nerman museum

Tonight Kansas City hosts the gala opening of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at the Johnson County Community College. This puts Kansas City on the short list of American metropolitan areas of its size with two major contemporary art museums. It also establishes the college as one of the top ten universities for art on campus.

“When the new Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art opens to the public Oct. 27, it may not have the architecture critics turning somersaults.

Artists and art lovers, on the other hand, have something to celebrate in architect Kyu Sung Woo’s quiet minimalist structure of white limestone and glass at Johnson County Community College.

Costing roughly $13 million and measuring 38,000 square feet, it’s the perfect container for art. Curator Bruce Hartman’s plans for 16 special exhibitions a year will mean a roughly 50 percent increase in the number of shows put on by local museums and major nonprofit art spaces. Local artists are a key part of the Nerman picture; so are contemporary American Indian artists.

And when it comes to trends, Hartman has a reputation for leading rather than following.

A major show called ‘American Soil’ gets things off to an auspicious start in the first-floor special exhibition galleries. Large paintings and installations by six rising stars of American art take a critical look at American values through the prism of our relationship to the landscape.

Since 1980, when the college art collection began, it expressed confidence in locally produced art as well as cutting-edge national and international talent.

Three shows per year will feature Kansas City area artists in the museum’s dedicated Project gallery. For the opening, Hartman has filled the 1,000-square-foot gallery with a show titled ‘Allusive Abstraction,’ featuring abstract paintings by artists who live or were trained in Kansas City.” The Kansas City Star

I am pleased to say that “Sprinkler,” a photograph from my series entitled “One Square Mile” is included in the collection and will be part of the opening exhibition.