Take a trip in your mind’s eye to an art museum. Works by which storied western landscape painters would you hope to see there? Some by the C’s: Cezanne, Constable, Courbet, Corot?
Perhaps Monet’s impressionist sunscapes or Van Gogh’s expressionistic reveries? Or dig deeper into history—maybe Dürer’s naturalism, Titian’s pastorales or Bosch’s visionary surrealism?
The Swiss artist duo Hendrikje Kühne and Beat Klein have seen such landscapes and much more, and share a devotee’s passion for collecting reproductions of museum masterpieces—postcards, posters and the like. Then they cut them up and create multilayered collages that variously reconstruct, reimagine or even completely upend the original context of their sources.
Their work is variously intricate, obsessive, curious and humorous. And some of it was created in Omaha, as the pair were Bemis Center residents in 2012. As often happens with this program, there is seldom any additional opportunity to exhibit, short of inclusion in its annual auctions.
The Moving Gallery’s commitment to showing the work of international artists and fostering such ongoing connections results in welcome exhibitions such as this.
The Moving Gallery’s Hendrikje Kühne/Beat Klein is on view at the Garden of the Zodiac beginning Thursday, October 5 from 6:30-9pm and runs through December 3. The gallery, located at 1042 Howard Street in the Old Market Passageway, is open Tues-Sat from noon-8pm and on Sun from noon-6pm.
