Caroline Monnet work now on view!

Sometimes it seems like here at the museum if you blink an artwork will change! We have had several works get swapped out in the museum’s permanent collection galleries recently, and most recently the giant painting by Dustin Pevey was taken down and replaced with a large work by Caroline Monnet.

The label copy:

Caroline Monnet (b. 1985)
Lungs, 2023
Polyethylene, fiberglass insulation, and thread
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024.025, Gift of the Jedel Family Foundation

Lungs, with geometric designs in hot pink and red hues winding throughout a ground of soft pink, evokes organs filamented with veins and arteries. The format, a decoratively stitched textile, recalls handcrafted domestic objects such as quilts. Yet the materials, fiberglass insulation sandwiched between plastic sheeting, have associations with home construction. Fiberglass is also a material that can be harmful to respiratory health if handled without protective equipment. In juxtaposing these contrasting elements and associations, Monnet subtly references issues around the enduring impacts of colonialism on many facets of life, from health to housing security, for Indigenous communities in North America today.

Monnet has B.A in communications and sociology from the University of Ottawa and has studied at the University of Granada in Spain.

The work is located in the Lieberman Gallery just across from the sculpture works by vanessa german, and adjacent to the sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson.

About the artist:

Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe-French, born in 1985, Ottawa, Canada) is a multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Canada. She studied sociology and communication at the University of Ottawa and the University of Granada before working in visual arts and film.

Caroline’s work has been viewed at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; the Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto; Cannes Film Festival, Cannes; the Whitney Biennial, New York; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. She is a recipient of the 2021 Hopper Prize; the 2020 Pierre-Ayot Award; the 2020 Sobey Art Award; and the 2017 Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards.

At the heart of her practice is the communication of complex ideas about Aboriginal identity and bicultural life through the examination of cultural histories. Her work is often minimalist, yet emotionally charged, and speaks to the complex realities of Aboriginal peoples today. Her works combine the vocabulary of popular and traditional visual cultures with the tropes of modernist abstraction to create unique hybrid forms.

The artist also makes works in clothing, sculpture, film and photography.

JoAnne Northrup, Executive Director of the Nerman Museum said, “Lungs, is exceptionally large and has a powerful presence. It will be a fantastic addition to the Nerman Museum’s existing collection of works by contemporary Indigenous artists, including Raven Half Moon and Teresa Baker.”

An interesting article about Monnet’s series of works: Caroline Monnet’s Indigenous Worldbuilding (hyperallergic.com)

A quote from the above article: “The structures she makes help Monnet reclaim space and agency. “[The installation structures] were a way for me to speak about the housing crisis that a lot of Indigenous communities across North America are facing,” she told me. The geometric repetition of the works gives way to visual readings that recall maps, digital codes, and precise mark-making — situating the work both within long-running cultural practices and future realities.”

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.” 

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

Ding Shilun’s work in the museum lobby

Since Ding Shilun’s work, The Expulsion, was placed in the lobby a little less than a month ago we’ve been enjoying exploring the many intricacies and nuances of the painting. It is a great piece to spend some extended time with!

For more information about the artist, there’s an interview in W Magazine: Artist Ding Shilun Makes His Own Mythology (wmagazine.com)

and the gallery website features lots more information, including some videos of the artist speaking about his work: Ding Shilun – Video | Bernheim (bernheimgallery.com)

Ding Shilun (b. 1998), The Expulsion, 2022, Oil on canvas

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)