with dream, imagination, and chance. Among the exhibited artists are Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Victor Brauner, André Breton, Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Léonor Fini, Wilfredo Lam, René Magrittte, Man Ray, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Francis Picabia, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning. A full color catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Given the failure of logic and rationality to solve Europe's political crises, and the enormous loss of life that ensued in the course of WWI, it seems only reasonable that many artists turned their attention to the illogical and the irrational. A case in point is the exercise in collaborative drawing known as the Cadavre Exquis ( Exquisite Corpse ), originally a children's game in which one participant would write a word, fold over the written portion of the page, and pass it on to the next participant. Unfolding the results of such play produced the classic example "The exquisite/ corpse/ will drink/ new/ wine." The Surrealists applied the game to the act of drawing and produced images of impossible creatures with elephant heads, claw arms, and feet clad in high heels.           Invisible Revealed offers an intimate approach to an understanding of Surrealism. As Charles Stuckey writes in his essay for the exhibition catalogue, "Instead of the primary emphasis on hand-to-eye coordination at issue in traditional drawing, Surrealist graphics stress hand-to-mind coordination. The rationale for Surrealist drawing techniques, whether impulsive or studied, is to make imaginary realms more legible." The confident yet unpredictable lines of an automatist drawing by Roberto Matta, the surprising patterns found in a frottage (rubbing) by Max Ernst, and the juxtapositions of unlikely subject matter in collages by Breton demonstrate a shared interest in making the unconscious visible.

Organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. Programming for this exhibition is supported in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The Breidenthal-Snyder Foundation generously supports the Spencer Museum of Art venue.

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Brion Gysin: A Selection of Books and Works on Paper
February 19—June 5, 2005
South Balcony Gallery

Brion Gysin: A Selection of Books and Works on Paper is organized by Stephen Goddard, curator of prints and drawings at the Spencer Museum of Art with assistance from Spencer Museum intern Joanna Sternberg and Richard W. Clement, special collections librarian at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. The exhibition is offered in conjunction with the national traveling exhibition, The Invisible Revealed: Surrealist Drawings from the Drukier Collection, organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, which comes to the Spencer Museum of Art in April.

English-born painter and writer Gysin (1916-1986) is best known as the inventor of the "cut-up" technique that he pioneered with William S. Burroughs, and as the inventor of the hallucination-inducing "Dream Machine." His early works have much in common with the art of the surrealists, with whom he exhibited briefly in Paris in 1935 (only to have his works removed by André Breton). The exhibition includes books from the collection of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at KU and works on paper from the Spencer Museum of Art and the estate of William S. Burroughs. Special thanks to James Grauerholz of William Burroughs Communications for helping make this exhibition possible.

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Sponsored By:
Transitions: KU Faculty Artists Explore Change
February 19—May 22, 2005
White Gallery

In these early days of the 21st century, change often seems to move at such breakneck speed that we begin to grasp the present only as it is already vanishing and the next big thing is appearing. Attempting to keep pace with a dizzying flurry of shifts and swings--whether personal or global, private or public--we race past reflection and grapple for context. By thoughtfully considering change, however, we can better understand our world and ourselves. So it is that for the first-ever faculty exhibition at the Spencer--a collaborative endeavor pairing the museum with KU's School of Fine Arts--guest curator Elizabeth Dunbar selected the topic of "transitions." Dunbar, curator for the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, thought the exhibition's theme would be particularly timely given recent changes in KU's School of Fine Arts--with new faculty in the Department of Art and new leadership in the Department of Design--in the Spencer Museum of Art and, indeed, in the world at large.   As Dunbar notes, a working artist can interpret the idea of "transitions" in a variety of ways. For some, it could address a new direction in a continuing body of work. For others, it could concern a change in material, process or technique. For others still, it could relate to an underlying theme or concept for a specific piece or series. More than 20 KU faculty artists responded to the Spencer's call for submissions last fall, and from that group, Dunbar selected five artists for inclusion. She chose to focus on a smaller number of artists in order to investigate their work in more depth. "It was a really tough choice given the number of excellent proposals I reviewed," Dunbar says. "I settled on five artists that I think best represent the quality and diversity of the work being made in the School of Fine Arts." The artists are: Elissa Armstrong, Assistant Professor of Design (ceramics); Mary Anne Jordan, Associate Professor of Design (textiles); Michael Krueger, Associate Professor of Art (digital art, drawing, printmaking); Pok Chi Lau, Professor of Design (photography); and So Yeon Park, Assistant Professor of Art (expanded media).

The exhibition will include a modest gallery guide with an essay by Dunbar, illustrations and artists' biographical information.

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Tradition and Modernity: Japanese Art of the Early Twentieth Century
January 22—May 22, 2005
Asian Gallery

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Japan experienced many changes. During the first decades of the century, in the Meiji period (1868-1912), the country rapidly adopted Western models of education, politics and industrialization, and emerged as a more modern society after a long period of international isolation. Later, in the Taisho (1912- 26) and early Showa (1926-1989) periods, modernization was no longer simply the product of Western imitation, as the country rapidly became an international, industrial and urban society in its own right. Throughout these decades, complex tensions emerged between the desire to retain traditional cultural values and the desire to be a modern society. The complexity of early twentieth century Japanese society is revealed in its art, which selectively incorporates traditional and more modern modes of creation in a variety of formats, mediums, themes, and styles. Western art techniques, a flourishing export market, and a search for a new national identity that combined both tradition and modernity were some of the factors that shaped early twentieth century Japanese art.

This selection of works from the Spencer's collection broadly illustrates Japan's changing social climate of the early twentieth century and hopes to reveal the dynamic character of this period.

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Sponsored By:
Tokyo: The Imperial Capital
Woodblock prints by Koizumi Kishio, 1928-1940
February 5—March 20, 2005
Kress Gallery

Tokyo: The Imperial Capital is organized by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, Miami Beach, Florida. This exhibition is made possible by the generous support of Frederic A. and Jean S. Sharf. The Spencer Museum of Art venue is generously supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. At 11:58 a.m. on September 1, 1923, an earthquake struck Tokyo and eastern Japan with devastating force.   A vigorous rebuilding campaign restored the city and transformed it into what became known as the imperial capital.   One of the woodblock print artists who captured the drama of its rebirth was Koizumi Kishio (1893-1945), who created One Hundred Pictures of Great Tokyo in the Showa Era (Showa dai Tokyo hyakuzue) from 1928-1940.   This portfolio of Koizumi's prints sets the stage for an exhibition depicting the evolution of a key Asian city as it embraced modernity, maintained traditions, and became the backdrop for the militaristic ambitions of an empire. The images produced by Koizumi are a pantheon of impressive views, from modern facilities such as Haneda Airport to nostalgic renderings of revered ancient temples. On loan from The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, these prints provide a visual record of Tokyo's physical reconstruction and development and also chronicle the emergence of a country ready to compete politically and economically on an international stage.

Also included in the exhibition is a selection of Edo period (1615-1868) woodblock prints from the Spencer Museum of Art. Providing scenes of capital life prior to the city's reconstruction, these prints show specific locations within Tokyo, which Koizumi Kishio has depicted almost a century later, in a drastically different political and social climate. The various artists of these prints depicted their city as a relatively peaceful place, where the concern with social position and the world of fleeting desires took precedence over modernization and international relations.

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Sponsored By:
Kansas Art Sampler
October 23—February 6, 2005
White Gallery

When Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow stole a sand-colored Ford V-8 sedan from a private Topeka residence in 1934, little did they know it would be their last getaway car. Seventy years after Bonnie and Clyde met their violent end in rural Louisiana, Abilene artist Randy Regier offers the infamous vehicle in the form of a toy, complete with life-like blood, bullet holes, and packaging consistent with those used for model cars manufactured in the early to mid twentieth century.   Regier's interpretation of the bullet-riddled vehicle is part of A Kansas Art Sampler, on view in the Spencer's White Gallery from Oct. 23 through Feb.6, 2005. The exhibition highlights notable and visionary work either related to the state and its history, or produced by Kansas artists, and is organized in conjunction with Kansas Art and Culture, an art history course offered this fall by Professors Charles C. Eldredge and Charles M. Berg. The objects selected emphasize topics covered in the class, such as Bleeding Kansas, issues of race, environment and land use, as well as perceptions of the region. The exhibition includes loaned work by Regier and New York artist Joe Coleman, as well as recent acquisitions to the Spencer's collection by Robert Swain Gifford and Lisa Grossman.

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Diane Arbus: Family Albums
October 16—January 16
Kress Gallery

In 1968, three years before her suicide, Diane Arbus wrote that she was compiling her photographs into a "family album," likening it to a "Noah's ark" and perhaps imagining in it the people who might be remembered and saved in the aftermath of the tumultuous 1960s. "Family," in Arbus' sense, consisted of people held together by all sorts of bonds, some traditional and others alternative, and deserving of special attention. Diane Arbus: Family Albums, organized by the Spencer Museum of Art and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Mass., re-examines Arbus' never-completed project and offers a glimpse into what such an album might have looked like. The exhibition will be on view in the Spencer's Kress Gallery from Oct. 16 through Jan. 16, before continuing on to several other venues in its national tour. Diane Arbus: Family Albums includes a large body of work never seen before publicly and promises to change the received view of the remarkable photographer. Arbus was interested in compiling expansive and metaphorical images of the 1960s family. The exhibition, then, culls from Arbus' work, as she never had the chance to do, a collective image of the family in a turbulent decade of American history. It presents traditional family groupings as well as alternative families/communities and "implied" families. The exhibition is augmented with printed materials from the 1960s and a major companion book published by Yale University Press, co-authored by the exhibition's organizers, John Pultz, Spencer curator of photography and associate professor of art history, and Anthony Lee, Mount Holyoke associate professor of art history. Their book has met with widespread critical acclaim--in December 2003 both Art and Auction and The New York Times Book Review included it on lists of the best photography books of the year. The Spencer holdings of Arbus' work consist primarily of photographs she took for Esquire magazine. These prints, many of which are accompanied by related proof sheets, show the photographer's broad range--and especially her interest in the family. Depicting children, couples, mothers, and fathers, they include public figures with their children (such as television's Ozzie and Harriet Nelson), and they also picture various people that Arbus fashioned as surrogate families.

The Mount Holyoke holdings result from a 1999 gift from alumna Gay Humphrey Matthaei (class of 1952). The gift consists of a collection of family portraits taken by Arbus in 1969. This cache was only a portion of a much larger body of work. The Matthaei family has a complete set of contact prints of the more than 300 pictures that Arbus took of them. Products of the largest, complete, single sitting available for scholarly scrutiny, these photographs provide an opportunity to explore Arbus' working methods in ways not previously possible.

           

Download a printable PDF containing programming for "Diane Arbus: Family Albums" (13 KB)
Listen to the KCUR Arts Roundup story
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Read The Lawrence Journal World exhibition review
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Read The New York Times exhibition review
Read The New York Times book review of the catalogue