40 Years Between Edw Martinez & Robert Morrison

Sheppard Gallery
Church Fine Arts Building
University of Nevada, Reno
summer hours: TuWTh 12 – 2 pm

The House of Last Week's Work:
40 Years Between Edw Martinez & Robert Morrison

Opening Night Reception
Thursday July 23 5 – 7 pm

through August 13, 2009

"celebrating 40 years of friendship and art-making between UNR Professor Robert Morrison and Professor Emeritus Edw Martinez. As the title may suggest, there is hidden meaning stemming from 40 years of their creative dialogue. Below are descriptions gleaned from the words of the artists themselves.

40 years......As newly hired art faculty, Bob Morrison and Edw Martinez had their first university exhibit when they were given their "first" show in Spring 1969. Neither of them can recall what they showed. Since Edw was brought in to teach ceramics, he thinks his work probably included some kind of clay globs, hanging from plastic sheeting from the ceiling, and Bob may have been making sandblasted imagery upon glass stands or cases. As they say, it doesn't really matter since they are not trying to do a retrospective or a follow-up on 40 years of making art. Martinez remembers that the response to the show was puzzlement.

House…..Morrison was creating metal framework house structures with nets and butterflies. Edw saw one at South Tahoe and really liked it. He then came up with the idea that he could build or replicate Morrison's form or shape/size house in his own material and that they could show the two structures together in a big white empty room. That was the start of the house 'thing', they say.

Last week's work.....The artists have a running joke between them: “Last week's work.” Both Morrison and Martinez admit to having a suspect reputation that they let things slide, that they are always frantic to the last minute before an exhibition, even sometimes several hours before the doors are to open."

[Text from gallery press release. Graphic from Western Nevada College Gallery flier for Edw Martinez 2008 exhibition "Carson Cairn" [left] and 2005 Nevada Museum of Art exhibition "Robert Morrison: A Retrospective" [right]. Caption: "Robert Morrison, Tongues: The Half Life of Morphine, 1987, steel, fiberglass, electronics, thirty steel cots, each approximately 48 x 36 x 72, installation variable dimensions.]