CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
THE NASHER SPRIN G 2016 / M EM BERS ’ M AG A ZIN E
THE NASHER SPRIN G 2016 / M EM BERS ’ M AG A ZIN E
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CURRENT EXHIBITION Ann Veronica Janssens
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UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS Sightings: Mai -Thu Perret Joel Shapiro
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SPRING EXHIBITION EVENTS
12 ACQUISITIONS 4
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NASHER COLLECTION
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CATCHING UP
16 OVERHEARD 20
ARTIST MICROGRANTS
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STEPHEN LAPTHISOPHON
23 #INSIDENASHER 24 LEARN 360 Speaker Series 8
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NASHER PRIZE
57 LEARN Nasher Gallery Lab Target First Saturday Family Art Adventures Resources & Workshops Education Programs Fall Snapshots Gallery Notes Student Advisory Board
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68 ENGAGE ‘til Midnight at the Nasher Soundings: New Music at the Nasher Films About Art Community Partner Spotlight The Great Create: By Artists. For Kids. 74
MEMBERSHIP & SUPPORT Fall Snapshots Patron Travel Opportunities Avant Garde Society Funder Spotlight Nasher Love Volunteer Spotlight
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NASHER STORE ARTIST PROFILE
programs are working. Their ongoing involvement has been the foundation for the Nasher’s online learning resources and the springboard for partnerships such as GROW, a multi-visit partnership with the dual-language program at Rosemont Elementary School.
Dear Friends, Perhaps on one of your visits to the Nasher, you’ve noted a group of schoolchildren sitting on the floor around a sculpture from our collection. The instructor leading the discussion might be one of our gallery teachers, or it might have been a docent, one of a group of specially trained volunteers we are fortunate to share with the DMA. On another occasion, you might have attended one of our popular ‘til Midnight events, and been warmly greeted by one of the volunteers who help out at these programs. And have you ever been to one of our Target First Saturdays? It’s inspiring to see the thousands of children who come to these events each month, exploring the museum and engaging in all kinds of hands-on educational activities. Greeting our young visitors (and their parents) you may see staff members from Target, generously volunteering their time to make art accessible to young people. These are only some of the most visible roles that volunteers play at the Nasher.
BEHIND THE SCENES, VOLUNTEERS PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE IN HELPING SHAPE OUR MOST ESSENTIAL PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES.
Crucial to our efforts are our advisory committees, groups that meet regularly to offer ideas, counsel, criticism, and advice. Our Program Advisory Council (PAC), currently chaired by Christen Wilson, brings together art collectors, artists, and community leaders and has played an important role in the formulation of plans for our 10th-anniversary exhibition, Nasher XChange, as well as for the concept and structure of the Nasher Prize. Many of the artists you’ve enjoyed listening to at one of our 360 events were proposed to us by members of the PAC. Our Education Department also receives invaluable assistance from two advisory committees—one composed of teachers, and one of students. These groups bring our educators new ideas, and also help us assess how well our
Much could be written about the increasingly important role played by artist volunteers at the Nasher. Last year, artists helped us conceive and launch our Artists Circle, a membership group exclusively for working artists with the aim of building a strong community of artists and bringing them into even greater dialogue with our programs and exhibitions. Additionally, along with an artist from out of town, several of this community’s leading artists generously agreed to serve on our grants committee for our new artist microgrant program. Together with Nasher curators, these artists read applications, interviewed candidates, and selected the awardees. Artists are essential, too, to the Great Create, our annual family art-making, fundraising event. Each year, 10 or more artists--local, national, and international--work with our education team to conceive and realize art-making projects that form the centerpiece of this annual event. Of course, any discussion of The Great Create has to highlight the role played by the amazing volunteer leadership that shapes and organizes the event. This year, The Great Create is being co-chaired by John and Lisa Runyon, and Sheryl and Eric Maas. They’re joined in their efforts by a committee of volunteers who are helping in fundraising and organization, and will be on-site throughout the day of The Great Create, ensuring that our participants--children and their families-have a fabulous time making art, listening to music, eating delicious food, and more. And their efforts, in turn, support education programs at the Nasher throughout the year. Last--but very far from least--I want to call out our extraordinary co-chairs for the inaugural Nasher Prize; Jennifer Eagle and Catherine Rose. It’s no small matter to take on leadership of a major, first-time fundraising event, but nothing could mean more in assuring success than Catherine and Jennifer’s engagement. Already, they’ve secured major gifts for the Prize, brought in numerous supporters, and developed exciting plans for the celebration of our inaugural laureate. Catherine and Jennifer must be counted among our city’s most committed and effective volunteer leaders. They serve on boards of major institutions, organize some of our most prominent fundraising events, and through their thoughtful, often challenging work, contribute immeasurably to Dallas’s growth as a center of culture and philanthropy. I hope to see many of you during the Nasher Prize Inaugural Celebration March 31 – April 2. And as you enjoy these events, please know that they—like so much at the Nasher—were made possible by the creativity, energy, thoughtful consideration, and generosity of the many volunteers who both guide and support us.
Jeremy Strick Director
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
ANN VERONICA JANSSENS “ Nothing is more beautiful than a person’s own perception.” – Ann Veronica Janssens
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CURRENT EXHIBITION
ANN VERONICA JANSSENS JANUARY 23 – APRIL 17
For the opening exhibition of 2016, the Nasher Sculpture Center presents the first solo museum exhibition in the United States by Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens. Over the past three decades, Janssens, born in 1956, has become best known as a light artist, working with spotlights, projections, fog, and other materials to create experiences heightening viewers’ perceptions of themselves and their surroundings. Drawing on scientific research, Janssens aims to create situations that can resemble laboratory experiments as much as works of art. “It’s a question of provoking an experience of excess, of the surpassing of limits,” she has explained, including “situations of dazzlement,” vertigo, speed, and even exhaustion among feelings that can bring us to threshold states of altered consciousness. Her use of light to create these sensations is contingent on architecture, and she often creates environments in which she can test the science of the eye with the manipulation of light within the space. Janssens often refers to her works as “proposals,” signaling their status as invitations to the viewer to encounter reality in different ways. “Nothing is more beautiful than a person’s own perception,” she insists. “I try to push it to its limits.” Janssens’s emphasis on individual experience indicates what she regards as the ultimately political underpinnings of her art—as an artist, she provides only what is necessary to enable each viewer to respond as an individual. Her works are largely ephemeral, their materials brought together momentarily, then dispersed, discarded, or recreated as the need arises. In Janssens’s art, each viewer is thrown back onto his or her own perceptual and physical experience, which is determined as much by physiology and optics as by the artist. Janssens’s exhibition for the Nasher will offer a series of sculptural proposals that move the viewer from the entrance of the building, through the Entrance Gallery, and into the garden, spaces usually occupied by art and visitors alike. Such areas are well suited to Janssens’s interest in creating works “infiltrating space rather than imposing on it.” While designed by Renzo Piano according to the same principles and proportions, and using the same materials as the Nasher’s two main ground-floor galleries, the entrance bay is a transitional zone where visitors obtain information and admission, meet, congregate, and begin looking at works of art. Projected washes and haloes of light will greet visitors at the Nasher’s entrance, and two types of sculptural objects will occupy the Entrance Gallery. Lying directly on the floor, a steel I-beam more than 20 feet long, its top side ground smooth and polished to a mirror shine, offers dizzying
reflections of the architectural surroundings, particularly the Nasher’s distinctive glass roof and cast aluminum sunscreen. Sharing the Entrance Gallery with the I-beam is a group of five glass cubes, Janssens’s distinctive Aquariums, filled with a blend of liquids, including water and paraffin oil; the interactions between the liquids and the different ways they absorb and reflect light allow for striking and confounding visual effects. In the garden, visitors will encounter a freestanding pavilion coated with, and named for, the three primary colors: Blue, Red and Yellow. Visitors who enter the pavilion will find it filled with artificial fog, a substance that interests Janssens as a way of giving sculptural form to light: “Gazing at mist is an experience with contrasting effects. It appears to abolish all obstacles, materiality, the resistances specific to a given context, and at the same time, it seems to impart a materiality and tactility to light.” The fog creates the contradictory sensation of a space both empty and full, and as visitors move through the pavilion, they will experience not only the profound disorientation prompted by losing all points of navigational reference; as light passes through the walls and ceilings, the fog becomes radiantly suffused with their colors, varying with the movement of the viewer and the changing light of the sky.
> Watch Blue, Red and Yellow > Watch an interview of Ann Veronica Janssens
PREVIOUS SPREAD: Ann Veronica Janssens, Red and Turquoise, 2005, 300 watt halogen lamp, dichroic color filter, Dimension variable. Photo: courtesy of the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles. © Ann Veronica Janssens OPPOSITE, ABOVE: Ann Veronica Janssens, Blue, Red, and Yellow, 2001 (details), Steel, wood, polycarbonate, red, blue and yellow films, fog machine, approx. 137 ¾ x 354 3/8 x 177 1/8 in. (350 x 900 x 450 cm). Photo: courtesy of the artist. © Ann Veronica Janssens OPPOSITE, BELOW: Ann Veronica Janssens, IPE 250, 2009-2013, Steel beam, 1 side polished, 98 ½ x 3 ½ x 7 in. (250 x 9 x 18 cm). Photo: courtesy of the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles. © Ann Veronica Janssens
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UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
SIGHTINGS: MAI-THU PERRET MARCH 12 - JULY 17
Swiss-born Mai-Thu Perret has spent the past 16 years making work based on a fictional feminist art commune she created called The Crystal Frontier. The imaginary women of New Ponderosa live in autonomy in the New Mexico desert and make work that runs the visual gamut, from the painterly to the sculptural, often employing the aesthetic tropes of Modernism and aligning the work with utopian Modernist movements. For Sightings, Perret will build on this project, installing recent ceramics and paintings, along with a new body of work that relates her interest in utopian societies to the recent development of the secular Kurdish community in the Syrian region of Rojava—a place that has been described as a utopia for its championing of women as leaders and practice of democracy among its inhabitants in the middle of war-torn territory. In collaboration with the Soluna Art and Music Festival, Perret will also present a recent performance entitled Figures at the Nasher Sculpture Center June 2 and a newly commissioned world-premiere performance on June 4. Building on the objects and texts born from the women of New Ponderosa, for Sightings, Perret will make several lifesize figures in a variety of media—papier-mâché, ceramic, latex—and outfit them in uniforms and gear appropriate for soldiers. Perret’s figures represent the women fighting in all-female militia groups known as the Y.P.J. or Female Protection Units, a branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units who represent the first line of defense against ISIS in the region of Rojava in northern Syria. Unlike the women of New Ponderosa, the women fighting in the Y.P.J. are real yet echo the utopian feminist ideals Perret imagined. The artist hopes to honor their actions as well as bring attention to their efforts to build a society based on freedom and equality. Perret has collaborated with musicians, dancers, and singers to create performances referenced in The Crystal Frontier, as well as works that are independent of her foundational text. Most recently, Perret staged the performance entitled Figures for the 2014 Biennale of Moving Images in Geneva. Featuring a life-size marionette whose body is animated by a dancer, with vocals and music provided by a singer and musician, the performance cycles through an elaborate narrative that involves an Indian mystic, a 19th-century American Shaker, a 1950s computer programmer, an artificial intelligence, and a journalist. The staging of the piece recalls the Japanese style of puppetry known as bunraku, in which the manipulators appear on stage alongside the puppets, providing a parallel performance of real and artificial bodies in motion. With Figures, Perret has managed to tie together the seemingly disparate identities of women throughout history through the different characters that both dancer and puppet
embody during the course of the performance. Singer and musician sit alongside the stage and function as the voice of the puppet, as in the tradition of bunraku. The performance begins with the dancer and puppet as separate entities, and as it goes on, the two gradually merge, then disappear, to be replaced on stage by a character with a typewriter. As Perret has explained, Figures presents several threads of inquiry, such as the place of women in the development of artificial intelligence and the visionary states of dissociation from one’s body achieved via meditation and ritualistic trance. These threads were touched upon in The Crystal Frontier, with entries written by fictional feminist activist Beatrice Mandell, who commented on the subject of human mechanization as primitive artificial intelligence: “…until we came here we were in fact already machines, sophisticated extensions of computers and automated devices. We feel we were closer to the machines we operated than to the CEOs there who harnessed our power.” Similar thoughts appear in Diotima Schwarz’s essay written during her time in New Ponderosa: “Does the trance allow you to escape the mechanization of your body and your mind by capitalist society or is it actually just another form of mechanical compulsion?” Through lyrical and melodic repetition and a steady percussive beat, Perret’s Figures induces its viewers into a trance that encourages an escape from our bodies and minds, if only for the duration of the 28-minute performance.
PERFORMANCES JUNE 2 / 8:30 PM JUNE 4 / 2 – 5 PM American premiere performance of Figures June 2 and world premiere of a newly commissioned performance June 4, both in collaboration with the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Soluna International Music and Arts Festival. Mai-Thu Perret, Orchids grow in the hidden quarters of the palace. Though never displayed, they never cease emitting their fragrance, 2015, Glazed ceramic, 15 3/4 x 59 in. (40 x 150 cm) Mai-Thu Perret, This secret–so rarely met even in ten thousand ages–I will not tell, I will not tell, 2015, Glazed ceramic, 15 3/4 x 59 in. (40 x 150 cm) Néon 6, 2015 (detail), Neon, 39 3/8 x 25 1/2 in. (100 x 65 cm) Installation view, VNH Gallery, Paris, October – November 2015. Photo: Philippe Servent, courtesy of the artist. © Mai-Thu Perret The Sightings series is generously sponsored by Lara and Stephen Harrison. Sightings: Mai-Thu Perret is supported by FABA Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte Aston Martin of Dallas is the official car of the Nasher Sculpture Center.
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
SPRING EXHIBITION EVENTS
Ann Veronica Janssens, Blue, Red, and Yellow, 2001 (installation view).
MEMBER PREVIEW ANN VERONICA JANSSENS / SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 / 9:30 – 11 AM Member Brunch Reception and Exhibition Viewing All Members are invited to experience a special morning preview of the exhibition Ann Veronica Janssens featuring Blue, Red and Yellow, which is best viewed in daylight. Your exclusive Member invitation admits two guests. RSVP by January 15 to memberevents@nashersculpturecenter.org or 214.242.5154.
LEARN 360: ARTISTS, CRITICS, CURATORS SPEAKER SERIES ANN VERONICA JANSSENS, EXHIBITION ARTIST / SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 / 11:30 AM PIERO GOLIA, EXHIBITION ARTIST, IN CONVERSATION WITH ANN GOLDSTEIN, CURATOR / SATURDAY, JANUARY 30 / 2 PM MAI-THU PERRET, EXHIBITION ARTIST / SATURDAY, MARCH 12 / 2 PM Free with admission. Free for Members. Complimentary wine reception. RSVP online or email 360RSVP@nashersculpturecenter.org. Sponsored by Sylvia Hougland. Supported in part by: City of Dallas, Office of Cultural Affairs.
NASHER NOW: CLASSES FOR ADULTS ANN VERONICA JANSSENS / THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 / 6 – 8 PM Enjoy an interactive tour and art-making experience focused on the work of Ann Veronica Janssens. MAI-THU PERRET / SATURDAY, MAY 21 / 10 AM – 12 PM Learn more about the work of Mai-Thu Perret through a guided tour and studio project. RSVP online or email lwilbur@nashersculpturecenter.org.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
JOEL SHAPIRO MAY 7 – AUGUST 21 One of the most prominent and influential sculptors of our time, Joel Shapiro has long used simplified geometric forms to explore the physical tensions of bodies in motion. Composed of rectangular wooden boxes that are often then cast in bronze, his work evokes figures, frequently suggestive of people or trees, and makes palpable the circumstances of their physical existence through masses variously stretched, balanced, poised on point, and held aloft. In the past 15 years, Shapiro has begun investigating more tenuous forms—often suspended in midair—some of which appear to be falling or disintegrating. His exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center will feature a dynamic new installation of brightly painted, volumetric forms, on the floor and suspended in space at different heights and angles. This new direction in Shapiro’s work has been described by Los Angeles Times critic David Pagel as “a jungle gym for vision.”A series of recent drawings, as well as key works by Shapiro from the Nasher’s permanent collection, will also be on view, providing insight into the artist’s practice and context for better understanding his current concerns.
SAVE THE DATE SEATED PATRON DINNER* / MAY 5 MEMBER RECEPTION / MAY 6 *Brancusi Circle and above Installation view, Joel Shapiro: New Work, Pace Gallery, New York, 2010. © 2016 Joel Shapiro / Artists Rights Society, NY. Image courtesy of Pace Gallery.
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ACQUISITIONS
RECENT ACQUISITIONS The Nasher Sculpture Center was honored to receive several recent important gifts of works of art. These donations, from supporters of the Nasher Sculpture Center here in Dallas and farther afield, include an early work by British artist Garth Evans, a sculpture featured in a recent Sightings installation by Los Angeles-based artist Nathan Mabry, and a video installation by Dallas artist lauren woods. These acquisitions represent significant milestones for the Nasher Sculpture Center: each is the first work by the artist to enter the collection, and the video installation by lauren woods is the Nasher’s first new media work. We welcome these works into the collection and look forward to incorporating them into our installations.
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GARTH EVANS British, born 1934 Frames (Echoes) 7 [Nos. 25-28], 1971–74 Painted plywood 25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm) 25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm) 27 x 30 in. (68.6 x 76.2 cm) 27 x 45 in. (68.6 x 114.3 cm) Nasher Sculpture Center, Gift of Jacqueline and Peter B. Stewart Photo: Kevin Todora
Evans’s quartet of works titled Frames, part of a series made in the early 1970s, pushes the rigidity of plywood to its limits. Totaling 28 sculptures in all, the series starts with a simple square divided into quadrants like a window frame. With each successive work, a portion of the grid becomes more curved and extends farther from the wall. The group given to the Nasher is the last in the series, exhibiting the most radical transformation of the grid. “What was important about the plywood,” Evans later noted, “was its springiness. It would take a curve in a natural way; beyond that it would break. So those wall pieces are all about what the plywood does.” Although still under-recognized for his contributions, Evans represents an important link from the formal experiments of Anthony Caro in the 1960s to the conceptual advances of the next generation of sculptors, including Tony Cragg and Richard Deacon. Not long after making the Frames series, Evans moved to the United States, where he has held academic appointments at Mount Holyoke College, Yale University, and The New York Studio School, where he continues to teach today.
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NATHAN MABRY American, born 1978 Process Art (B-E-A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E) [Bulldog], 2011 Bronze 94 1/2 x 43 x 36 in.(240 x 109.2 x 91.4 cm) Nasher Sculpture Center, Gift of Stefan Simchowitz Photo: Kevin Todora
This work by Nathan Mabry was shown for the first time in the United States in his Sightings exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2013. The sculpture is part of the artist’s ongoing Process Art series, in which he combines well- known works of modern art with masks from popular culture, often revealing unexpected sympathies in their juxtaposition. The Nasher’s work belongs to a group of six figures based on Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais. Mabry commissioned an artist to remake the figures from Rodin’s great monument commemorating the noblemen of Calais, who in 1347 sacrificed themselves to King Edward III of England, so that the rest of the town would be spared. Mabry then combined the figures with American sports mascot heads, creating strangely touching new archetypes. One can still see the face of Jacques de Wissant inside the mascot head, the exaggerated and generalized creases of the bulldog head echoing the furrowed brow and tired eyes of the remade burgher inside. At turns curious, dark, and amusing, this juxtaposition of revered Modernist monument with elements of popular sports culture alters how we see both subjects and creates a powerful, new, complex work of art that touches on transformation, violence, and loss.
LAUREN WOODS
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Lookin’ down on my soul now, tell me I’m in control now Tell me I can live long and I can live wrong and I can live right And I can sing song and I can unite with you that I love You that I like, look at my life and tell me I fight, (ongoing). Single-channel video projection installation in corner 24 x 59 x 112 in. (61 x 149.9 x 284.5 cm) Nasher Sculpture Center, Gift of an anonymous donor Image: courtesy of Zhulong Gallery
lauren woods is a multimedia artist whose film, video, and sound installations explore history and modern-day social politics to reveal persistent problems related to racial strife. woods often exposes uncomfortable truths through her site-specific installations, such as Drinking Fountain #1, 2013, for which she transformed a public drinking fountain inside the Dallas County Records Building into a site-specific and interactive sculpture that displays footage from 1960s civil rights protests each time the fountain is activated. The remnant of the Jim Crow-era sign designating the fountain as “Whites Only,” for decades concealed by a metal plate that had accidentally become detached, serves as a reminder of the past that woods displayed prominently on a video monitor, forcing the viewer to acknowledge this history before receiving water from the fountain.
With Lookin’ down, woods again draws from archival footage to create a silent, looped projection of a man dancing in the street. What appears to be a joyful performance is revealed as an act of defiance and resistance once the source material is known. woods has used footage from the 1963 Birmingham Campaign—better known for its stark images documenting police brutality in the form of firehoses and attack dogs used against teenage protestors—and reduced the footage to the lone figure of a man dancing in the street. The title of woods’s video installation comes from the lyrics of a song written by musician Flying Lotus, featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar, who delivers a message of struggle and expression that dovetails with the content of woods’s civil rights imagery. Lookin’ down is the first new media work to enter the Nasher Sculpture Center collection.
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NASHER COLLECTION
ARTIST ERNESTO NETO GIVES HIS PERSPECTIVE ON A WORK FROM THE NASHER COLLECTION
Matisse Cries Madeleine Dances In a small corner of the world There is a work that fascinates me Madeleine, with her rough skin With a feminine way of being Reveals the sculptor, who paints with his fingers The magnitude of time, which from afar dances with her. We feel a bit awkward, we feel lost, wondering… If everything She shows us Is not already contained In the whole of the body she veils? Naked skin dressed with skin, Hiding in the arms what she offers in the womb, Madeleine dances with the mind of blind eyes licking our fingers, wetting our lips With her we become calm, excited, Matisse-like While she, oblivious to all, with her balancing atmosphere Sculpts a line of folds over air molecules So that our “sweet river”1 of salt tears Can find a rhythm to relax our plaster skin
> More on Ernesto Neto Lygia Clark, “Meu Doce Rio / My Sweet River”
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Photos and text by Ernesto Neto Henri Matisse French, 1869–1954 Madeleine I, 1901 (cast 1903) Painted plaster, 23 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. (60.3 x 24.1 x 19.1 cm.) Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection
CATCHING UP WITH DIANA AL-HADID This year, the artist Diana Al-Hadid was named in Apollo magazine’s inaugural “40 under 40” American issue, which highlighted “young stars…set to continue pushing artistic boundaries.” Since her Sightings exhibition here at the Nasher in 2011, Al-Hadid has done exactly that with a materially various and ingenious body of work that plumbs the vocabularies of ancient architecture, paintings and textiles, as well as classical mythology and literature. Her sculptures often reference ruins and teem with movement, even as the plaster and paint from which they’re made are hardened and stiff. Recently, she has begun a series of paintings that deploy some of her casting methods to make surfaces as ethereal as lace but as formidable as her sculptural works. The Nasher’s Communication Director Lucia Simek caught up with Diana recently and chatted about this most recent work, as well as what’s up next for the artist. LUCIA SIMEK: For your most recent show at OHWOW gallery in L.A., you exhibited a series of paintings that occupied space both on the walls and extended from them, almost like curtains. Can you tell us a bit about these works and how they relate to your interest in architectural forms and historical motifs? Are the paintings a direction you’ll continue to explore? DIANA AL-HADID: The installation I made for Moran Bondaroff Gallery (previously OHWOW gallery), called Smoke Screen, was the first inset panel I made that a person could walk through rather than around. It evenly divided the space in the floorplan, with the large arching cavity peaked about 10 feet high, reaching the bottom of the truss in the ceiling a little left of center. The opening allowed passage to the back of the gallery, and consequently removed the bulk of the image in the work, in a sense denying the viewer the main part of the narrative but allowing access to other narratives in the space. I like your suggestion that it could be thought of almost like a curtain. In fact, I see a
relationship between my other panels (and especially this particular work) with tapestry and weaving, not only because tapestry has so often inspired the imagery, but also because the meticulous process in which the image is reinforced is perhaps somewhere between woven fabric and painted fresco. The small painted marks are reinforced little by little and create a large plane that, as you say, becomes a kind of architectural form--an archway, a passageway, a dividing wall. The process is additive but the form in the end appears to be subtractive or thinning. The imagery is a combination of landscapes and figures drawn from, or cut and pasted from various historical works. In the end, the source material for my panels fades away behind the many layers of the process. I have been making these panels in the past few years alongside my sculptures and drawings and have found them to be a natural fit between the two. I imagine I’ll continue to make them as long as they are teaching me something, just as I continue to make drawings and sculptures. LS: Are there any techniques you’ve landed upon recently in the studio that are steering your work in an exciting direction? DA-H: Yes, I’m exploring materials and processes (outside of strictly metal casting) that will allow me to make work outdoors. I’m very hopeful about this new direction. LS: We know you’re an avid reader of the classics, both in terms of books and artwork. Are you reading or looking at anything right now that is affecting how you make work? DA-H: I have been looking a lot at tapestry recently, particularly millefleurs tapestries. I visited the Cloisters to see the unicorn tapestries again recently. The incredibly rich detail of floral growth creates grids and beautiful irregular natural forms that have been surfacing in my most recent panels.
> More on Diana Al-Hadid
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OVERHEARD
OVERHEARD CHALET DALLAS I AM THE LISTENER BEING ASKED TO WRITE, SO NOW, AS THE WRITER, I FIND MYSELF TAKING THE WORDS OF ANOTHER WRITER WHO SPOKE TO ME AS I WAS THE LISTENER. This other writer came to the Chalet and spoke of many things…swamis brushing skeptical third eyes with peacock feathers…but one thing in particular struck me, she said “The Nasher is the heart of Dallas.” This statement had all the grace and openness of a simple poetic metaphor, “love is in the air…” At the time, I was a newly arrived Listener and the writer’s words felt quite formative and informative. I think about an anatomical metropolis, and it seems to me that a city is large enough to require multiple hearts and many stomachs. And here I am, finding myself as a capillary grafted onto one of the hearts of Dallas. To be aware is to listen to your heart. This is not a platitude. Perhaps the only thing Siddhartha heard was his own breathing, which was not his own, but the Universe. Nirvana. What can be heard within a city heart? What flows through? A 22-year-old woman asks if a space exists between her desire to be an opera singer and her passion for architecture. We talk about the voice as an emanation from the subtle structures of the body, and the opera house as a resounding extension of the vocal cavity. Often what is heard is the voices of adolescents as they are asked to speak in front of their peers. Their voices, tender and trepid, push through the full weight of silence pressing against every word. The heart of a metropolis also sounds like comfort. People come in and sit, silently staring out the window, soothed by the percolations of the Huyghe aquarium maintaining its endogenous equilibrium. The look on their faces brings me the feeling of belonging. Or the girl from India who has a book published in Hindi. She tells me a story about the village of people who mend broken hearts, weaving with strands from their souls. What flows is the ramshackle melody of young children’s voices as they cry out in unison, singing along to the choruses of simple tales read aloud by a librarian who has become a master of vetting out the spirit contained in children’s books. The gathering becomes what we perhaps always wish to be, a people singing together in harmony yet still maintaining each individual voice’s character and charm. Yes, when I think about it, these encounters and situations feel vital and alive. And from what I know of my own heart, those are the sorts of things that are contained within. – Maneesh Raj Madahar, The Listener
CHALET DALLAS ON VIEW THROUGH FEBRUARY 7
> See instagrams from Chalet Dallas visitors
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OVERHEARD
FRESH PERSPECTIVES
STUDENTS RESPOND TO CHALET DALLAS
On October 17, the Nasher hosted 40 high school and college students from schools around North Texas to be part of an interactive learning experience in Chalet Dallas. Students were invited to read about the project, then meet in the space to discuss with other students and create art with artists. We asked four participants to share their take on the day. What were you expecting the Chalet Dallas to be like? CAT: Wowee, when it comes to expectations, mine were much different than what I saw and experienced. I was not expecting these intimate alcoves where each different space provided some new, strange perspective in the room not only aurally, but visually as well. I was pleasantly surprised! CHANDLER: While we knew going into the event generally the structure and purpose of it, we also knew that part of the beauty of the Chalet is that you aren’t supposed to know 100 percent what it was going to be like or what would happen when you got there. The experience was to be whatever you made of it, so I can say that it definitely exceeded my expectations in terms of the uniqueness of the art and social experience combination. Did your perspective on the space change after visiting and/or hearing from others? LINDSAY: While we were in the space and every group was discussing what articles they read and what their view on the space was, I heard a lot more variations in perspectives than I ever thought I would. I enjoyed hearing how people tied personal experiences in with the Chalet experience. While in the space, my perspective changed with the size, lighting and sound. I was also intrigued by how we had to move around in the space and navigate around the objects.
CAT: The moment I stepped into the space, my senses were all engaged. The environment itself was visually absolutely beautiful, and as we all shuffled in, shoes scuffing against the smooth cork floor, the slightly awkward silence was adorned with the happy bubbling of the fish tank. I sat in awe as the small room began to fill with art lovers, and I realized that there is no way I could ever experience the room properly through pictures in articles, the room lends itself to a sort of sacred duty of socialization that I greatly wished my school classrooms had. EMMA: At the start of the day, we interacted with others in a large group, showing the ability of the space to accommodate large groups of people. However, going back to the Chalet twice more later on in the day, in smaller groups, exposed a more playful side of the Chalet, seeing as people were more willing to move around the space quickly as they made new discoveries. Overall, I think this really solidified my understanding of the Chalet’s purpose in inspiring conversation and building a community; the art served as a catalyst for insightful, meaningful conversations. Was there anything that surprised you during your visit? EMMA: I was a part of a group that [worked with an artist to make] a scale model of another space that served a similar purpose as the Chalet. Before building, our group went back into the Chalet to explore once more. Much to my surprise, the artist himself was there. I got to introduce myself and talk to him very briefly. He then listened in on some of our group’s conversation. That was really mindblowing to me to watch an artist listen to the responses to his work.
CHALET DALLAS ON VIEW THROUGH FEBRUARY 7
Photos clockwise: Emma, Cat, Chandler, Lindsay and a classmate make themselves at home in Chalet Dallas; Chandler shows off a trophy sculpture as part of a project with artist Christopher Blay; artist Kristen Cochran chats with students from the Vickery Meadow Eagle Scholars; students create an installation with artist Kristen Cochran ; a student works on a trophy sculpture as part of a project with artist Christopher Blay; a student from Paul Quinn College introduces herself.
ARTIST MICROGRANTS This fall, five artists were chosen to receive Nasher Artist Microgrants by a jury made up of Dallas-based artists Frances Bagley, Annette Lawrence, and John Pomara and the Swissborn artist Mai-Thu Perret, as well as Nasher Assistant Curator Leigh Arnold and Nasher Curator of Education Anna Smith. Each fall 2015 awardee will receive $1,000 to realize projects related to his or her studio practice. ALICIA EGGERT / Denton Eggert plans to use the Nasher Sculpture Center Artist Microgrant to finish new work for her 2016 exhibition, The Sun Doesn’t Go Down, at Harvard Medical School’s Transit Gallery, which includes a hologram of the moon waxing and waning in real time. 1. You are (on) an island, 2011, neon, wood, latex paint, 120 x 120 x 96 in. BRIAN FRIDGE / Dallas Fridge will use funds to complete two new video works, Sequence 8.1 and Sequence 22.1, which explore light, matter, space and time. The Microgrant will pay for studio space and various commonplace materials to experiment with during the creation of each video. 2. Sequence 36.1 - 36.5, 2010, black-and-white silent video, 8:00, dimensions variable, installation view at Horton Gallery, New York, 2014 KELSEY HEIMERMAN / Dallas Heimerman wants to increase the scale of her paintings and plans to use her Microgrant to construct 10 new panels to continue her work about the state of contemporary society. 3. A smile in the mind, 2015, oil on wood panel, 60 x 30 in. MICHAEL MORRIS / Dallas Morris will use the funds to realize a 2012 work, Blue Movie, as a film print rather than a digital transfer. He has expanded the work over the past three years and the Microgrant will pay lab and negative cutter fees to finish the process. 4. Still from Blue Movie, 2012, cyanotype print on 16mm film transferred to digital video DARRYL RATCLIFF / Dallas Ratcliff will use his Microgrant to realize the next installment of Basquiats and Gravy: Dallas Artists Brunch, an opportunity for artists of diverse backgrounds to meet each other. As with all of Ratcliff’s social sculptures, his work aims to further the vision for a culturally equitable city. 5. Soft Power: Intimacy, 2015, social sculpture, dimensions variable The Nasher Microgrants are made possible by the generous support of Michael M. Corman and Kevin Fink and Christen and Derek Wilson
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You are (on) an island, 2011 120” x 120” x 96” neon, wood, latex paint This neon sign's message, “You are on an island,” is animated by the word “on” flashing on and off at regular intervals, transforming an initially obvious statement into a reflective and philosophical inquiry...“You are an island.” Made in collaboration with Mike Fleming.
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Sequence 36.1 - 36.5, 2010, black and white silent video, 8:00, dimensions variable, installation view at Horton Gallery, New York, 2014
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cy 2015 Social Sculpture Dimensions variable
A smile in the mind 50”x60” Oil on wood panel 2015
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STEPHEN LAPTHISOPHON TOCCARE (NON) TOCCARE
Beginning last October, Dallas-based artist Stephen Lapthisophon created a project entitled Toccare (Non) Toccare, which acted in conversation with the recent exhibition Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest. In the midst of this four-installment project, the Nasher’s Social Media Coordinator Cassandra Emswiler Burd checked in with Lapthisophon about the origins of the project. Emswiler Burd helped to document each phase of Toccare (Non) Toccare for its primarily digital existence on the Nasher’s Website and social media channels.
CASSANDRA EMSWILER BURD: What work on display in Penone’s recent exhibition at the Nasher were you most drawn to? STEPHEN LAPTHISOPHON: Being able to see the pile of potatoes (Patate) and the body/leaves piece (Soffio di foglie) in person was the highlight of the show for me. Both still remain as audacious, mysterious and elegant as ever for me. CEB: When did you first encounter Penone’s practice? SL: In undergraduate school I saw reproductions of Penone’s work in art magazines and in Germano Celant’s book on Arte Povera. CEB: How has his work influenced the things you’ve made prior to Toccare (Non) Toccare? SL: I respond to the quiet tone and intensity of the thinking in his work. There is a poetry to the leaps and observations he makes. The subjects—body, time, duration and nature— interest me. Like Smithson, he uses nature and earth to address issues of human history and thinks through the natural world to tell us things about ourselves. More and more I am struck by the fact that bodies make works of art and reflect our aspirations and limitations—our timeliness, through the things our bodies make.
CEB: The book you’re working on, which will be published at the end of the project, is titled Notebook 1967-68, taken from American poet Robert Lowell’s text of the same name. Is there a specific passage from Lowell’s text that inspired the association with Toccare (Non) Toccare? SL: The use of the Lowell book as antecedent comes from a series of coincidences and parallels. 1967-8 was a significant time for me. It was also the time of many of the first Arte Povera exhibitions. My project serves as an extended “notebook” and reflection of poetry itself. In addition, it is through Lowell that I first read in translation a number of Italian poets, most notably Leopardi and Montale. CEB: The title of this project translates into Touch (Do Not) Touch. Can you explain how touch enters into the making and reception of the work? SL: Touch, touching, takes many forms. Language is an important part of my work and I want to play in its many meanings—physical contact, gesture, proximity, madness, influence and the actuality of bodies all play a part in my (and his) work. Influence can be seen as a kind of touch and I am wanting to address my own influence by Penone. Yet as close as we get there is a kind of distance that is always enforced—“no touching.” It is what bodies do and do not do.
> Watch Lapthisophon’s process
GALLERY LAB: TOCCARE (NON) TOCCARE FEATURING STEPHEN LAPTHISOPHON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 / 2 – 3 PM
#INSIDENASHER This past November’s Instameet began early one morning in Chalet Dallas, where friends of InstaDFW gathered to explore the Nasher Galleries and Garden and document moments that inspired them. Only a few of the group’s photographers are featured here—search Instagram with the #InsideNasher hashtag to see the full set from this winter’s Instameet. 1 Aliciana Bowers / @_aliciana 2 Ashlyn Landers / @ashlynlanders 3 James Blessinger / @jamesblessinger 4 Laura Marquez / @woah.laura 5 Michael Trozzo / @mtrozzo
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LEARN
3 6 0 : A R T I S T S , C R I T I C S , C U R AT O R S S P E A K E R S E R I E S The Nasher’s ongoing 360 speaker series features conversations and lectures on the ever-expanding definition of sculpture with the minds behind some of the world’s most innovative artwork, architecture and design. We hope you will join us for new insights, perspectives and stimulating ideas. Seating is limited. Free with admission. Free for Members. Complimentary wine reception. To RSVP, please visit nashersculpturecenter.org/360 or contact 360RSVP@nashersculpturecenter.org. Sponsored by Sylvia Hougland. Supported in part by City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.
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A N N V E R O N I C A J A N S S E N S , E X H I B I T I O N A R T I S T / SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 / 11:30 AM
Known primarily as a light artist, Ann Veronica Janssens is interested in “situations of dazzlement… the persistence of vision, vertigo, saturation, speed, and exhaustion”—in other words, how the body responds to certain scientific phenomena and conditions put upon it. In her Nasher exhibition, the first one-person museum presentation in the United States for the Brussels-based artist, Janssens will install several sculptural works that allow viewers to encounter shifts in surface, depth, and color, challenging perception and destabilizing their sense of sight and space. Her ability to create these sensations in the body is contingent on the way light acts upon and within architecture and the sculptural objects that Janssens makes. Often, to further extend the desired effects of light’s various qualities, she creates environments in which she can test the science of the eye with the manipulation of light within the space, sometimes deploying fog to act in giving shape, as it were, to light. “By pushing back the limits of perception, by rendering visible the invisible, these experiences act as passages from one reality to another.” – Ann Veronica Janssens
ABOVE LEFT: Ann Veronica Janssens, Photo © Ivan Put ABOVE RIGHT: Ann Veronica Janssens, Blue, Red, and Yellow, 2001 (installation view). Photo: Pascual Mercé, courtesy EACC Castelon. © Ann Veronica Janssens
P I E R O G O L I A , E X H I B I T I O N A R T I S T, I N C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H A N N G O L D S T E I N , C U R AT O R / SATURDAY, JANUARY 30 / 2 PM
Piero Golia Piero Golia, creator of Chalet Dallas, was born in 1974 in Naples, Italy and has lived in Los Angeles since 2003. His work has been shown in major galleries and museums in Europe and the United States, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, MOMA P.S. 1 in New York, MaXXi in Rome, Witte de With in Rotterdam, SITE Santa Fe, and Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. In 2004, his feature film Killer Shrimps was selected for the Venice Film Festival, and in 2005, he cofounded the Mountain School of Arts, an educational institution that has rapidly become a major center on the cultural map of the city of Los Angeles. Ann Goldstein Ann Goldstein served as director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 2010 to 2013, overseeing the reopening of the renovated and expanded facility in September 2012. Prior to joining the Stedelijk, she served as senior curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA), where she worked for 26 years from 1983 to 2009. With a curatorial career spanning 30 years, she is recognized for such large-scale historical survey exhibitions as A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968;1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art; and A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation, as well as solo exhibitions of the work of Mike Kelley, William Leavitt, Martin Kippenberger, Lawrence Weiner, Cosima van Bonin, Jennifer Bornstein, Barbara Kruger, Christopher Wool, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cady Noland, and Roni Horn. In 2012, in recognition of her work, the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College presented Ms. Goldstein with the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. “Years from now, though, when the Chalet exists as a collection of foggy memories and thrilling exaggerations, it can be written about in art history books and romance novels for art lovers.” – Katya Tylevich, Domus
ABOVE LEFT: Piero Golia, Photo by Kevin Todora ABOVE RIGHT: Ann Goldstein
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L E A R N / 3 6 0 : A R T I S T S , C R I T I C S , C U R AT O R S S P E A K E R S E R I E S
M A I - T H U P E R R E T, E X H I B I T I O N A R T I S T / SATURDAY, MARCH 12 / 2 PM
Swiss-born Mai-Thu Perret has spent the past 16 years making work born from a fictional feminist art commune she created called The Crystal Frontier, set in New Mexico. The imaginary women of the commune make work that runs the visual gamut, from the painterly to the sculptural, often employing the aesthetic tropes of Modernism and aligning the women with those major art historical movements. “I think we all, at times, wonder how it would be if the world were different, that’s the essence of imagination. I don’t think utopian ideas are bound to fail, but quite likely when they become real or succeed they stop being called utopias.” – Mai-Thu Perret ABOVE LEFT: Mai-Thu Perret. Photo: Annik Wetter ABOVE RIGHT: Mai-Thu Perret, This secret–so rarely met even in ten thousand ages–I will not tell, I will not tell, 2015, Glazed ceramic, 15 3/4 x 59 in. (40 x 150 cm). Photo: Philippe Servent, courtesy of the artist. © Mai-Thu Perret The Sightings series is generously sponsored by Lara and Stephen Harrison. Sightings: Mai-Thu Perret is supported by FABA Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte Aston Martin of Dallas is the official car of the Nasher Sculpture Center.
AGENTS, ADVISORS, D E V I L S A N D A P O S TAT E S : T H E N E W A RT W O R L D PA N E L D I S C U S S I O N SATURDAY, APRIL 16 / 2 PM In a rapidly changing market, who defines the value of art? How can collectors navigate an industry that is increasingly complex in terms of geography and channels of distribution? A panel of art world players with divergent perspectives on the buying and selling of art will discuss the shifting hierarchies and new structures that are changing the way culture is marketed and thought about.
NASHER PRIZE CHAMPIONING THE PRACTICE OF SCULPTURE The Nasher Sculpture Center proudly presents the Nasher Prize, an annual international award that will be presented to a living artist whose work has had an extraordinary impact on the understanding of sculpture. An international jury of renowned museum directors, curators, artists and art historians who have an expertise in the field, and varying perspectives on the subject, convened at Tate Britain in London on July 3, 2015 and selected the first-ever Nasher Prize laureate, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. Ms. Salcedo was revealed as the winner of the inaugural Nasher Prize on September 30, 2015, and will be in Dallas, April 2, 2016, to receive the award, which includes a $100,000 prize and a commemorative object commissioned by Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger and designed by Nasher Sculpture Center architect Renzo Piano. The Nasher Sculpture Center is one of a few institutions worldwide dedicated exclusively to the exhibition and study of modern and contemporary sculpture. As such, the prize is an apt extension of the museum’s mission and its commitment to advancing developments in the field. By recognizing those artists who have influenced our understanding of sculpture and its possibilities, the Nasher Sculpture Center will further its role as a leading institution in enhancing and promoting this vital art form.
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NASHER PRIZE JURY July 1, 2015 / London
On July 2, 2015 the Nasher Prize Jurors, comprising of internationally renowned museum directors, curators, artists, and art historians who have an expertise in the field of sculpture, met at the Tate Britain to deliberate and select the inaugural Nasher Prize Laureate. The 2016 Nasher Prize jurors were: Phyllida Barlow, artist; Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator of Special Projects in Modern Art, National Gallery of Art; Okwui Enwezor, Director, Haus der Kunst; Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT); Steven Nash, founding Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center and Director Emeritus of the Palm Springs Art Museum; Alexander Potts, art historian; and Sir Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate. After a day of lively discussion and debate the Jury unanimously selected Doris Salcedo as the winner of the 2016 Nasher Prize. “It is a great responsibility to select the first winner of a new prize, as it sets the tone for what the prize can and is willing to achieve,” said Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota. “In selecting a winner, we wanted to choose someone whose work was not only innovative, challenging, and significant, but also someone whose work continues to take risks, and address the changing contemporary conditions. From the outset, Doris Salcedo has created memorable work that deals with conflict. Most importantly, her work continues to evolve and change, both conceptually and aesthetically, as it addresses those social and political issues most relevant to us today.”
OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Left to Right: NIcholas Serota, Lynne Cooke, Jed Morse, Jeremy Strick, Steve Nash, Phyllida Barlow, Alexander Potts, Yuko Hasegawa, Okwui Enwezor, Nancy A. Nasher, David J. Haemisegger
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LAUREATE REVEAL September 30, 2015 / Dallas On September 30, at an event hosted at The Warehouse by Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Nasher Prize supporters and media were the first to celebrate the news of inaugural prize winner Doris Salcedo.
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1. Deedie Rose, Cindy Brown 2. Catherine Rose, Jeremy Strick, Jennifer Eagle 3. Howard Rachofsky 4. Elaine and Neils Agather 5. Margeurite Hoffman, Tom Lentz 6. Christiana Rees, Richard Patterson
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DORIS SALCEDO Inaugural Nasher Prize Laureate
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n April 1 and 2, the Nasher Sculpture Center will honor Colombian artist Doris Salcedo as the inaugural recipient of the Nasher Prize, an award that will be presented annually to a living artist who has made an extraordinary impact on our understanding of sculpture. In the pages of Nasher Magazine that follow, readers will find information about Salcedo and her work, including Plegaria Muda, a sculptural installation that will be on view at the Nasher this spring; a photo essay of the art scene in Bogotá; and the full schedule of events for Nasher Prize Celebration Weekend.
FOR THE PAST THREE DECADES, Salcedo has created sculptures and installations that transform familiar, everyday objects—chairs, shoes, roses, bricks—into moving and powerful testimonies of loss and remembrance. Working in a variety of modes, from objects and large-scale installations to public interventions, she has fearlessly taken creative and political risks to challenge audiences with innovative, significant work. Her art offers up silent, powerful, indelible images arising from unspeakable crimes, visited upon fragile human bodies, and in doing so, provides a way to feel, to remember, to speak, and, above all, to mourn. Salcedo’s commitment and her willingness to push artistic boundaries have already inspired a generation of artists, even as her work continues to grow and respond to current political events.
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Born in Bogotá in 1958, Salcedo began her artistic career with responses to the violence that has afflicted Colombia for half a century. As the country with the longest-lasting civil conflict in the Western Hemisphere, Colombia has been torn apart by battles between the government, paramilitary groups, and guerillas, resulting in the deaths of more than 220,000 people and the displacement of millions. Countless families have seen loved ones “disappeared,” presumed dead but with no information other than the fact of their absence. Salcedo’s art gives form to these and other devastating losses, using the materiality of sculpture to present what is otherwise too easily ignored, denied, or repressed. She spends long periods meeting and talking with the victims of violence and their families, and sees her art as performing a role similar to that of a funeral oration, exploring ways to keep lives and experiences from being forgotten. Describing “the experience of mourning” as “the central tenet in my art for the last 30 years,” Salcedo has explained, “The only possible response I can give in the face of irreparable absence is to produce images capable of conveying incompleteness, lack, and emptiness.” Salcedo’s work often begins with everyday, recognizable objects that have close connections to the human body. The transformations she effects on them frequently arise from her use of techniques and processes with connections to the care and tending of bodies alive and dead: wrapping, binding, encasing, cutting, and stitching. Some of her early sculptures were created from altered hospital furniture, such as bedframes, into which she also incorporated small plastic baby dolls, dipped in wax and bound to the joints of the sculpture with animal fiber; while making these works, Salcedo was thinking of the impoverished boys taken by drug cartels and forced to become assassins, yet the artistic results neither narrate nor preach. Doris Salcedo, Untitled, 2003, One thousand one hundred and fifty wooden chairs, approx. 33 x 20 x 20 ft. (10.1 x 6.1 x 6.1 m), ephemeral public project, 8th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, 2003. Photo: Sergio Calvijo. © Doris Salcedo.
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Installation: Doris Salcedo, June 26 — October 12, 2015, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Photo: David Heald © Guggenheim Museum, NY. © Doris Salcedo
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Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth, 2007, Concrete and metal, length 548 ft. (167 m). Installation: Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, October 9, 2007 — April 6, 2008. Š Doris Salcedo
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Doris Salcedo, Noviembre 6 y 7, 2002, Two hundred and eighty wooden chairs and rope, dimensions variable. Ephemeral public project, Palace of Justice, Bogotå, 2002. Š Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo, Acción de Duelo, 2007, Candles, approx. 267 x 350 ft. (81.4 x 106.7 m). Ephemeral public project, Plaza de Bolívar, Bogotá, 2007. Photo: Juan Fernando Castro. © Doris Salcedo
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Likewise, for a group of untitled sculptures made over the course of nearly 20 years, Salcedo took pieces of household furniture, such as armoires, beds, tables, and chairs, and filled them with concrete, sometimes pressing into them clothing provided by victims of violence or their families. Such works, while possessing the massive abstract geometry of minimal sculpture, turn their monolithic qualities into disquieting evocations of smothering weight and hidden truths. In Plegaria Muda (in loose translation, “silent prayer”), Salcedo created a flexible installation of long rectangular tables stacked top to top with a layer of earth between, their forms suggesting coffins—an effect heightened by the fragile shoots of grass sprouting from varied points along each overturned table. More recently, for A Flor de Piel, Salcedo stitched together treated rose petals to form an immense, translucently hued floor piece that seems simultaneously to be a skin, a shroud, and a blood-stained topography seen as if from above. Salcedo’s sculptures draw upon the traditions of abstract art for their power, seeking the conceptual and emotional resonance of elemental forms even as she incorporates traditional communal activities, such as sewing and weaving, into her works’ creation. This communal aspect is also vital to her formidable body of public sculpture, which was initiated in 1999-2000 with a series of interventions in the streets of Bogotá commemorating the murder of Jaime Garzón, a political satirist, in which roses were laid across streets and hung from walls. For Noviembre 6 y 7 (2002), Salcedo marked the 17th anniversary of a siege and massacre at the Colombian Palace of Justice by lowering empty chairs, each representing a victim, from the building’s roof, while in Acción de Duelo (2007), almost 24,000 candles were lit in Bogotá’s Plaza del Bolívar in response to the murders of 11 Colombian deputies by Marxist guerillas. Perhaps her bestknown such intervention, Shibboleth put a massive, 550-footlong crack into the floor of the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, using this rupture of public space as a way to meditate upon immigration, assimilation, and the unfair and arbitrary decisions our prejudices can demand of others. Doris Salcedo’s works are held in many museum collections, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Neue Galerie, Kassel; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Tate, London. Her retrospective exhibition Doris Salcedo, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, will be on view at the Perez Art Museum, Miami, April 22 — July 17, 2016. For more information about the Nasher Prize and Doris Salcedo’s life and career, see nashersculpturecenter.org/art/nasher-prize.
Doris Salcedo, A Flor de Piel, 2012, Rose petals and thread, 257 x 42 ¼ in. (652.8 x 1070 cm). Installation: Doris Salcedo, June 26 — October 12, 2015, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Photo: David Heald © Guggenheim Museum, NY. © Doris Salcedo
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Doris Salcedo
PLEGARIA MUDA February 27–April 24
IN HONOR OF DORIS SALCEDO’S DESIGNATION AS THE INAUGURAL NASHER PRIZE LAUREATE, THE NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER IS PLEASED TO PRESENT AN INSTALLATION OF HER 2008–2010 WORK PLEGARIA MUDA (IN LOOSE TRANSLATION, “SILENT PRAYER”). Plegaria Muda consists of long, narrow wooden tables that have been covered with a thick layer of earth held in place by a table of the same size and type turned atop it. In places, bright green blades of grass push their way through the overturned tabletop, into the light. These objects—some 31 in the Nasher’s installation—are arrayed by the artist in an irregular, mazelike grid, the narrow spaces of which the viewer traverses to experience the work as a whole. The size and proportion of the tables approximate the human body; their wooden forms remind one inescapably of coffins, and the earth interred between them in turn suggests the soil displaced from a freshly dug grave. Walking among the tables creates the impression of being in the midst of a cemetery, a place of mourning, memory, and reflection. Salcedo’s impetus for the creation of Plegaria Muda came from a trip she made to Los Angeles in 2004, researching reports that more than 10,000 young people had been killed on the streets of L.A. in the past two decades. She spent time in the city’s southeast neighborhoods, researching the toll of gang violence on families and pondering the effects of such violence on those whose impoverished living conditions were already precarious, creating situations which Salcedo has described as “social death” or “death in life.” But while her time in Los Angeles was an impetus to Salcedo’s creation of Plegaria Muda, the work itself was also her response to the murder of some 2,500 young people in Colombia between 2003 and 2009 by the Colombian army. Salcedo accompanied a group of mothers searching for their “disappeared” sons, who were found in mass graves. The sons’ abandonment in these unmarked, desolate places and the mothers’ process of identifying them from remains and personal effects converge in Salcedo’s creation of a place of witnessing and mourning; she has explained: “Colombia—the country of the unburied dead—has hundreds of unidentified mass graves where the dead remain nameless. For this very reason, I inscribed the image of the grave within this piece, creating a space for remembrance, a graveyard that opens up a space for each body.”
> Watch Doris Salcedo speak about Plegaria Muda
Doris Salcedo, Plegaria Muda, 2008–10 Wood, mineral compound, metal, and grass. Installation: Museo nazionale delle arte delle XXI secolo (MAXXI), Rome, March 15 — June 24, 2012. Photo: Patrizia Tocci. © Doris Salcedo
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THE ART SCENE IN BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA by Catherine Craft Nasher Sculpture Center Curator
In December 2015, a group from Dallas traveled to Bogotá to visit the first Nasher Prize Laureate Doris Salcedo. The Nasher Sculpture Center’s Director Jeremy Strick, Curator Catherine Craft, and Marketing Manager Andrea Devaldenebro were accompanied by Quin Mathews and Manny Alcala of Quin Mathews Films, which will premiere a documentary on Salcedo and the Nasher Prize on Nasher Prize Weekend, and photographer Nan Coulter of FD magazine, local media partner for Nasher Prize. Salcedo and her studio team graciously sat for filmed interviews, and she also recommended Bogotá museums, art spaces, and galleries for us to see. María Belén Sáez de Ibarra, Director of Cultural Patrimony for the National University of Colombia, generously arranged the group’s visits to these and other sites. Three full days provided a breathtaking introduction to a city alive with a burgeoning art scene. This vitality is even more striking considering Colombia’s turbulent history and the speed with which the art scene has developed recently. Explained Sáez de Ibarra, “Art in Colombia has been characterized until nearly a decade ago by its isolation from international influence, led solely by local people and institutions, without representative partnerships much beyond its borders. The isolation, however, did not stop its growth during the 20th century, where starting in the 1960s, a small but growing cosmopolitan-minded art scene began to emerge….In Colombia, artists of all generations have been part of an engine of a political, passionate art…. Things have improved in the last decade, where we are now more permeated by an international professionalism, and with more presence in the world. This coincides with the increased international interest in collecting Latin American art, as well as an increasing institutional and academic discourse on Latin America – especially from a continental perspective, accompanied by the emergence of a handful of important Latin American art institutions in our hemisphere.”
Doris Salcedo and Jeremy Strick talk over coffee on the roof of her studio.
Considered one of the founders of Colombian art today, artist Beatriz González invited us to her studio to film an interview: Doris Salcedo has described González as her mentor: “I started working with her when I was 18 years old. She conveyed very clearly to us the idea that art does not come from your feelings, or your entrails, but is something you have to study, to research. She taught us how important it is to have a relationship with reality.” In the 1970s González selected Salcedo and other students from art schools in Bogotá for a school she had opened at the Museo de Arte Moderno, where she taught art history.
Catalina Casas, director of Casas Riegner, gave the Dallas group a tour of the current exhibitions at her gallery, including a group show on still life with some of Bogotá’s leading contemporary artists. Here Casas discusses a furniture piece by Beatriz González from 1971, Naturaleza mesa viva (Liviing nature table). Sometimes associated with Pop Art, González has long used images from magazines and newspapers to make art with cultural, social, and political implications.
María Belén Sáez de Ibarra directs the program of the National University’s art museum, which is well regarded as a laboratory for experimentation and creation for contemporary artists. During our visit, Barcelona-based artist Carlos Bunga had taken inspiration from the museum’s classic Modernist architecture to create an installation of sculptures and paintings from cardboard and other materials. In a departure from the museum’s usual approach, the exhibition was guest-curated by João Fernandes, who, like Bunga, is from Portugal; typically, Sáez de Ibarra curates each exhibition, providing a forum for Colombian artists to work on a large, institutionally supported scale.
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Sáez de Ibarra granted the group a sneak preview of work in progress for the university art museum’s next exhibition, which will feature the work of Bogotá artist Juan Fernando Herrán. Herrán studied at the Chelsea College of Art in London, and his work uses installation, photography, and video to explore issues related to the body and global displacement. Here, assistants make balls covered with human hair collected from salons for a large sculptural installation. Herrán’s exhibition opens this spring.
Among the most vibrant contemporary art spaces in the city is Flora ars + natura, an independent space offering residencies and exhibitions to local and international artists whose work involves nature and environmental issues. Headed by renowned curator José Roca (above right, with María Belén Sáez de Ibarra), Flora ars + natura offers a wide range of programming.
While the rest of the Dallas group interviewed, filmed, and photographed Salcedo and her team, Director Jeremy Strick accompanied Sáez de Ibarra to some of the city’s contemporary art spaces, including Instituto de Vision, which calls itself “a space for research, experimentation and exchange between local and international artists, markets, and cultural agents,” and NC-Arte, a curatorial and educational space run by the Fundación Neme, which featured an exhibition by Jorge Macchi, shown here.
Just outside the Museo de Oro, Nan Coulter and Jeremy Strick stop to snap an image of Montserrate, the 10,341foot mountain that towers over central Bogotá. The summit has been used as a site of religious celebration since the 17th century; today, a neon-lit funicular eases the journey upward. Photos by: Manny Alcala, Catherine Craft, Jeremy Strick, and Andrea Devaldenebro
Casas Riegner: www.casasriegner.com Museum of Art, National University of Colombia: www.divulgacion.unal.edu.co/museo_de_arte Although becoming familiar with Bogotá’s contemporary art scene was a priority for the Dallas group, we couldn’t resist a visit to the Museo del Oro—especially after Salcedo’s strong recommendation. Part of the Cultural Division of the Banco de la República, the Museo del Oro is the national repository for the country’s archaeological patrimony, particularly objects in gold made by the indigenous peoples of what is now Colombia. In recent years, ceramic objects from the same cultures have also been added to the collection.
Flora ars + natura: www.arteflora.org/en Instituto de vision: www.institutodevision.com NC-arte: www.nc-arte.org Museo del Oro: www.banrepcultural.org/gold-museum
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PUBLIC PROGRAMS
NASHER PRIZE DIALOGUES October 11, 2015 / London Nasher Prize Dialogues are a new series of discussions intended to foster international awareness of sculpture and of the Nasher Prize, and to stimulate conversation and debate. Programs—including panel discussions, lectures, and symposia—will be held yearly in Dallas and cities around the world, offering engagement with various audiences, and providing myriad perspectives and insight into the everexpanding field of sculpture. On October 11, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Nasher hosted its first Nasher Prize Dialogue, a panel discussion in association with the Henry Moore Institute called “Why Sculpture Now?” which explored the position of sculpture within art practice today. The conversation was broadcast live around the world on Periscope. “Why Sculpture Now?” featured panelists Okwui Enwezor, Director of the Haus Der Kunst, Munich and Nasher Prize juror; artist and Nasher Prize juror Phyllida Barlow; artists Michael Dean and Eva Rothschild; and Nasher Sculpture Center Chief Curator Jed Morse. The panel was moderated by Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute.The group had a lively debate, which roamed from ideas of morality to material to power to digital terrains to photography, but in keeping with the question at hand, the following is a highlight of each the panelists’ responses to why sculpture now?
OPPOSITE PAGE: Left to right: Jeremy Strick, Eva Rothschild, Jed Morse, Phyllida Barlow, Okwui Enwezor, Michael Dean and Lisa Le Feuvre
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LISA LE FEUVRE: I think that on the occasion of the first Nasher Prize, it really makes sense to think about ‘why sculpture now?’… As human beings we try and find our place in the world by making objects, and just when we think we’ve got it cracked, an object comes along and makes it even more difficult than we thought it was before. That’s why sculpture must be difficult, and that’s really why conversations around sculpture should be very, very difficult. Being human is hard, so sculpture is there to raise lots and lots of questions. So I guess, what we need to think about: Why is sculpture important? Why is it different from other art forms? What does it mean when an artist chooses to call himself a sculptor rather than an artist? What are the limits of sculpture? And really, why sculpture now? Every single version of the present demands a very particular response, and right now, it seems that sculpture is everywhere. Why is that the case now? OKWUI ENWEZOR: Thinking as a contemporary, or as a curator about… specific mediums, without the relationship of those mediums to other things, often times it’s difficult, and I think it’s a good question: How does an institution that is a medium-specific institution deal with that medium. That means that a medium has to function more than in this kind of classical format, it has to exist in an expanded field. And it is this field that I am particularly interested in, the field of culture. Culture, in the sense that the things that happen within the landscape of culture—be it objects, be it images, be it what you call sculpture—in a sense take root, in the culture. I would like to…talk about why sculpture now in relation to the laureate, Doris Salcedo, because what attracts me to Salcedo’s work is it straddles some space, somewhere between the attempt to realize or to think the question of the monument. On the other hand, to think about the question of a memorial. And why is this? And I think the reason why this is important, for me, is that sculpture’s ability to wrestle with,
at least since the postwar period, with the crisis of humanism is what really makes Salcedo, not only an intelligent thinker of forms, but how those forms in themselves are related to lives, related to culture. Sculpture, it seems to me, has this capacity to go beyond its own fracture, to go beyond its own material, and to enable us to think about narrative. And I think it is in the space of narrative that I believe that sculpture matters today, but that’s not to say that the formal experiments that one makes, that one sees, in the work of artists are not themselves interesting. PHYLLIDA BARLOW: Initially, my thoughts are, that sculpture… has been subjected to two kinds of arguments. One is a sort of moral argument: It must be this. It must be that. It’s got to belong to traditional things, it shouldn’t belong to traditional things. I’ve gotten to a stage in my life where I have to close the door and say I can’t embrace global art, I don’t know how to. I don’t know how to research the full panoply of Chinese art, or Indian art, or African art. At any rate, what does it mean? I’ve spent the morning with my granddaughter in the museum looking at a fantastic collection of African art, masks…staggering. That’s about as far as I can get in understanding global culture, if that is now what I’m morally meant to be doing. And if morally I can’t do it, then I’m a bad artist or I’ve failed or not done this and that. The moral arguments are just driving me nuts. Yes, sculpture is hugely expensive. It’s pointless. It’s hopeless. It’s often flawed and it often fails. But that’s the incredible thing. I don’t know about the encounter, I don’t care about the encounter when I’m in the studio. All I’m caring about is turning that empty space in front of me into something that is competing with me as a human being and that is an enormous challenge. I like the adventure of sculpture that maybe it takes me to literally physically places that I cannot reach.
EVA ROTHSCHILD: In many ways, [sculpture] is about the making, the very primary encounter; and when I say “primary,” my encounter with materiality is one of the things that really makes me a sculptor. It took me a really long time before I would name myself as such, and now I would name myself nothing other. It came about through… knowing what sculpture is because it took so long to get there. Sculpture can potentially be anything. The sculptor starts their day with the whole world as their oyster…everything can be included. It’s that sense of inclusion of the whole world of your material alongside that very basic idea that sculpture is something that has always been happening. Since the first person decided to take a stick and paint it and to name that stick a something other, to name it something without function but actually to be with and to inhabit. MICHAEL DEAN: It’s this word ‘sculpture’ that keeps coming back, and I don’t know if it’s just a useful hashtag these days, to place things. But my relationship, I mean I’ve got no idea how I ended up being called a sculptor, let alone making these things. It just started off as an impulse that I wanted to write. How do I get my writing into other people’s hands and have it function appropriately in a way? This sense of when you’ve had an experience in the world and you want to be able to share that experience and the politics involved in that. There was something that failed when I tried to write and share that in a conventional writing form, maybe because it fell into some type of hermeneutic pursuit in relation to literature and all these things. But when I turned that writing—and we haven’t got time to give you the whole story, but if I meet you down at the pub one time, I can go into it with you personally—but that sense of when you turn writing into an object and you have people standing in front of something that is irrefutably there, there’s a sense that as soon as people can touch that, that my presence as an author kind of evaporates, and it becomes more about
placing the people in front of the work as opposed to the work in front of the people somehow. So, I guess the word sculpture, sculpture hashtag, this kind of thing. Everything is sculpture, or nothing is sculpture, but in terms of a kind of sharing, it seems to be trying to strike something in equality between you and the viewer, and nothing does that better than a mass, hulking, object that can’t be denied. JED MORSE: It’s going to be interesting, I think, to see in the next several decades—after generations have grown up with the world at their fingertips, and being able to manipulate things on a tablet from the time they were born—if that kind of deeply primal instinct to engage, see something actually in person, and engage with it in one’s own space, persists. I think, or at least I’m hopeful, that it will… You know in the 1960s, when sculpture could include a wide variety of things—cutting directly into the earth, or a variety of found objects, or even time-based performances could be sculptures—Rosalind Krauss tried to wrestle with this in her essay on sculpture and the expanded field, and she was trying to take a very logical, structuralist perspective on it; to really say sculpture is still only one thing, and these new modes are actually other things, and we just have a hard time dealing with that, because it’s something that we don’t know. These are new things that are kind of out of our ken. But at the same time, they work on us very much the same way that sculpture does. They are interventions in our space; they are things that have to be physically experienced rather than just seen. So, I think, when we are talking about sculpture as an expanded field, I think that’s where you start to find the more radical edges of what we might call sculpture.
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PUBLIC PROGRAMS
NASHER PRIZE CELEBRATION WEEKEND March 31 – April 3 / Dallas
360 Speaker Series: Martha Thorne, Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Thursday, March 31 / 7 pm Nasher Sculpture Center Martha Thorne, Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, will present a public lecture on the evolution of disciplinebased awards and how they may inspire greater professional creativity and public awareness of the field. Open to the public. Free with admission. Free for Members. Complimentary wine reception with RSVP. Martha Thorne has been Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize since 2005. In that capacity she works closely with the jury; however, she does not vote in the proceedings. In 2015 she was appointed Dean of IE School of Architecture in Madrid, Spain. She served as Associate Curator of the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago from 1996 to 2005. She is the editor and author of several books, including The Pritzker Architecture Prize: The First Twenty Years, and author of numerous articles for architectural journals and encyclopedias. Ms. Thorne received a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics. RSVP to 360rsvp@nashersculpturecenter.org Sponsored by Sylvia Hougland. Supported in part by: City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.
Nasher Prize Dialogues featuring Doris Salcedo Friday, April 1 / 2 pm Montgomery Arts Theater at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Doris Salcedo, the inaugural Nasher Prize Laureate will present a public lecture on her artistic philosophy and practice. Free with RSVP. RSVP to nashersculpturecenter.org/art/nasher-prize/programs
Target First Saturday Saturday, April 2 Nasher Sculpture Center Visitors of all ages are invited to attend the Nasher Sculpture Center free of charge and take advantage of enhanced programming, including gallery resources and tours related to the work and ideas of Doris Salcedo. FREE ADMISSION 10 am – 5 pm. Family Activities 10 am – 2 pm.
Nasher Prize Community Day
Nasher Prize Inaugural Laureate Celebration
Sunday, April 3
Saturday, April 2 / 7 pm Nasher Sculpture Center
Guests are invited to visit the Nasher free of charge to view the collection and experience Doris Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda.
Seated fundraising dinner and award ceremony. Individual sponsors $4,000 and up.
Museum Ambassador tours and Nasher Prize Laureate resources available upon request.
Co-chairs Jennifer Eagle and Catherine Rose (Above, right to left)
FREE ADMISSION 11 am – 5 pm.
This year’s laureate, Doris Salcedo, will be honored at a gala celebration in the Nasher Garden on April 2, 2016. Proceeds from this event will support the Nasher Prize, its programs and publications in future years, as well as the core exhibition, lecture, and publication programs at the Nasher Sculpture Center. A limited number of tickets and sponsorships are still available to join the Laureate, other artists and galleries, the esteemed jury, and arts patrons from around the world in this celebration.
Support To learn more about Nasher Prize and to support this historic effort, visit nashersculpturecenter.org/nasher-prize or call Martha Hess, Director of Development at 214. 242. 5153.
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The Nasher Sculpture Center wishes to thank the following sponsors and individuals for their generous support of the inaugural Nasher Prize, an annual international award presented to a living artist who has had an extraordinary impact on the field of sculpture. Their valuable support benefits public programming related to sculpture and the Nasher Prize, including family programming, lectures, art installation of the laureate’s work, and a celebration of the inaugural Laureate Doris Salcedo on April 2, 2016.
Co-Chairs Jennifer Eagle Catherine Rose Co-Presenting Sponsors Aston Martin JPMorgan Chase & Co. Host Committee Suzanne Deal Booth and David Booth Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Mary McDermott Cook Amy Faulconer Michael Corman and Kevin Fink Marion Flores Mark Giambrone Joyce Goss and Kenny Goss Eric and Debbie Green Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Fanchon and Howard Hallam Nasiba and Thomas Hartland-Mackie Marguerite Hoffman Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas Jeanne and Michael Klein Margaret McDermott Jenny and Richard Mullen Allen and Kelli Questrom Howard and Cindy Rachofsky Deedie and Edward W. Rose III Lisa and John Runyon Capera Ryan Cindy and Armond Schwartz Alan Hergott and Curt Shepard Iris and Adam Singer John Stern Gayle and Paul Stoffel Christopher V. Walker Christen and Derek Wilson Sharon and Michael Young Sponsors and Patrons Amy Faulconer Howard and Cindy Rachofsky Resolution Capital/ Eric and Debbie Green Jennifer and John Eagle Catherine and Will Rose
The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation Iris and Adam Singer Nancy and Clint Carlson Stephen Friedman Gallery Mark Giambrone Fanchon and Howard Hallam The Eugene McDermott Foundation Allen and Kelli Questrom Deedie and Edward W. Rose III Dior Frost Bank Suzanne Deal Booth and David Booth Chadwick/ Loher Foundation John and Arlene Dayton Laura and Walter Elcock Nasiba and Thomas Hartland-Mackie Marguerite Hoffman Jeanne and Michael Klein Linda Marcus Forrest E. and Cynthia D. Miller Jenny and Richard Mullen Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation Richard Gray Gallery Lisa and John Runyon Christopher V. Walker Angela K. Westwater Foundation Marnie and Kern Wildenthal Tanya Bonakdar Lindsey and Patrick Collins Nancy Dedman Clair Dewar Talley Dunn Rebecca and Baron Fletcher Marion Flores Elaina and Gary Gross Julie and Ed Hawes Ann and Lee Hobson Holtermann Fine Art Jennifer and Tom Karol Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas Cece and Ford Lacy L.A. Louver Gallery Tom Leatherbury and Patricia Villareal Carol and John Levy
Catherine MacMahon Sheryl and Eric Maas Rich Moses and Selwyn Rayzor Lucilo Pena and Lee Cobb Karen and Richard Pollock Lisa and John Rocchio Lizzie and Dan Routman Cindy and Armond Schwartz Robyn and Michael Siegel Alan Hergott and Kurt Shepard Wendy and Jeremy Strick Marlene and John Sughrue Merry and Chad Vose Martha and Max Wells Sharon and Michael Young Preferred Dallas Hotel Sponsor Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek Media Partner FD magazine Valet Sponsor Platinum Parking Print Sponsor Ussery Arts Youth Education Sponsor of the Community Weekend Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation Commission of Nasher Prize Award Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Laureate Celebration Catering Sponsor Wolfgang Puck Catering
Aston Martin of Dallas is the Official Car of the Nasher Sculpture Center (As of December 30, 2015)
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T O C C A R E ( N O N ) T O C C A R E F E AT U R I N G S T E P H E N L A P T H I S O P H O N / SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 / 2 – 3 PM
In fall 2015, artist Stephen Lapthisophon presented a project called Toccare (Non) Toccare, which acted in conversation with the exhibition Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest. Taking place in and around the Nasher Sculpture Center, Toccare (Non) Toccare included sculpture, found objects, drawing, poetry, sound, photography and video that extended and paid tribute to many of the central ideas in Penone’s work. In celebration of the launch of a book documenting the project, Laphthisophon will speak about his installation at the Nasher and auxiliary subjects such as European American culture, the artwork-as-archive, and the boundary between art and its trace.
D I N N E R A N D D I A L O G U E : A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H T H O M A S F E U L M E R THURSDAY, MARCH 24 / 6 – 8 PM
Let the work of Ann Veronica Janssens play with your perception and alter your senses. Join us for an evening of extended looking and thoughtful conversation over a shared meal with artist and educator Thomas Feulmer.
L E T ’ S M A K E S T U F F : A P P E N D A G E / A C C E S S O RY W I T H L I LY H A N S O N THURSDAY, MAY 12 / 6 – 8 PM
Explore ideas of accessory and appendage with artist Lily Hanson, whose psychologically charged sculptural works combine soft, anthropomorphic elements with solid form. This gallery lab will emphasize the act of thinking with your hands, a process of finding form through material experimentation. Stitch, glue, twist and stuff your way to small-scale sculptures that suggest ornamentation or prosthesis.
Free for Members. Non-Members $10. Advance registration required. To register, visit nashersculpturecenter.org/learn/adults/workshops or contact Colleen Borsh at cborsh@nashersculpturecenter.org.
L E A R N / T A R G E T F I R S T S A T U R D AY S
Bring out your children’s artistic talents and broaden their understanding and appreciation of the world around them. Target First Saturdays are designed specially for children in preschool to elementary school and feature a lineup of activities that encourage creative thought through a monthly “Big Idea.” For more information, visit nashersculpturecenter.org/learn/kids-families.
FAMILY ACTIVITIES 10 AM – 2 PM
FREE ADMISSION 10 AM – 5 PM
> Watch video
Children’s Art Activity 10 am – 1:30 pm Artist Demonstrations 10 am – 12:30 pm Art Scavenger Hunt 10 am – 2 pm Family Tours Hourly from 10:15 am – 12:15 pm Yoga in the Garden presented by Yogasport (weather permitting) 11:30 am Second Glances with the Writer’s Garret 12 – 1 pm Storytime with the Dallas Public Library 12:30 pm NasherKids Meal Available at Nasher Cafe 11 am – 2 pm
SPRING MONTHLY “BIG IDEAS” AND ART PROJECTS February 6: Light / Activity: Nightscapes
April 2: Growth / Activity: “When I Grow Up” Portraits
March 5: Innovation / Activity: Thinking Caps
May 7: Adventure / Activity: Art-venture Totes
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HOW DO YOU SEE SPACE? Artist Ann Veronica Janssens creates works of art that affect the space around us. Read about space below, then come to the Nasher with your family to discover how Janssens uses light and fog to change the way we experience space.
LEARN / RESOURCES & WORKSHOPS
MEET THE SMITH FAMILY Brandy Smith and her children have been attending Nasher Homeschool Workshops since 2010, when Aria (bottom right) was just an infant. Five years later, Aria is old enough to join in the discussion and older siblings Nathan, Sarah and Isabella have accumulated a wealth of experiences with modern and contemporary art in the Nasher Galleries. We asked the Smith family, including new additions Zackary and Sandi, to share some of their favorite memories of the Nasher. What do you enjoy most about your visits? We have learned so much about art and function. Truly art can make science come alive. Thomas Heatherwick’s Seed Cathedral was a great example of this. I feel like my children are shown new ways to think and discover the world around them. My then fiveyear-old daughter Isabella was particularly moved by the work of Alexander Calder and to this day (five and a half years later) can still discuss his work, combining the beauty of the mobile and the science that it takes to achieve that type of delicate balance.
What was your favorite experience at the Nasher? The kids really enjoyed [Ernesto Neto’s Cuddle on the Tightrope]. When they were able to walk through and see the artwork from the inside out, it really blew them away! My favorite experiences are seeing my kids moved or inspired by the art. Moments like when they noticed how large the feet are on Bronze Crowd, or the realization that how a bus is designed can be as much art as function. These moments make me so grateful we have the treasure of the Nasher in our backyard. What else do you love about the Nasher? I think that one of the things that makes the Nasher so special is the great people who work there. We have been coming to the museum for years. In that time we have gotten to know the education staff and much of the security staff. Each time we come we are welcomed individually and collectively and we are amazed by the knowledge that they all have about the artwork under their care. We look forward to seeing the people as much as the art.
HOMESCHOOL WORKSHOPS SENSES IN SPACE FEBRUARY 19 / 1 – 3 PM / AGES 13 – 17 Explore how sculptures can affect our sense of sight and our movement through space as we look at the work of Ann Veronica Janssens and other artists, then experiment with your own spatial works in the studio.
BODIES IN BALANCE MAY 11, 12, 13 / 10 AM – 12 PM / AGES 5 – 12 Discover how artists work to get the balance in their sculptures just right and use your own body to try out different poses in action and at rest. In the studio, use your newfound knowledge to create a freeze-frame sculpture. $5 per-person deposit. Advance registration required. To register, please contact Colleen Borsh at cborsh@nashersculpturecenter.org or call 214.242.5170.
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NASHER STUDENTS
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Summer education programs at the Nasher offer a range of in-depth experiences for children, teens and adults. We caught up with three alumni from past programs to find out how their experiences at the Nasher have shaped their relationship with art and architecture.
PRASHANT NARAYAN Attended Destination Dallas Summer Architecture Workshop in 2012 as a high school senior. What are you working on now? Currently I am a research assistant at the UT School of Architecture, working on living wall systems. The focus is on fabrication and production of a green wall that will be erected on campus, and it involves working with plastic welding and scripting programs; it’s pretty technical work. I’m still working towards my dual degree in architecture and architectural engineering here at UT -- more than halfway through! I graduate in 2018.
TODAY
THEN
Is there an experience from the Destination Dallas that you remember or that inspired you? One experience that really stuck with me was the plethora of powerfully well-designed architecture in Dallas. Visiting The Rachofsky House was a defining moment in my development as a designer because the aesthetic was strong and the idea was pure. One thing that people don’t realize is how special the Arts District is—so many Pritzker Prize laureates have designed for the area, and it’s so clustered together. I think it’s a valuable resource for anybody interested in architecture. What advice do you have for young people interested in pursuing a career in architecture? I would suggest following websites and blogs online, as well as learning some technical skills early, like hand drawing. Sketching isn’t really taught well in school but it’s an invaluable tool. I would also encourage young people to look beyond architecture for inspiration, like art or other creative fields, to broaden their scope and give them fresh, innovative ideas. Also, don’t get discouraged!
BRIANA WILLIAMS Attended Nasher Summer Institute for Teens in 2009 as a high school junior. What are you working on now? My title is Artist Liaison / Communications for CYDONIA gallery. I am responsible for representing the best interests of an international stable of artists to new supporters in the city and abroad. Is there an experience from the Summer Institute for Teens that you remember or that inspired you? The Nasher Summer Institute converted me to studio art when our group was touring a Minimalist installation at the Nasher. The tour was about artists’ ideas, who owns ideas, and the nature of collaboration. Historically, I disliked the Minimalists because I incorrectly assumed they were lazy for their methods of fabrication. The program detailed their motivations and I had a moment of insight, recognizing how egalitarian the artists were. Carl Andre’s Al Rectagrate was pivotal for converting me to studio art. The floor piece was created to activate the space above it and engaging with a simple yet boundless idea compelled me to pursue studio art for more ideas like that. What advice do you have for young people interested in pursuing a career in the arts? Treat working as a learning opportunity. As the gallery and our artists understand it, art is about dialogues. You have to work extremely hard to be a part of the discourse, but the benefits outweigh the efforts. If you have the attitude that work is a way of learning, it is not work at all.
TODAY
THEN
L E A R N / E D U C AT I O N P R O G R A M S
ALDEN WILLIAMS Attended Nasher Summer Institute for Teens in 2009 as a high school junior. What are you working on now? I work full-time as a framer at Gallery One Frames, in conjunction with William Campbell Contemporary Art, and I work part-time as Artist Liaison and Preparator at CYDONIA gallery.
TODAY
Is there an experience from the Summer Institute for Teens that you remember or that inspired you? Initially, I had always disliked going to art museums. I didn’t know what was special about the work inside. After the Summer Institute for Teens, my ideas about art were changed. I wanted to pursue and be around art. Art is about ideas. That’s what I learned. Looking back now, I enjoyed how the Nasher presented different facets to being involved in the art world. They had an artist, gallerist, conservator, and museum curator talk about their roles and function in the art world. What advice do you have for young people interested in pursuing a career in the arts?
THEN
Originally I pursued being an artist, but today I provide support for artists and their work. I love being around objects in all media. It’s a great reward to realize a show, to frame an artwork in a manner that best presents and protects it, and to promote artists’ ideas. Be open to different avenues in visual art. There is more to the art world than making objects.
S AV E T H E D AT E F O R S U M M E R P R O G R A M S NASHER KIDS CAMP JUNE 6 – 10 / 9 AM – 12 PM, DAILY Open to children who have completed grades 1 – 5 NASHER SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR TEENS JUNE 20 – 24 / 10 AM – 4 PM, DAILY Open to students who have completed grades 9 – 12 DESTINATION DALLAS SUMMER ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP JULY 11 – 15 / 9 AM – 3 PM, DAILY Open to students who have completed grades 9 – 12 MUSEUM FORUM FOR TEACHERS JULY 25 – 29 / 10 AM – 4 PM, DAILY Open to K – 12 Educators
Visit nashersculpturecenter.org/learn for more information.
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INSPIRED LEARNING This past fall, students of all ages learned about and were inspired by Giuseppe Penone: Being the Forest, Repeating the River, Chalet Dallas and Sightings: Alex Israel. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
TEEN STUDIO WORKSHOP INSTAFUN WITH ALLISON V. SMITH NASHER NOW GALLERY L AB INHERENT VICE GROW 3:01 CLUB TEACHER IN -SERVICE
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G A L L E RY N O T E S
KRISTEN COCHRAN ARTIST & NASHER GALLERY TEACHER I hold my breath as gangly groups of excited and curious-minded teens—fueled by venti caramel Frappuccinos—get their tennis shoes’ toes right up on the edge of Penone’s pile of myrtle leaves. To them, it’s just a pile—something that seems ordinary and poor, fragile and transient. At their age, when talent, signature style, spectacle and virtuosity are fundamental to “being a good artist,” this work is perplexing and seems perhaps even accidental, pushed in on the wind by Mother Nature. The questions come next: Are those leaves real? Have they been glued together? Are they attached to a solid base? What happens to the leaves when the exhibition ends? Each of their questions reflects an understanding of art as a fixed, stable and timeless object. When I tell them that this work is made anew by the artist each time it is exhibited (on-site with his very own body), there’s an almost audible creaking sound as the door called “ART” is opened wider in their minds; they’ve been introduced to an expanded definition of what it is and can be. I mention words like ephemeral, temporal and performative and explain to them that Penone’s Breath of Leaves, in this iteration, is as short-lived as the exhibition itself. The leaves will be packed up and shipped away, their conceptual weight held in the minds of viewers indefinitely. These teens are all about making impressions—it’s what they do every morning when they get dressed; when they crack jokes for friends, score a goal or a touchdown, or show off their sweetest duck face on Instagram—so when I tell them that Breath of Leaves is also about making impressions, they perk up.
Breath of Leaves documents a simple action: Penone lying prone in a pile of leaves. The particular impressions made by his legs, torso, arms and head are hollows reminiscent of those made by snow angels. But there’s an unaccounted-for divot: It extends from the head impression like a dialogue bubble. I ask the teens what they make of it, and connections are made between the title of the work and its form. They understand that this void has been made by Penone’s breath, expressed with enough force to move matter, sculpt form. We riff on what this might mean: the fact that the weight of his body and breath are made equal. We discuss symbolism and poetry, both of which are core to the artist’s work.
PENONE HIMSELF WROTE, “THE WEIGHT OF THE BODY IS LIKE THE WEIGHT OF THE BREATH….THE VOLUME OF THE BREATH PRODUCED BY THE LIFE OF A MAN.” IN THIS WORK, BREATH—A PERSONAL AND UNIVERSAL LIFE FORCE—IS PHYSICALIZED. ITS INVISIBILITY IS MADE VISIBLE, EMPHASIZING THE POTENCY AND NECESSITY OF BREATH FOR LIFE.
During our short time together, huddled around this strange pile of leaves, once amped-up or distracted teens, appear more grounded, focused, and still. Their breath has at once been steadied and expanded by this simple act of looking. The Nasher Gallery Teacher program is supported in part by the Carl B. & Florence E. King Foundation and Texas Commission on the Arts.
L E A R N / S T U D E N T A D V I S O RY B O A R D
NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER STUDENT ADVISORY BOARD Photographer Allison V. Smith captured these striking images of the Nasher Student Advisory Board during a special photo shoot in Chalet Dallas. The Nasher extends special thanks to members of this group and the Teacher Advisory Board, who meet monthly to offer feedback, support and amazing ideas to the Education department.
2015-16 Student Advisory Board Brett A., Heather A., Stewart A., Matthew B., Pearson C., Catherine C., William C., Lindsay D., Claudia D., Lauren F., Nik H., Logan L., Liat L., Henry M., Joseph R., Ananya R., Eh Kaw T., Izzy V., Avery Jane W. 2015-16 Teacher Advisory Board Stacy Cianciulli, Becky Daniels, Martin Delabano, Annie Foster, Paige Furr, Peter Goldstein, Austin Haynes, Sherry Houpt, Jovenne Kybett, Kellie Lawson, Dee Mayes, Brad Ray, Sam Thomas Photos: Allison V. Smith
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E N G A G E / ‘ T I L M I D N I G H T AT T H E N A S H E R
Presented by Ben E. Keith Beverages
FREE ADMISSION / 6 PM – MIDNIGHT For more information and to reserve picnic dining, visit nashersculpturecenter.org/tilmidnight PLUS All guests enjoy half-price admission to the Nasher during Spring Break from March 15 – 20. Save the Dates for the 2016 ‘til Midnight season: May 20, June 17, July 15, August 19, September 16, and October 21. ‘til Midnight is presented by Ben E. Keith Beverages. Additional support provided by Aston Martin of Dallas, City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, the Eugene McDermott Endowment Fund, and KXT.
Kirk Thurmond &The Millennials
MARCH 18 DALLAS ARTS DISTRICT SPRING BREAK BLOCK PARTY
7 PM / CONCERT KIRK THURMOND & THE MILLENNIALS > Listen 9 PM / FILM EDWARD SCISSORHANDS 1990 (PG-13) > Watch Preview
E N G A G E / S O U N D I N G S : N E W M U S I C AT T H E N A S H E R
SOUNDINGS: NEW MUSIC AT THE NASHER “MOST REWARDING NEW MUSIC IN NORTH TEX AS”
- D MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015
The Nasher Sculpture Center proudly presents the sixth season of the acclaimed Soundings: New Music at the Nasher series under the artistic direction of Seth Knopp, a founding member of the Peabody Trio and artistic director of Yellow Barn. Soundings: New Music at the Nasher is supported by Charles and Jessie Price and Kay and Elliot Cattarulla, Aston Martin of Dallas, the Friends of Soundings, City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and TACA. Additional support is provided by Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger. Media Partner: WRR 101.1 FM
> Learn more and purchase tickets
HOWL & PALACE OF WIND FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 / 7:30 PM Nasher Sculpture Center Featuring Brentano String Quartet, Battle Trance and William Sharp Individual tickets on sale March 1 In all of our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before—we had gone beyond a point of no return— and we were ready for it, for a point of no return...We wanted voice and we wanted vision….
FLUTIST MARINA PICCININI AND PIANIST ANDREAS HAEFLIGER IN DUO RECITAL FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2016 / 7:30 PM Nasher Sculpture Center Individual Tickets on Sale Now Bringing to life fascinatingly different compositional perspectives, Piccinini and Haefliger explore classical form in Boulez’ Sonatine (1946) and Prokofiev’s Sonata opus 94 (1943), works as homage by Carter in Scrivo in vento (1991) and Adès’ in Darkness Visible (1992), and music written in celebration: Franck’s A Major Sonata written as a wedding present for the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, and Dalbavie’s Nocturne, composed an anniversary gift for this evening’s artists.
> About Marina Piccinini > About Andreas Haefliger
— Michael McClure recounting Allen Ginsberg’s first reading of Howl in 1955
At once a painfully intimate poetic cry and anthem to the Beat Generation, Soundings presents Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in Lee Hyla’s setting for string quartet and narrator, with baritone William Sharp and the Brentano String Quartet. Ginsberg’s poem is in itself a “new kind of music…a portal of resonance where there is no separation between the listener and the sound,” words used to describe its companion work on this program, Travis Laplante’s Palace of Wind. The poet James E. B. Breslin captures something essential in Palace of Wind when in his description of Howl he says, “Howl links the visionary and the concrete, the language of mystical illumination and the language of the street.” Battle Trance, the tenor saxophone quartet created specifically for Palace of Wind, brings us a work that defies genre, existing in the cracks between contemporary classical, avant-garde jazz, black metal, ambient, and world music.
> About Brentano String Quartet > About Battle Trance
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E N G A G E / T H E N A S H E R & T E X A S T H E AT R E P R E S E N T
F I L M S A B O U T A RT / MATINEE SUNDAYS THIS WINTER / 2 PM A series of film screenings about making, collecting and presenting art.
> Watch Series Trailer BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING, 2012 / JANUARY 17 HOW MUCH DOES YOUR BUILDING WEIGH, MR. FOSTER? 2010 / JANUARY 31 HERB & DOROTHY, 2008 / FEBRUARY 14 $5 general admission tickets may be purchased at the theatre box office or online at texastheatre.com.
ENGAGE / HAPPENINGS
Photo: Bret Redman
COMMUNITY PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
THE TEXAS THEATRE BARAK EPSTEIN AND JASON REIMER
For the first iteration of Films About Art, the focus is on making and collecting art. What was the thinking behind the film selections? We’ve learned over time when introducing a new series of films not to be too obscure up front. The first group of films was meant to be equal parts high art and a good dose of just entertaining films. None of these films are unreachable for someone who doesn’t follow the subjects in them and they’re all very fun to watch. All of the subjects fall in line with the multiple discipline interests of the Nasher as well. What are the kinds of movies/themes you were hoping to highlight in the future that would work within this series? I think it would be really cool to gather enough people on a regular basis to get below the surface of the topics. Gradually, themes and subjects can intertwine that will leave the viewers with a more nuanced vision of the subject. It’s always been the most interesting thing to me about good art; you can keep digging and see things in a whole new light. Showing films in conjunction with exhibitions and special-event presentations gives us a chance to have a more immersive understanding of whatever we’re interested in. That seems like an exciting possibility.
The Texas Theatre has been instrumental in bringing some very rare films to Dallas, and exposing new audiences to them. What have been your biggest filmic triumphs so far? We’re very proud of the community that has risen around the Theatre and supported us. There were many people who thought a single-screen, 80-year-old art house theatre that doesn’t have table service and sofas is not going to last. If you add in the eclectic programming, it seems like the worst business plan ever. But people responded to what we were excited about and the community now feels an ownership of the space. That was always the intention and the fact that it’s working is pretty great. The more people support it, the weirder we can be. What are some of your “wish list” programs for the theatre? The beauty of being an independent business is there are very few things we can’t do. We’re very spoiled that most of our wish list items become a reality. I think for the film geek in all of us, when we programmed the new Star Wars this year, I felt like anything after that was icing.
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E N G A G E / T H E G R E AT C R E AT E
T H E G R E AT C R E AT E : B Y A RT I S T S . F O R K I D S . Benefiting the Nasher Sculpture Center SUNDAY, APRIL 24 / 1 – 4 PM
Each spring, The Great Create family fundraiser transforms the Nasher Garden into an interactive, art—filled adventure for the entire family--with regional, national, and international artists designing the most creative art-making experiences for the young and the young at heart. The family-friendly afternoon also features live entertainment and kid-friendly cuisine, all while supporting a great cause. Your participation in this lively event helps fund the Nasher’s youth education programs, including the Nasher 3:01 Club after-school program, Summer Institute for Teens, and free student tours. For more information regarding tickets and partnership opportunities, please contact Megan Penney at mpenney@nashersculpturecenter.org or 214.242.5167. Tickets may also be purchased here.
> Watch last year’s event
M E E T T H I S Y E A R ’ S F E AT U R E D A RT I S T S
BETTINA POUSTTCHI
BRAD OLDHAM
CHRISTOPHER BLAY
THE COLOR CONDITION
E.V. DAY
Family Co-Chairs Sheryl and Eric Maas and their son, Julian Lisa and John Runyon and their children, Liam and Ivy Host Committee Heather and Ray Balestri Kristy and Taylor Bowen Nancy and Clint Carlson Laurie and Joe Darlak Jenney and David Gillikin Allyson & Stuart Greenfield Dave and Janie Hodges Kristie Ramirez and Tom Hoitsma David & Rachel Kelton Sarah and Bill Loughborough The Hartland-Mackie Family Catherine and Douglas MacMahon Paula and Todd Minnis Meredith Land Moore and Xan Moore Jon Morgan & Liz Seabury Nicole Musselman Sharon and David Pfaff Janelle and Alden Pinnell Cris Jordan and Scott Potter Selwyn Rayzor and Rich Moses Katherine and Eric Reeves The Rice Family Mr. and Mrs. John Roberts Catherine and Will Rose Ginny and Conner Searcy Robyn and Michael Siegel Courtney and Jeff Sinelli Abigail and Andrew Sinwell Jennifer and Rand Stagen Chris, Denise & Ella Stewart Kacy and Carter Tolleson Megan and Brady Wood Lucy and Steve Wrubel 2016 Sponsors City Electric Supply FD Lincoln Property Company NBC5 Perry Street Communications, LLC
Photos: Allison V. Smith, Evan Chavez & Daniel Driensky Illustrations: Colleen Borsh Great Create Logo Design: Rob Wilson
FRANCISCO MORENO
LISA WILLIAMSON
OIL AND COTTON
RANDY GUTHMILLER
ROB WILSON
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M E M B E R S H I P / FA L L S N A P S H O T S
OPENING RECEPTIONS GIUSEPPE PENONE / CHALET DALL AS / SIGHTINGS: ALEX ISRAEL
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1. Yuta Nakajima, Katy Erdman, Jacob Kassay 2. Sharon and Michael Young 3. Nick Koenigsknecht, Richard Chang 4. Jeremy Strick, Walther Elcock 5. Thomas Hartland-Mackie, Christen Wilson, Edwin Chan, Piero Golia, Nasiba Hartland-Mackie 6. Giuseppe Penone, Nancy Nasher 7. Alden and Janelle Pinell, Howard Rachofsky 8. Darryl Ratcliff, Gina Cervantes 9. Rachel Chandler, Alex Israel, Nina Miner, Juliana McCarthy 10. Richard Phillips, Nasiba Hartland-Mackie, Sabine Getty, Federica Fanari 11. Giuseppe Penone, Margaret McDermott, Susanne Jonsson, Jeremy Strick
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MEMBERSHIP
PAT R O N T R AV E L
S A N F R A N C I S C O / MAY 2016 This spring, Nasher Director Jeremy Strick will lead a Patron Tour of San Francisco, California. The trip will include a behindthe-scenes tour of the newly expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, poised to be the largest modern-art museum in the country. Along with exceptional private-collection visits and inspiring artists’ studio tours, the group will enjoy luxury accommodations and the city’s finest culinary hotspots.
S O U T H O F F R A N C E / NOVEMBER 2016 Join Jeremy on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the beloved South of France, exploring the beautiful French Riviera and Provence by way of Nice and Aix-en-Provence. We will explore all that the region has to offer: museums, artists’ studios, private collections, and more. For more information, please contact Amy Henry at ahenry@nashersculpturecenter.org.
NASHER AVANT-GARDE SOCIETY S AV E T H E D AT E / SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2016 /10 AM – 12 PM Gallery Tour: The Consortium Please mark your calendars to join us for a special tour of The Consortium during the Dallas Art Fair. The Consortium is a collaborative graduate class combining students and faculty from SMU, UTA, and UTD.
> Learn more about Avant-Garde Society
MEMBERSHIP
FUNDER SPOTLIGHT
BEN E. KEITH BEVERAGES Many thanks to our renewing presenting sponsor Ben E. Keith Beverage for their important support of the upcoming 2016 'til Midnight at the Nasher series. Save the dates for the upcoming season: May 20, June 17, July 15, August 19, September 16, and October 21.
FUNDER SPOTLIGHT
FUNDER SPOTLIGHT
CAPITAL SUPPORT FROM THE HOBLITZELLE FOUNDATION AND THE LYDA HILL FOUNDATION
FUNDACIÓN ALMINE Y BERNARD RUIZ-PICASSO PARA EL ARTE
The Nasher is grateful to announce two meaningful grants recently awarded by the Hoblitzelle Foundation and the Lyda Hill Foundation, which together will make possible a series of important facility improvements to be undertaken over the next several months. These projects include renovations and upgrades to Security, HVAC, IT systems, flooring and Garden infrastructure. These are the first grants secured in support of these purposeful capital improvements, all of which are crucial to maintaining the functionality and beauty of the Nasher, enabling us to continue to offer an exceptional visitor experience to our public in the years to come. We are thankful for the significant support we have received from the Hoblitzelle Foundation and the Lyda Hill Foundation, which will enable us to infuse new technologies and other upgrades into our building systems, helping us to better serve the greater Dallas community.
The Nasher is thrilled to announce an important grant from Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte (FABA), which will support Sightings: New Art at the Nasher, the Nasher’s annual series of small-scale exhibitions and installations exploring new and recent work by established and emerging contemporary sculptors around the world. Funding from FABA will support Sightings exhibitions featuring Swiss-born artist Mai-Thu Perret, running March 12 through July 17, 2016, and British sculptor Michael Dean, running October 21, 2016 through February 5, 2017. This award is especially significant in that it marks the first international grant received by the Nasher Sculpture Center. “We are honored to have the support of FABA for the Sightings series in 2016,” notes Nasher Chief Curator Jed Morse. “The grant underscores the impact these exhibitions and installations have on communities both here in Dallas and abroad.”
– Neil McGlennon, Nasher Sculpture Center Administrative Director
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2011
2015
NASHER LOVE MEET CHRISTINA, JOHN & ELLIE CRUM “THE NASHER SERVES AS A SPECIAL PLACE FOR IMPORTANT MOMENTS IN OUR LIVES.” After meeting in grad school at SMU, John Crum took Christina to the Nasher Sculpture Center for their first date. On New Year’s Eve and after a handful of dates, John let her know he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. As they started thinking about where to have their wedding reception for their special day, they decided they could not think of a place that was more meaningful than where they had their first date. “I remember when we walked through the front doors of the Nasher. John and I couldn’t stop staring. We were entranced by the beauty of the garden with the lights stringing over the tables set with flowers. Our eyes never left the picturesque setting as we were led to a room overlooking the reception to have dinner alone. That was one of our most memorable moments.” – Christina Crum One year later, they celebrated their first wedding anniversary with lunch at the Nasher. They have made this a yearly tradition.
In 2015, Christina and John welcomed their daughter Elise Faith. To celebrate Elise’s (Ellie’s) first birthday, the family chose the Nasher for family photos in their garden. It was made even more special because Kelli and Brendan of Nine Photography, their original wedding photographers, captured the moments perfectly. “The Nasher is engrained in our family. It is a place that will always hold great sentimental value to us. It is where our most cherished memories were created from our first date to our wedding day where most of our family and friends met for the first time, and now, our daughter’s first birthday celebration. We look forward to incorporating the Nasher as we celebrate many more anniversaries, birthdays, and milestones, and we are so thankful for the people that work at the Nasher as they have embraced our family and continue to welcome us with open arms!” – Christina Crum
For more information on events, call 214.242.5182 or email events@nashersculpturecenter.org.
MEMBERSHIP
NASHER VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT Jacquie Washington, Assistant Manager of Visitor Services, interviews volunteer Virginia Kurrus for our Volunteer Spotlight. Along with being a member, Virginia has been a volunteer with the Nasher Sculpture Center since September 2014. In just over a year’s time, she has logged more than 75 hours of service, volunteering for a total of 30 special events.
What originally attracted you to the Nasher Sculpture Center’s Volunteer Program? My first visit to the Nasher was in the early 2000s. Sensitive placement of each piece, combined with the sublime architectural setting and garden backdrop, left me emotionally affected, consumed. It was a memorable experience I’ve never forgotten. And it’s such a beautiful oasis in the middle of the bustling downtown Dallas Arts District! What has been your favorite volunteer event so far and why? The best part about volunteering for me is finding ways to interact with all who are involved with the Nasher, staff and visitors alike. Any opportunity I have to be an advocate for the Nasher is a favorite event for me, whether I’m there as a volunteer or simply as a visitor with friends and family. The Nasher’s intimate setting is at once accessible and unique, and naturally facilitates a friendly, community-like atmosphere. I love being able to be an active part of that. How would you compare volunteering at the Nasher Sculpture Center with other volunteer experiences you’ve had in the past? The Nasher’s more formal process for volunteer recruitment, in addition to the relatively small volunteer staff, creates stronger commitments to serve, greater “buy-in,” and provides more opportunity for volunteers to bond with each other, extend their reach to help, and this becomes a natural extension of the Nasher’s friendly atmosphere. And it’s just a fun place to volunteer! How has volunteering at the Nasher Sculpture Center enriched your life? The positive experiences with visitors, warm and supportive staff, the beautiful, thoughtful exhibits, have been an affirming, strong catalyst for my burgeoning interest in museum work. The opportunity to give my time to such a fine museum has been eclipsed by what I have received. What is your favorite piece in the Nasher’s permanent collection? My favorite piece is Picasso’s Head of a Woman. It was the first piece I saw on my initial visit to the Nasher. It embodies Picasso’s ideas of multiple views expressed in one image; it offers unique viewing perspectives, myriad interpretations, and re-creates itself, depending on where you’re standing. You recently began pursuing an MA in Museum Studies at Johns Hopkins University. What courses are you currently taking and what do you plan to do next after you graduate? Currently I’m enrolled in two courses through Johns Hopkins University. One explores the many careers that make up museum work and developing concrete career strategies to help us achieve our goals of working in museums. The second course is all about the business of museums. I anticipate completing my MA in two and a half years, after which my husband and I will be relocating to London, to live and work, and to be closer to the cultural heritage that initiated and inspired my new career path.
> Interested in volunteering? More info here.
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NASHER STORE ARTIST PROFILE
ELYSE GRAHAM With a background in sculpture from Brown University, and without any formal training in design, the L.A.-based artist Elyse Graham entered into the design process somewhat blind. But since she began her eponymous housewares company, she admits that her design naiveté has allowed her a fair amount of freedom, setting her work apart because of her penchant for experimentation and invention. Her goal is to make work that reflects a sense of curiosity, wonder, and joy, rather than holding close to the rubrics of design. It makes sense, then, that for inspiration Graham looks to artists like Gabriel Orozco because of the playful way he interacts with the world. She says, “I love that he can make any place his studio, that his scale spans a tiny seed to the skeleton of a gray whale, and most of all that he can use a simple change of perspective to open a whole new door to reality.” The result of such inspiration is products by Graham that are colorful and unorthodox, sometimes even a little confounding, like mirrors and vases rimmed with drips that seem to defy gravity. The Nasher Store features a series of these vibrant and playful vases and mirrors. Store Manager Carolyn McGlennon chatted with Elyse Graham for The Nasher about her process.
The Drip Collection was born out of my experimentation with different types of resin. I’ve used this incredibly seductive material previously in my sculptural work and I wanted to find a way to incorporate it into the series of objects for the home that I was designing. I am particularly interested in resin’s chameleon-like quality of appearing to be another material. My translucent drips look like delicate glass spires and I love how that confusion encourages people to take a closer look at the pieces. The design process for the geodes, as well as for the vases, is largely based on experimentation. With the geodes, I started with a concept and a question: Is it possible to capture a breath of air, permanently? I had never before worked with resin, but I had an idea that it might be an interesting material to experiment with. Needless to say, I had many, many failures before I was able to find a material and a technique that allowed me to prove my hypothesis and make my concept tangible. I relentlessly explore and test the properties of the materials I work with—many times this
leads to a huge mess in the studio, but every once in a while I come across something interesting—I find those moments absolutely exhilarating. The process for the vases was less conceptual than that of the geodes and more of a challenge of material and technique. I knew that I could use plaster to make a hollow cast inside a rigid mold, so I challenged myself to experiment with making a similar cast within the thin and very malleable membrane of a balloon. As with most of my work, I started very small and found little success at first, but after much experimentation with technique and a recalculation of my mix ratios and proportions, I was able to achieve consistency and the ability to push myself to make larger and more ambitious pieces. – As told to Store Manager Carolyn McGlennon
N AS H E R S TO R E: W I N N E R O F D M AG A Z I N E’S R E A D E R S ’ C H O I C E AWA R D F O R “B ES T M U S EU M G I F T S H O P ”
I DO SO MANY THINGS, SO MANY THINGS PREPARED AND DONE: THE SKINNY, DUSTY WINGS OF CEILING FANS WIPED DOWN; THE DOUGH MADE BREAD; THE LISTS PREPARED OF THINGS I SHOULD HAVE SAID THE LAST TIME THAT WE TALKED, WHEN LAST WE MET; THE CENTERPIECE’S PLUMAGE FATLY SET; THE SPOONS RUBBED SPOTLESS; NAPKINS FOLDED UP LIKE RUFFLED OYSTER SHELLS BESIDE EACH CUP; THE MOUSE-HOLES PLANKED; THE TACKS PLUCKED FROM THE SHOE; THE BROKEN VASE MADE WHOLE WITH SUPER-GLUE. GOD HELP ME, HOW I SHUFFLE AND I FUSS AWAITING YOU, YOUR BUMBLING GREYHOUND BUS. GOD HELP ME, SUFFERING THE COMMONPLACE. YOUR FACE, IN MEMORY, IS NOT YOUR FACE. – TOM JUNGERBURG
In loving memory of Tom Jungerberg, 1983 – 2015. The Nasher offers heartfelt thanks to all who have contributed to the Memorial Fund honoring Tom’s work with learners of all ages as Manager of Touring Programs and Resources. Through this fund, we will offer a new transportation scholarship to schools that would otherwise be unable to afford bus travel to the Nasher.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
INVITATION
2001 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201 USA Tel +1 214.242.5100 Tuesday – Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm nashersculpturecenter.org
COVER: Ann Veronica Janssens, Blue, Red, and Yellow, 2001 (installation view). Photo: Philippe De Gobert, courtesy WIELS, Brussels. © Ann Veronica Janssens Aston Martin of Dallas is the Official Car of the Nasher Sculpture Center
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