Category Archives: Events

August 2025 Events at the Nerman Museum

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Another month full of interesting activities here at the Nerman Museum!

composite image of 3 bands

The Elders, Beth Watts Nelson & Kelly Hunt, and Back Alley Brass Band

Light Up the Lawn, a collaboration between the Midwest Trust Center, bringing free concerts to the Nerman Museum lawn is back again! Join us on the following Fridays, starting at 8:30 PM to enjoy the bands below:

  • Aug. 15 – The Elders
  • Aug. 22 – Beth Watts Nelson & Kelly Hunt
  • Aug. 29 – Back Alley Brass Band

The Salon for Possible Futures is also hosting a couple more events (these events are also free, but due to limited space, RSVP is required):

  • Saturday, Aug. 16, 1-3 PM – Mending Workshop with Hadley Clark
  • Thursday, Aug. 28, 6-8 PM – Storytelling Night: Bad Ideas, hosted by Glenn North

Learn more and RSVP at our calendar.

Diedrick Brackens coming soon to the permanent collection galleries!

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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

July 2025 Events at the Nerman Museum

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Colorful pop art collage

There is a lot going on in July here at the Nerman Museum!

We still have some spots available in the last few summer camps we’re hosting this month.

  • July 8-11 – Game Design Week for ages 5-7 and 8-11
  • July 15-18 – Pop Art Week for ages 8-11
  • July 22-25 – Textiles Week for ages 5-7 and 8-11
  • July 29-Aug. 1 – 3-D Art Week for ages 5-7 and 8-11

 

Living room setting with various people within it

Amy Kligman’s Salon will also be hosting more events this month!

June Events in The Salon for Possible Futures

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People within a living room

Amy Kligman’s Salon

Amy Kligman’s Salon will be hosting a variety of events through the end of December, reinforcing its purpose as a gathering space, a portal for a better collective future, and the fostering of relationships and community.

In the month of June, Nerman Museum docents, educators, and the community are invited to participate in the following activities in The Salon:

  • Wednesday, June 4, 5:30-7 PM – ‘Miss You’ Cards with Kansas Poet Laureate emeritus Huascar Medina
  • Friday, June 13, 7-10 PM – Utopia/Dystopia Night with artist, curator, and educator Caitlin Horsmon
  • Saturday, June 28, 1-3 PM – Game Day with Brass Monkey, a local tabletop games company

These events are all free and open to the public, but due to limited capacity, RSVPs are required. Learn more about these events and register to participate.

Exhibition open! Amy Kligman’s Salon is a huge hit!

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It has been amazing to see how fast folks have taken to using The Salon for Possible Futures to meet and hang out! I have seen so many students, families and community members using the space, playing games, writing in the notebooks, having meetings.

A reminder that this exhibition is activated through extensive programming, and you are invited to attend any of the programs that will be hosted each month through December. We hope to see you at a movie or karaoke night or a workshop in the weeks and months ahead!

There are a couple programs on the calendar coming up (one is tomorrow!)

Wendy Red Star Announced as 2024 MacArthur Fellow

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Wendy Red Star was recently announced as one of the 2024 MacArthur Fellows, sometimes also referred to as the “genius grant.” The Nerman Museum owns several of her works:

Red Star has also been featured in a some of our exhibitions!

Wendy Red Star also gave an artist talk at the Museum:

Learn more about her MacArthur Fellow award:

vanessa german quote regarding ET AL … sculpture

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I had the wonderful and unexpected opportunity to chat with vanessa german on the phone yesterday and was able to ask her some questions specifically about the work that we have on view in the museum now. I wasn’t able to record our conversation, but took notes, and was able to jot down some direct quotes.

I asked vanessa about the birds on the heads of the figures and what the symbolism might be and she pointed out that one figure doesn’t have a bird but instead an angel  figure that represents the muse of love – a love that is all encompassing, love that is for the wholeness of your being (your strengths, fears, joys and sorrows) that covers all of the figures.

For the birds, she said that as beings that are part of the natural world they are totally aligned with their insticts and take flight with full sovereignty and as creatures of flight they experience a kind of freedom that others don’t. She said “these are children who made it possible for other children to soar.” 

vg_Craving Light essays

Lastly she noted that birds symbolize liberty, and she quoted abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher “Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.”

Henry Ward Beecher – Wikipedia

Joel Daniel Phillips’s work in Kansas Focus Gallery

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We were so pleased to have Joel Daniel Phillips come speak at the museum on Aug 9th, and video of his talk is now available:

 

In his talk he mentions the book that is associated with his Killing the Negative series, a book he worked on in collaboration with another artist, poet Quraysh Ali Lansana. I have a copy of this book available in our Education Library now, volunteers may check it out!

Artist Website: JOEL DANIEL PHILLIPS

“Killing the Negative: A Conversation in Art & Verse” – this is the book in our library

vanessa german sculpture now on view at the Nerman Museum

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We are so excited to now have a work by the amazing artist vanessa german on view in the museum’s second floor galleries. The work, titled 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, is from an exhibition that reflects on the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Topeka court case.

That exhibition, CRAVING LIGHT: The Museum of Love and Reckoning, was commissioned by ArtsConnect and considers the legacies of that 1954 Supreme Court case declaring segregation in schools unconstitutional. Additional selections from this exhibition are on view at the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University, the
Brown v. Board National Historical Park Site, and the Great Overland Station, all in Topeka, through 2024.

Learn more about vanessa’s work:

For vanessa german, ‘Citizen Artist,’ Creativity Is a Matter of Survival – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

We are still working on getting the label on the wall (the installation was just completed late yesterday!), here is a PDF of that:

vanessa german wall label (PDF)