The highly anticipated Kansas Focus Gallery at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art will open with its inaugural reception at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4. The event is free and open to the public.
“Thanks to museum architect Kyu Sung Woo and patron Mary Davidson, this gallery has emerged as one of the most extraordinary and beautiful spaces in the museum,” stated Bruce Hartman, Nerman Museum executive director.
The new first-floor gallery was spearheaded by Leawood, Kansas, art collector and major museum donor Mary Davidson, who generously offered to fund the creation of a gallery devoted to artists associated with Kansas. The Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Charitable Trust gifted $700,000 to the project: $150,000 toward renovation, $500,000 for the museum’s endowment, and $50,000 to acquire works by Kansas associated artists for the museum’s permanent collection. Davidson also gifted her personal collection of almost 200 works of art, which she and her late husband amassed over many years.
“This gallery is a unique addition to the Nerman,” Davidson said. “It will provide students and the community a greater awareness of the numerous outstanding artists who have lived, worked, been educated or born in Kansas. It is a dream realized!”
Davidson has long been a supporter of the Nerman Museum at Johnson County Community College. A gallery on the second floor of the museum was named the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Gallery in 2005. In 2009, the college accepted a gift of $1 million to establish the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition endowment, the first donor designated endowment for the museum. Since 2010, Davidson has hosted nearly 100 episodes of JCCC’s “It’s Our Community” talk show on the college’s cable channel. She has interviewed numerous area artists for her program. Davidson was honored this past November as Johnson Countian of the Year by the JCCC Foundation. She was named Kansas City Philanthropist of the Year in 2012.
“We are greatly pleased to showcase the artistic achievements of Kansas artists,” said Joe Sopcich, JCCC president. “Our new gallery further enhances JCCC’s connection to the entire state as we feature artists from throughout Kansas in exhibitions and the collection.”
The first exhibition in the new Kansas Focus Gallery will feature six large-scale photographs by artist Lori Nix. Born and raised in rural Norton, Kansas, Nix’s post-apocalyptic images of libraries, casinos, restaurants and Laundromats are both chilling and mesmerizing.
Elaborate and meticulously detailed dioramas — which may take Nix up to 15 months to build and several weeks to photograph — comprise the scenes depicted in her works. She has been pursuing her current series, “The City,” since 2005. In it, Nix depicts nature’s reclamation of the built environment. Humans are absent from these scenes where trees and vines invade the previously rarefied spaces of private libraries, art museums and violin repair shops.
Now a Brooklyn, New York-based artist, Nix earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1995 from Ohio University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1992 from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. This exhibit is Lori Nix’s first exhibition in the Kansas City area.
To further complement the inaugural opening of the Kansas Focus Gallery, the museum’s McCaffree Gallery and mezzanine (both on the second floor) will showcase works by Kansas associated artists, which have been acquired in conjunction with this new initiative. Paintings, photographs and works on paper by artists Davin Watne, Robert Bingaman, Wilbur Niewald, Keith Jacobshagen, Lisa Grossman, Michael Krueger, Birger Sandzen, Art Miller, Albert Bloch and Paulina Everitt will be included.
“This enhanced commitment to artists associated with Kansas allows us to build upon the museum’s longstanding support of area artists,” Hartman said. “The museum now houses the largest and most significant collection of works by artists associated with metropolitan Kansas City, and this new initiative will also further strengthen that aspect of the collection.”
The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. The museum is closed on Mondays and JCCC holidays. Admission and parking are free.
For more information call 913-469-3000 or visit nermanmuseum.org.