Wendy Red Star Announced as 2024 MacArthur Fellow

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

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

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

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)

Dyani White Hawk video online

When Dyani White Hawk visited fall 2023 (just before she won the MacArther Genius grant!) we were able to sit down and chat about her work in the museum’s collection. A video of her speaking specifically about Untitled (All the Colors), and the transcript, are now available online:

All the Colors Dyani White Hawk video transcript (PDF)

Video of dialogue between artist Ruben Castillo and curator Stuart Hinds now available!

If you missed the dialogue between artist Ruben Castillo (exhibiting in the Charlotte Street Fellows 2023 exhibition) and Stuart Hinds (curator of special collections at UMKC, including GLAMA) on March 7th, it’s now available!

the Charlotte Street Fellows exhibition closes April 14 so make sure to see the exhibition one more time before it closes!

Video from Kahlil Irving talk with curator Jordan Carter now available!

If you missed the in-person/livestreaming talk between artist Kahlil Irving and curator Jordan Carter on March 21st, you can check out the video online now.

 

If you are interested in reading the transcript (with timestamps for each section) click on the description below the video and click “show transcript”.

Enjoy!