Sheldon brings nationally recognized work to Lincoln
What can any single exhibit tell us about contemporary art? Not much, really. The art world is far too pluralistic and far-flung for any show anywhere to provide a comprehensive overview of what’s going on. But multiple artist surveys can reveal something of what is happening in a slice of today’s art world.
A case in point: “Sheldon Survey,” the biennial invitational exhibit at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery that brings work by nationally recognized artists to Lincoln.
Modeling the show along the lines of the Whitney Biennial, former Sheldon curator Daniel A. Siedell and former director Janice Driesbach selected 20 artists who, to a degree, represent a cross-section of the contemporary art world.
There’s a couple of wily veterans, some bigger names, a few artists that already have connections with Sheldon and a handful of young lesser-knowns who have climbed far enough up the art world food chain to be represented by respected galleries in major cities.
In fact, “Sheldon Survey” is probably best seen as a sampling of what could be encountered in the galleries of New York or Dallas.
That was clear when I asked University of Nebraska-Lincoln sculpture professor Santiago Cal what the value of the show was for students. His reply:
“There’s a lot of these kids that don’t get to New York, or Des Moines even,” Cal said. “That’s what Sheldon is for. This could be very valuable for them.”
A couple days later as I toured the exhibition with Siedell, he confirmed that the show was indeed gallery-based. Or, more precisely, gallery- and studio-based.
“This is a record of where I’ve been and what I’ve looked at in the galleries I go to and pay attention to,” said Siedell, who is now an art history professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
But it’s also a record of studio visits conducted by Siedell, Driesbach and by Sheldon-sponsored tours.
Vernon Fisher, a multimedia artist from Dallas who has a painting in the show, hosted a Sheldon group in the last couple of years. So did Houston’s Trenton Doyle Hancock, who has three small drawings in the exhibition.
There are also direct links to Sheldon with some of the artists.
Mike Cloud had a solo show of constructions/paintings made from toys last year. He has an abstract painting that hints of being done on a brick wall in “Sheldon Survey,” a piece representing a new body of work.
Leslie Dill’s “Ghost Eyes” is a haunting wall piece. Her hanging sculpture “Voice” is on view in Sheldon’s permanent collection galleries.
Last year, a comic art show at Sheldon included a piece by Gary Panter drawn from the collection of artist Chris Ware, who had a solo show there.
Panter’s brightly colored, busy, cartoon-derived “Clog Area” is one of the highlights of the exhibition, fairly jumping off the wall.
More subtle but illuminating connections can be made between artists in the 2007 “Sheldon Survey” with those who were in the show two years ago.
The spare, tightly designed, ambiguous depiction of people in paintings by Sandra Scolnik and Ian Davies comes out of the same aesthetic as the work of Amy Cutler, whose haunting painting on paper of a young woman was purchased by Sheldon from the last show.
Similarly, it’s easy to see a connection between the paintings of David Bates, another artist who had work purchased in 2005, and Lisa Sanditz’s large, lush, non-ironic “Pearl Farm II.”
It’s even possible to make associations between long-held pieces in Sheldon’s permanent collection and what can be seen in “Sheldon Survey.”
For example, when I first saw Tomory Dodge’s small, bold “Lights II,” with its bright, multicolored points set on a black background, I thought of Joseph Stella’s “Battle of Lights, Coney Island” circa 1913-14, one of Sheldon’s early modernist treasures.
Those paintings don’t really have much in common. The artists were working a century apart. The styles are far different — Dodge’s painting has nothing at all to do with cubism. But the instant flash to Stella’s piece is impossible to miss.
There is a departure from Sheldon’s standard exhibition policy in the show that Cal pointed out, and it is well worth noting.
Jose Bedia is an Cuban artist whose massive gray painting of an aircraft carrier “… Lo Que Hace Falta” is a critique of American power in the world.
“Another thing I like about it is that it’s not all American art, which is what Sheldon is known for,” said Cal, a Belizian American.
The presence of Bedia’s painting revisits a question that Sheldon needs to answer.
Will the museum continue its practice of buying “American” art — that is, art created in the United States — or will it recognize the melting borders in today’s art world and begin to acquire pieces made in all of the Americas?
Bedia’s painting rightfully suggests that the answer to the question is the latter.
Being in an invitational exhibition is of value to artists, even if that show is in an art world outpost like Lincoln.
“There’s always a benefit,” said sculptor James Surls. “There are two things artists like better than anything else. One is to make the art. The second thing, for visual artists, they want somebody to see it.
“I love being in shows, whether it’s a single, one-person show or a group show. This is a museum. This is a museum of some stature. They could have asked anybody in the country. They didn’t have to ask me.”
That answer is not coming from some youngster. Surls is 64, one of the oldest artists in the show. The youngest is 30.
“The idea of having these artists who have been around a long time and are still relevant is intriguing,” Siedell said. “If you’re 60 years old and still contributing to the aesthetic drive, it’s contemporary art. Contemporary art doesn’t mean you’re born in 1968.”
But contemporary art can’t be viewed without the inclusion of emerging artists who are just making their names and haven’t had museum solo shows or received widespread notice.
That means that some whose work is on the gallery walls will fade into obscurity, not because their art is bad but because they didn’t have the combination of luck, sales, patronage and curatorial support that allows careers to continue to develop and gain visibility.
Such has been the nature of the art world at least since since the dawn of modernism in the mid 19th century, and it will ever be the same. That possibility can’t help but be represented in any multi-artist show, and deservedly so.
Using the Whitney model required one significant change in the current “Sheldon Survey” compared with the 2005 exhibit. That exhibition featured nine artists, most of whom showed multiple pieces. The 2007 version has more than twice as many artists. But, with the exception of Hancock, they’re each represented by a single work.
“Ideally, you’d have as many as three. That gives the viewer, the audience, a real sample,” Surls said. “But I certainly wouldn’t argue about the nature of this show. It’s not my context. It’s the museum’s context.”
Surls’ point is well taken. The show easily stands on its own, even if it includes a single piece from each artist. But it is far more illuminating to see multiple examples of any artist’s work in order to place that individual piece in context.
When I sat down to talk to Surls during his visit to Sheldon to present a lecture in conjunction with “Sheldon Survey,” I cranked up a long-winded question theorizing that he was attempting to connect a folk art and high art aesthetic in “Flowers on the Wall,” his sculpture in the show.
“Bluntly, no,” Surls answered. Then he went on to explain: “I love folk art. There’s a reason I love folk art, and that may be the connection you saw. Folk art is very free, it’s unencumbered. It doesn’t have any trappings of fashion, of what’s hip, what’s in at any given moment.
“Folk art, by nature, is the mastery of the make-do. They’ll push it to a personal level. They don’t try to make it fit into a high art genre. I like that. All of that applies to me.”
But Surls, a former art professor in Texas, is far from a naïve artist.
While it may appear to be simply a study of flowers carved into wood, his piece came out of a series of drawings that are intense psychological studies about the differences between men and women, the nature of work and of religion.
During his lecture, Surls showed slides of those drawings. Looking at the sculpture again, it was impossible to miss shared shapes and to ignore the background that gives the piece a different power and meaning.
Similarly, it is instructive to know that Robyn O’Neil’s “The Last Man on Earth,” a large, dramatic graphite drawing of a man suspended by ropes across a turbulent sea, is part of an apocalyptic series of work she has just concluded.
Paintings from that series are now on view in O’Neil’s solo show titled “This is Our Ending, This is Our Past” at Dallas’ Dunn & Brown Contemporary Gallery.
That’s a measure of how up-to-date the exhibition is. But even more impressive is the fact that pieces from Sanditz, Makoto Fujimura, Dodge and Hancock are fresh out of the studio and haven’t been previously exhibited.
“This is not just work that’s left over at a gallery or taken from a show that’s already happened,” Siedell said. “This is work they’re doing at this minute. You can’t get more contemporary than that.”
If there’s a shortcoming in “Sheldon Survey,” it is the fact that it includes no video or installation art.
There’s not enough space in Sheldon to hold a multi-artist show that would include installations. Pioneering video artist Peter Campus was invited to be part of the show, but efforts to get his work to Lincoln fell through, Siedell said.
Beyond that, “Sheldon Survey” is an impressive exhibition of strong work.
It’s always difficult to write thematic criticism about these kinds of shows. The works have nothing in common except they’re in the same space.
So those pieces end up being ‘Here’s what I like.’ Well, here’s what I like most in “Sheldon Survey”:
n Panter’s “Clog Area,” probably the picture I’d want most on my wall at home, in part because of his underground comic past and, in part, because it just pops.
* Tara Donovan’s “Moire (Tall),” a floor sculptural piece made out of spools of adding machine paper. Lumped against and piled atop each other, sliding outward from a center, the paper appears to be organic, a growth pulled from life.
* Bedia’s “… Lo Que Hace Falta” is powerful because of its scale, its gray palette and, most importantly, because of its subject matter, a view of the U.S. as a foreign power not commonly seen here.
* Davies’ “Files” is an ambiguous, somewhat ominous painting of men in suits standing in precisely ordered rows in front of large machines, perhaps generators. The tension in the piece is more than just formal as it resonates with a critique of industrial society, a take on conformity and anonymity and any number of other meanings.
In addition to getting their art in front of an audience, almost all artists want their work to sell — the final element of the exhibition.
“I don’t have a piece of art I wouldn’t sell,” Surls said. “I’ll sell any of it. That’s what I have to do. That’s how I make my living.”
“Sheldon Invitational” is a purchase show. That is, everything on the walls is for sale. None of it is cheap, but all could be had.
Providing some incentive for taking part in such a show is the guarantee that some pieces will be picked up by Sheldon and the Nebraska Art Association and, perhaps, a private collector or two.
There’s already been one acquisition — those who attended the NAA’s opening night fundraiser voted to buy “Flowers on the Wall.”
“For that I say, ‘Thank you very much,’” Surls said.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
A case in point: “Sheldon Survey,” the biennial invitational exhibit at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery that brings work by nationally recognized artists to Lincoln.
Modeling the show along the lines of the Whitney Biennial, former Sheldon curator Daniel A. Siedell and former director Janice Driesbach selected 20 artists who, to a degree, represent a cross-section of the contemporary art world.
There’s a couple of wily veterans, some bigger names, a few artists that already have connections with Sheldon and a handful of young lesser-knowns who have climbed far enough up the art world food chain to be represented by respected galleries in major cities.
In fact, “Sheldon Survey” is probably best seen as a sampling of what could be encountered in the galleries of New York or Dallas.
That was clear when I asked University of Nebraska-Lincoln sculpture professor Santiago Cal what the value of the show was for students. His reply:
“There’s a lot of these kids that don’t get to New York, or Des Moines even,” Cal said. “That’s what Sheldon is for. This could be very valuable for them.”
A couple days later as I toured the exhibition with Siedell, he confirmed that the show was indeed gallery-based. Or, more precisely, gallery- and studio-based.
“This is a record of where I’ve been and what I’ve looked at in the galleries I go to and pay attention to,” said Siedell, who is now an art history professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
But it’s also a record of studio visits conducted by Siedell, Driesbach and by Sheldon-sponsored tours.
Vernon Fisher, a multimedia artist from Dallas who has a painting in the show, hosted a Sheldon group in the last couple of years. So did Houston’s Trenton Doyle Hancock, who has three small drawings in the exhibition.
There are also direct links to Sheldon with some of the artists.
Mike Cloud had a solo show of constructions/paintings made from toys last year. He has an abstract painting that hints of being done on a brick wall in “Sheldon Survey,” a piece representing a new body of work.
Leslie Dill’s “Ghost Eyes” is a haunting wall piece. Her hanging sculpture “Voice” is on view in Sheldon’s permanent collection galleries.
Last year, a comic art show at Sheldon included a piece by Gary Panter drawn from the collection of artist Chris Ware, who had a solo show there.
Panter’s brightly colored, busy, cartoon-derived “Clog Area” is one of the highlights of the exhibition, fairly jumping off the wall.
More subtle but illuminating connections can be made between artists in the 2007 “Sheldon Survey” with those who were in the show two years ago.
The spare, tightly designed, ambiguous depiction of people in paintings by Sandra Scolnik and Ian Davies comes out of the same aesthetic as the work of Amy Cutler, whose haunting painting on paper of a young woman was purchased by Sheldon from the last show.
Similarly, it’s easy to see a connection between the paintings of David Bates, another artist who had work purchased in 2005, and Lisa Sanditz’s large, lush, non-ironic “Pearl Farm II.”
It’s even possible to make associations between long-held pieces in Sheldon’s permanent collection and what can be seen in “Sheldon Survey.”
For example, when I first saw Tomory Dodge’s small, bold “Lights II,” with its bright, multicolored points set on a black background, I thought of Joseph Stella’s “Battle of Lights, Coney Island” circa 1913-14, one of Sheldon’s early modernist treasures.
Those paintings don’t really have much in common. The artists were working a century apart. The styles are far different — Dodge’s painting has nothing at all to do with cubism. But the instant flash to Stella’s piece is impossible to miss.
There is a departure from Sheldon’s standard exhibition policy in the show that Cal pointed out, and it is well worth noting.
Jose Bedia is an Cuban artist whose massive gray painting of an aircraft carrier “… Lo Que Hace Falta” is a critique of American power in the world.
“Another thing I like about it is that it’s not all American art, which is what Sheldon is known for,” said Cal, a Belizian American.
The presence of Bedia’s painting revisits a question that Sheldon needs to answer.
Will the museum continue its practice of buying “American” art — that is, art created in the United States — or will it recognize the melting borders in today’s art world and begin to acquire pieces made in all of the Americas?
Bedia’s painting rightfully suggests that the answer to the question is the latter.
Being in an invitational exhibition is of value to artists, even if that show is in an art world outpost like Lincoln.
“There’s always a benefit,” said sculptor James Surls. “There are two things artists like better than anything else. One is to make the art. The second thing, for visual artists, they want somebody to see it.
“I love being in shows, whether it’s a single, one-person show or a group show. This is a museum. This is a museum of some stature. They could have asked anybody in the country. They didn’t have to ask me.”
That answer is not coming from some youngster. Surls is 64, one of the oldest artists in the show. The youngest is 30.
“The idea of having these artists who have been around a long time and are still relevant is intriguing,” Siedell said. “If you’re 60 years old and still contributing to the aesthetic drive, it’s contemporary art. Contemporary art doesn’t mean you’re born in 1968.”
But contemporary art can’t be viewed without the inclusion of emerging artists who are just making their names and haven’t had museum solo shows or received widespread notice.
That means that some whose work is on the gallery walls will fade into obscurity, not because their art is bad but because they didn’t have the combination of luck, sales, patronage and curatorial support that allows careers to continue to develop and gain visibility.
Such has been the nature of the art world at least since since the dawn of modernism in the mid 19th century, and it will ever be the same. That possibility can’t help but be represented in any multi-artist show, and deservedly so.
Using the Whitney model required one significant change in the current “Sheldon Survey” compared with the 2005 exhibit. That exhibition featured nine artists, most of whom showed multiple pieces. The 2007 version has more than twice as many artists. But, with the exception of Hancock, they’re each represented by a single work.
“Ideally, you’d have as many as three. That gives the viewer, the audience, a real sample,” Surls said. “But I certainly wouldn’t argue about the nature of this show. It’s not my context. It’s the museum’s context.”
Surls’ point is well taken. The show easily stands on its own, even if it includes a single piece from each artist. But it is far more illuminating to see multiple examples of any artist’s work in order to place that individual piece in context.
When I sat down to talk to Surls during his visit to Sheldon to present a lecture in conjunction with “Sheldon Survey,” I cranked up a long-winded question theorizing that he was attempting to connect a folk art and high art aesthetic in “Flowers on the Wall,” his sculpture in the show.
“Bluntly, no,” Surls answered. Then he went on to explain: “I love folk art. There’s a reason I love folk art, and that may be the connection you saw. Folk art is very free, it’s unencumbered. It doesn’t have any trappings of fashion, of what’s hip, what’s in at any given moment.
“Folk art, by nature, is the mastery of the make-do. They’ll push it to a personal level. They don’t try to make it fit into a high art genre. I like that. All of that applies to me.”
But Surls, a former art professor in Texas, is far from a naïve artist.
While it may appear to be simply a study of flowers carved into wood, his piece came out of a series of drawings that are intense psychological studies about the differences between men and women, the nature of work and of religion.
During his lecture, Surls showed slides of those drawings. Looking at the sculpture again, it was impossible to miss shared shapes and to ignore the background that gives the piece a different power and meaning.
Similarly, it is instructive to know that Robyn O’Neil’s “The Last Man on Earth,” a large, dramatic graphite drawing of a man suspended by ropes across a turbulent sea, is part of an apocalyptic series of work she has just concluded.
Paintings from that series are now on view in O’Neil’s solo show titled “This is Our Ending, This is Our Past” at Dallas’ Dunn & Brown Contemporary Gallery.
That’s a measure of how up-to-date the exhibition is. But even more impressive is the fact that pieces from Sanditz, Makoto Fujimura, Dodge and Hancock are fresh out of the studio and haven’t been previously exhibited.
“This is not just work that’s left over at a gallery or taken from a show that’s already happened,” Siedell said. “This is work they’re doing at this minute. You can’t get more contemporary than that.”
If there’s a shortcoming in “Sheldon Survey,” it is the fact that it includes no video or installation art.
There’s not enough space in Sheldon to hold a multi-artist show that would include installations. Pioneering video artist Peter Campus was invited to be part of the show, but efforts to get his work to Lincoln fell through, Siedell said.
Beyond that, “Sheldon Survey” is an impressive exhibition of strong work.
It’s always difficult to write thematic criticism about these kinds of shows. The works have nothing in common except they’re in the same space.
So those pieces end up being ‘Here’s what I like.’ Well, here’s what I like most in “Sheldon Survey”:
n Panter’s “Clog Area,” probably the picture I’d want most on my wall at home, in part because of his underground comic past and, in part, because it just pops.
* Tara Donovan’s “Moire (Tall),” a floor sculptural piece made out of spools of adding machine paper. Lumped against and piled atop each other, sliding outward from a center, the paper appears to be organic, a growth pulled from life.
* Bedia’s “… Lo Que Hace Falta” is powerful because of its scale, its gray palette and, most importantly, because of its subject matter, a view of the U.S. as a foreign power not commonly seen here.
* Davies’ “Files” is an ambiguous, somewhat ominous painting of men in suits standing in precisely ordered rows in front of large machines, perhaps generators. The tension in the piece is more than just formal as it resonates with a critique of industrial society, a take on conformity and anonymity and any number of other meanings.
In addition to getting their art in front of an audience, almost all artists want their work to sell — the final element of the exhibition.
“I don’t have a piece of art I wouldn’t sell,” Surls said. “I’ll sell any of it. That’s what I have to do. That’s how I make my living.”
“Sheldon Invitational” is a purchase show. That is, everything on the walls is for sale. None of it is cheap, but all could be had.
Providing some incentive for taking part in such a show is the guarantee that some pieces will be picked up by Sheldon and the Nebraska Art Association and, perhaps, a private collector or two.
There’s already been one acquisition — those who attended the NAA’s opening night fundraiser voted to buy “Flowers on the Wall.”
“For that I say, ‘Thank you very much,’” Surls said.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
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