Diedrick Brackens coming soon to the permanent collection galleries!

We are excited to have a weaving by Diedrick Brackens coming to our galleries soon!

Diedrick Brackens, shadows spell my name , 2024, cotton and acrylic yarn, 102 x 134 in. Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Gift of Sue and Lewis Nerman, Leawood, KS.

This amazing work will be installed this fall, likely in September, and several other works will be moved around in the galleries (more info on that TBA).

Also, drumroll……. Diedrick Brackens will be our next Jerome Nerman Visiting Lecturer on Saturday, Oct 25! Save the date!

In the meantime, you can learn more about Brackens’s work: In the Studio: Diedrick Brackens — Art21 Interview with the artist

NY Times Diedrick Brackens

Art Review review of Deidrick Brackens exhibition with Shadows Spell My Name

Craft in America – Video of Diedrick Brackens discussing his process

Welcoming our youngest visitors to the museum

It’s summertime and we’re seeing a lot of families visiting the museum. The littlest visitors have been really enjoying the exhibitions, especially The Salon for Possible Futures!

We welcome visitors of all ages, and for our preschool visitors, here are some things we provide to enrich their visits:

Games! The Salon has games already in it, and the one pictured here is a game that was made custom for the exhibition by Sally Paul. The large wooden blocks with simple shapes on each side are perfect for open-ended play.

Tip: keep in mind that kids 3 and under often are still in the parallel play stage of development and not yet ready to play interactively, which means they’ll each want their own blocks and won’t want to build something together. With this group, I had one child who was in parallel play mode and other children who played interactively. It works fine as long as you remind everyone that we need to share the blocks, even if we don’t want to build something together.

We have touchable objects that relate to specific works (note how the children are seated in the galleries) such as dog tags, jingle beads, beaded canvas and examples of different paint textures. Kids LOVE having these opportunities to touch materials.

Storybooks are a great way to get kids engaged and focused on the art! Stopping at several works and having everyone seated on the floor listening to a storybook can help the group calm down in an exciting environment (being at the museum is exciting!)

Mouse Paint is fun for kids 3-5years old to talk about colors and color mixing. We also have color-mixing tubes which the kids love shaking up to see what colors are created. It’s important that everyone gets a turn.

Note how the reader in this video is supplementing the text by asking questions and encouraging interaction. It helps to practice reading the book several times, and to remember that the kids all want to see the pictures, so taking time to show every illustration to everyone is essential!

We can also be color investigators, using colored lenses to see how artworks look different through different colors and overlapping them.

And at the end of the tour, when everyone has had plenty of time to look and play, we can spend some time making art! We have finger crayons and crayons that can be used with a palm grip, and coloring pages and stickers featuring works by Dyani White Hawk and others.

Finally we have some goodies visitors can take home at the end, including postcards and bookmarks featuring artworks from the exhibitions, as well as zines and some of the other fun things in the cabinet drawers of The Salon.

Art Vision – tours for students in healthcare fields

2025 Art Vision Tour info

We are delighted to continue working with our colleagues in healthcare fields to host students in the JCCC Nursing, Respiratory Care and Neurodiagnostic Tech programs here at the museum as part of their coursework. For these “Art Vision” tours we ask students to do a series of in-depth looking exercises to hone their observation and assessment skills.

Students start by doing a full 15-minute formal analysis of an artwork, followed by a comparison of two works and then some sketching. Most visitors don’t spend 15 seconds looking at each work, so this is a challenging and rewarding exercise! As educators facilitating the activities, it is crucial that we spend time with the artwork ourselves, looking and then looking more.

For the formal analysis portion we select works that have figuration and other recognizable imagery. It’s important to start with a representational work (rather than a totally abstract, non-representational work) for this first activity so that folks that have some accessible entry-points into the discussion – it’s easier for many folks to observe that there’s a group of girls in a painting than it is to launch right into a discussion about color and line, for example.

Multiple women surrounding and operating on a person on a table in the middle of a field.

Dana Schutz (b. 1976), Surgery, 2004, Oil on canvas

From there we can move on to abstract works for the comparison portion, if desired. These two works are an example of a set we compare:

Blocky segments of pink, green, blue, and white form a traditional weaving styled pattern.

Jordan Ann Craig (b. 1992), We Don’t Have to Talk About It, 2020, Acrylic on canvas

Wavy lines in different colors move along in multiple directions.

Karin Davie (b. 1965), Lover, 1998, Oil on canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karin Davie, Artist: Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Interview

Karin Davie’s website

Jordan Ann Craig’s website

And for the sketching we always select a sculpture, as it is more interesting to compare folks’ sketches from different perspectives and observe how the work appears from different points of view/angles. BUT we try to select a sculpture that is not TOO difficult to sketch (not too many complex shapes or textures). For the students visiting this summer we couldn’t resist having them sketch one of Jeremy Scott’s designs.

 

vanessa german’s ET AL, or The Child Plaintiffs as Power-figures

We have had such a wonderful time leading tours that focus on the theme of Materials in Art. The ‘big idea’ we explore on these tours is that artists make thoughtful choices about the materials to use to make their work, and the materials they choose add meaning to the work. There is no better example of this than the wonderful piece by vanessa german, ET AL, or The Child Plaintiffs as Power-figures: Courage and Play,
Love and Hope, Grace and Compassion, Will and Might, Serenity
and Music, Light and Joy, Warrior and Intellect, Creativity and
Vision, 2024.

When we discuss this work, we dive into the materials list that vanessa wrote, reading directly from her list that reads like a poem:

“Love and research, plaster, wood, wood glue, plaster gauze, rage,
wire, multiple conversations with historians Sherrita Camp and
Donna Rae Pearson, tears, shock and the understanding that
these children made a new world, auto body paint, pedestals so
tall that the figures MUST be looked up to, love, prayer for a
crack in the world to bleed new light, ceramic and porcelain birds
and figures as finials, cloth, twine, strands of beads, buttons,
keys put together by the community of Topeka: the beads are an
acknowledgement of our African Ancestry and the wealth, power
and creative force of Africa in relationship to the crime of stealing
African bodies to build a new world in which the descendants of
enslaved Africans have continued to be systemically, strategically,
tragically dehumanized, stomped on and denied full access to true
liberty. The buttons speak to the power of MENDING — for how many
of our mothers, aunties, and homemakers had a button box,
knowing that it is always possible to find a button that fits the
missing space into a mending. The keys are forgiveness — internal
and external forgiveness.”

Initially we tried reading the whole materials lists to our student groups but found that was a bit daunting, so have moved to reading selections interspersed with some open-ended and really thought-provoking questions.

Materials in Art 2025 vanessa german

We also show a photo of the children who were the child plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board case, one of the same photos that is on the wall label itself: Students of Brown v. Board

New works on view in museum offices and hallway

Eric Beltz (b. 1975) Tree of Radiance, 2018 Graphite on Bristol, 24 x 17″ Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018.45 Acquired with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

New works were just installed in the hallway outside the museum’s administrative offices and inside the offices! As with other recent installations in these areas, we’re using these smaller spaces to showcase works on paper – a good location for these works due to the low light levels. Wall labels coming soon!

Administrative Hallway:

Eric Beltz (b. 1975)
Tree of Radiance, 2018
Graphite on Bristol
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018.45
Acquired with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

Joshua Marsh (b. 1973)
Cloud’s Edge, 2017
Graphite on paper
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2017.77

Miki Baird (b. 1949)
you can trust pg 1, 2013
Cut paper archival pigment print
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2014.20

Jason Fox (b. 1964)
Untitled, 2001
Graphite, watercolor, ink on paper
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007.48

Archie Scott Gobber (b. 1965)
Age of Enlightenment, 2008
Ink on paper
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.26
Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation

Sandeep Mukherjee (b. 1964)
Untitled, 2006
Acrylic, acrylic ink, and etching on Duralene
Collection Nerman Musuem of Contemporary Art, 2007.31
Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation

David Dupuis (b. 1959)
At the Beach, 2006
Color pencil, graphite and collage on paper
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006.29
Gift in honor of Sue and Lewis Nerman’s wedding

Administrative Offices:

Erik Hanson (b. 1959)
All I Want … (for Christmas is You), 2019
Oil on canvas
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020.50
Gift of the H Tony and Marti Oppenheimer Foundation

Erik Hanson (b. 1959)
All I Want … (for Christmas is You), 2019
Oil on canvas, 24 x 36″
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020.50
Gift of the H Tony and Marti Oppenheimer Foundation

Tate Pray (b. 1975)
Falling Trees, 2008
Graphite on paper
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.21

Marcus Cain (b. 1970)
Friendly Fire, 2006
Mixed media
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006.54

Scott Francis
Field Song, 2019
Chine colle and mixed media
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2022.101
Acquired with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

Leo Villareal Microcosm Illuminated!

We are so excited to have the Leo Villareal sculpture Microcosm re-illuminated!

Microcosm (2007) by Leo Villareal is a site-specific permanent installation. It consists of thousands of white LEDs, custom software, electrical wiring and hardware. It was re-illuminated in April 2025 after a years-long effort to completely restore the work.

Leo Villareal, Microcosm

Fusing art and technology, Leo Villareal’s Microcosm is part of the cantilevered entrance of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. The artwork’s 60,000 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) shift and swirl to create countless patterns dictated by a computer program created by the artist: “I create the conditions and see what interesting things happen,” Villareal says. “There is never the exact same repetition of patterns.”

This extraordinary union of art and architecture came together before the museum even opened the doors in 2007. Villareal and his team worked with Kyu Sung Woo Architects and J.E. Dunn Construction during the construction of the building to install the work.

“The LED is a remarkable piece of technology, allowing limitless possibilities in light sculptures,” Villareal said. He writes code, based on an old game program (John Conway’s Game of Life), and uses formulae to vary the parameters for the light. Even under the prescribed conditions, the movement constantly changes. “Even though you might recognize a sequence of lights, there is always a variation in its velocity or the number of times it is repeated.”

 

Villareal is inspired by rules, chaos theory and nature, where small particles build together and then break apart like ocean waves crashing against land. Similarly in his installations, light fractals cluster together, then diminish and eventually disappear. “Light has a primal effect. I hope the work captures people’s attention, then as they look at it longer, they see more and more in it. People will have different experiences with the piece. They will see it very legibly from the road, and as they approach the front of the museum, they will see it at different scales. I want the piece to give the museum a sense of life and animation. I want it to give the sense that something exciting is going on inside the building.”

In addition to the Nerman Museum’s piece, Villareal has a permanent installation in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and has installed temporary pieces worldwide including on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and on 15 bridges spanning the Thames in London. His sculpture, Fountain (KCI) 2023, is prominently featured at the Kansas City Airport.

Leo Villareal received a BA from Yale University in 1990, and an MPS from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University in 1994.

New Works on View in the Mezzanine!

Il Lee, BL-076 , 2006, ballpoint pen on canvas, 72 x 48 in. Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Acquired in part by gift of Jung Lee Sanders and Andrew Jonas Sanders and in part by purchase with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

There are new works on view in the museum’s mezzanine now that the Shooting Stars High School Scholarship show has been de-installed.

Some of the works are old friends (Tomory Dodge’s Wasteland, for example) but others have never been on view before.

This drawing by Il Lee was recently added to the collection thanks to a generous donation. Learn more about Il’s work:

 

IL LEE – Artist – Biography – Art Projects International

Positive Obsession: Drawings by Basil Kincaid

We are so excited to have Basil Kincaid’s exhibition on view at the museum!

Positive Obsession: Drawings by Basil Kincaid | Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

In addition to drawings and textile works, Basil has designed games. Check out his website for more information about these other projects: Basil Kincaid’s website