As the recently concluded Olympic Games have reminded us, the human body is a testament to capability, endurance and great beauty. Monuments to ancient Greek athletes were some of the earliest representations of physical splendor, its subjects raised to the level of heroes, ideal embodiments of strength, health, youth and virtue. And the best way […]
With the terrarium-like swelter of recent weeks, you might assume the current show at Darger HQ — Hothouse — was commissioned just for this summer in Omaha. But don’t expect to find tropical plants or Bikram yoga classes here; it’s a different kind of hothouse to which artists Elizabeth Kauffman (Salisbury, MD) and Luke Severson […]
Whatever else one takes away from Nebraska Rising, a current exhibition of 11 area artists at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, two things are remarkably clear. One, the region is not lacking in a diverse group of artists who, at whatever stage of their career, fly under the radar or out of the limelight. […]
Multi-media artist Troy Muller creates objects that aspire to be something other than what they are — namely, works by an early-twenty-first-century American artist. Each of the objects in Honey Mushroom Wonderfuls, the mysteriously named show of Muller’s work at Modern Arts Midtown, appears to be from another time, one in which it played a […]
Once home from travels to historic sites and architectural wonders, we struggle to capture and retain the color, light, texture and line, mood and emotion aroused by our experiences. We patch together photo books and scribble travelogues to fix in our minds breathtaking panoramas, stunning vistas, or holy sites. But painter Steve Joy does so […]
Now considered a cornerstone of science-fiction writing, Philip K. Dick’s 1968 dystopian book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? presented a not-so-distant post-apocalyptic world inhabited by people, humanoid robots and very few animals. Later adapted into the film Blade Runner, Dick’s novel on the nature of empathy was transformed into a haunting, futuristic noir detective […]
In 2011 pop star Rihanna released the international chart topper “S&M”. This sexually suggestive song about bondage informs the listener through a catchy beat and monotonous lyrics, that “chains and whips” are exciting. Fourteen years earlier at Walt Disney World, “It’s Tough to Be a Bug!” opened to the public as a multisensory attraction congruent […]
Institutional critique always appears more trenchant when contained within the confines of an establishment, where it can be dissected by the very language that defines it. The Omaha Public Library is our city repository of shareable knowledge, a site open to inquiries by all comers. That exists, by its published mission, to “connect people with […]
Now in his seventy-fifth year, artist Keith Jacobshagen has been setting the terms in which Midwestern landscape painting is created and discussed for several decades now. It is therefore appropriate that Terra Firma, the exhibition on view at Gallery 1516 until June 12, begins with one of his works. The 2003 oil on canvas” Salt […]
Anniversaries are an occasion for both looking back and ahead. Recapturing fond memories, learning from the past, planning for a future. In 2016, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts enjoys its 35th year as an organization, and has opened its annual exhibition season with Time + Space: Beginnings, which considers its early years as well […]
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