Ginny Ruffner: a not so still life

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Saturday July 9 / 2 – 4 pm

In anticipation of her trip to northern Nevada, Ginny Ruffner said "I'm really looking forward to being in Reno and especially to meeting the local creative community. That landscape is particularly inspiring." Following the film, Ms. Ruffner will visit with the audience and answer questions.

The documentary film, a not so still life, peers into the kaleidoscopic mind of Ginny Ruffner, an artist as beloved for her magnanimous spirit as for her evolving "visual thought experiments." Director Karen Stanton explores the full span of Ginny's fascinating journey, from her childhood in South Carolina to her emergence as a world-­renowned artist. Meet the luminaries in her orbit, including Dale Chihuly, Graham Nash, and Tom Robbins. Witness Ginny's determination to recover from the accident that nearly claimed her life, but barely even slowed her constant re-­invention of the world around her.

Tickets for the film may be purchased at the Museum's website: $10/$8 members. For additional information, contact Colin Robertson at NMA: colin.robertson@nevadaart.org

[image from a Goggle search for the artist; text from the Museum and the film's producers]

The Fishman Project

Nevada Museum of Art
Center for Art and Environment Gallery
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

John Reid: The Fishman Project

"In 1988 Australian artist John Reid captured on film the blurred image of what appeared to be a hominid creature underwater. The location was a remote cave high in the mountains of New South Wales, a region of ancient forest under threat from logging. For sixteen years, Reid explored the mountains in order to track down what he describes not as a scientific discovery, but an artistic one.

When Reid made public his discovery, he received national media attention for his images of what he called “Fishman,” a previously undiscovered hominid. In the process, he drew attention to the plight of the forests, which have since been preserved in a string of parks, in particular the Monga and Deua National Parks, which holds the Wyanbene Caves where he first encountered the Fishman.
Reid’s photographs trace his effort to track down the elusive creature, as well as document some of these forested valleys that are so steep and deeply forested that Australian artists since the 18th-century have had difficulty in portraying them."

Through January 9, 2011

[Text and graphic from the Museum website. Click on image to enlarge.]

Pablo Picasso Musical Instruments

Pablo Picasso Musical Instruments

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Cubism at its finest.

"In Picasso’s Musical Instruments and Fruit Bowl on a Pedestal, fragments of a traditional still life composition are identifiable: a violin, sheet music, and decorative furniture components are enveloped among other flattened, colorful geometric shapes. This experimental and innovative approach to making art revolutionized the artistic scene in Europe and eventually influenced artists working in the United States."

Learn more about Cubism.


Through November 28

[Text and graphic from Nevada Museum of Art website. Click on image to enlarge.]

Explorer, Naturalist, Artist: John James Audubon and the Birds of America

Opening November 7

Nevada Museum of Art
Feature Gallery South
160 W. Liberty Street
Reno

Explorer, Naturalist, Artist:
John James Audubon
and the Birds of America








Considered "one of the most important artists of the nineteenth century. From 1820 to 1838, he traversed the eastern and central United States to depict nearly five-hundred species of birds—giving special attention to the complex interrelationships between the animals and their natural habitats. In 1863, about ten years after Audubon’s death, his wife Lucy sold the family’s core collection of Audubon material to the New York Historical Society, including hundreds of Audubon's original watercolors, many of which were the basis for his Birds of America series. This exhibition features fifty of Audubon’s most dramatic and life-sized watercolor depictions from the first-edition printing of The New York Historical Society Edition.
The works in this exhibition are drawn from The Dana Rose Richardson Memorial Collection of Audubon Prints at the Nevada Museum of Art."

Through February 13, 2011

[Text and graphics from Nevada Museum of Art website.]

Binh Danh: Ancestral Altars

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Binh Danh
Ancestral Altars

"Vietnamese-American artist Binh Danh uses an innovative photographic process that employs organic matter and sunlight to make haunting images that memorialize victims of the Khmer Rouge."


Through November 28.

[Text and graphic from museum website. Caption: "Ancestral Altar #21, 2006." Click on image to enlarge.]

Natural Conflict

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Natural Conflict
Video and Photography from Israel

"Natural Conflict showcases work by seven established Israeli artists who explore issues that have been ongoing in Israeli society for years. Through the media of video and photography, the artists Shelly Federman, Avi Holtzman, Elyasaf Kowner, Ori Gersht, Roi Kuper, Shai Kremer, and Sharon Glazberg reveal the way that Israeli military presence, booming real estate development, and other environmental issues have both physically and metaphorically impacted the Israeli landscape.

While environmental conflicts such as these are universal and enduring, in Israel the relative impact is greater due to its diminutive size and limited open space. Although environmental awareness exists, clear policies for protecting natural resources have evolved slowly and are sometimes challenged by powerful private interests and the needs of the military. This exhibition endeavors to survey the varied visual and environmental realities in Israel through the eyes of the seven artists. Comprised of loaded symbols of the Israeli landscape and culture, common sights, and hidden or unfamiliar places, the works grapple with the real, potential, and endangered beauty of the Israeli landscape with a blend of criticism and subtle sorrow."

Through December 5

[Text and graphic from museum website. Click on image to enlarge.]

On Earth as It Is in Heaven

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

August 14, 2010 - October 17:

Chester Arnold
On Earth as It Is in Heaven

"For Chester Arnold, painting is as much about social responsibility as it is about crafting luscious large-scale oil paintings in the tradition of 19th-century European artists. Since he began painting over three decades ago, Arnold has cleverly confronted a range of challenging subjects ranging from land use and environmental issues to the global impacts of human and industrial consumption, accumulation, and waste. The paintings united in this exhibition ask viewers to consider the implications of unchecked economic development and industrialized growth on the natural environment. Often, Arnold's work is infused with a dose of religious or political inflection that generates passionate dialogue about the topics he tackles. "If this is God's will," Arnold once remarked while referring to one of the abused landscapes he depicted on canvas, "something is wrong."

more

[Text and graphic from Museum website. Click to enlarge.]

Physiocartographies

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Center for Art + Environment

Bill Gilbert
Physiocartographies

Using a GPS unit and a compass, New Mexico-based artist Bill Gilbert attempts to walk carefully pre-determined routes in both space and time across landscapes in the American West. His carefully-made plans are invariably disrupted by the realities of terrain and the limitations of the human body. In the tradition of British artists such as Richard Long and Chris Drury, Gilbert's "Physiocartography" performances chart the distance between the map and the terrain, and are documented in drawings, video, and audio recordings.

Through September 26.

[Text and graphic from Museuem website. Caption: "Bill Gilbert. 'For John Wesley Powell, Attempts to Walk the Grid, Sand Canyon, September 27, 2006.'  Digital print, 40 x 40 inches, one-hour walk in each cardinal direction, orientation: magnetic north." Click on image to enlarge.]

Eric Strain | BRDI | NMA

Black Rock Design Institute at the Nevada Museum of Art

January 21
Social hour with Silver Peak Beer at 5 pm. Lecture at 6 pm.

more

La Velata

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Raphael: The Woman with the Veil
Through March 21

Raphael’s masterpiece painting "The Woman with the Veil," depicting a woman wearing a veil, embodies some of the high Renaissance master’s distinctive qualities: his control over pigment and color, and a serenity that contrasts with the style of his mentors and fellow icons of the era.

[Text from museum website. Caption: "Raphael (nee Raphael Sanzio), La Donna Velata or La Velata (The Woman with the Veil), c. 1516. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches. Collection of Istituti museale della Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino."]

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

The Grid: Bernd and Hilla Becher

German husband-and-wife team Bernd and Hilla Becher are best known for their photographs of large-scale industrial buildings that are typically arranged in grids. Using a large-format camera, the Bechers have photographed hundreds of industrial structures—including water towers, grain silos, houses, and warehouses—with the aim of maintaining a straightforward and objective point of view. At once conceptual art and typological study, the Bechers’ photography has influenced a generation of artists, from Candida Höfer and Andreas Gursky to Ed Ruscha and Henry Wessel.

This exhibition is presented as part of the Art + Environment series, an initiative of the Nevada Museum of Art that brings together community, artists and scholars to explore the interaction between people and their environments.

Through February 07, 2010

[text and graphic from museum website. Caption: "Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gas Tanks (GB Erdgas), 1963 – 93. Black and white photographs, 68 x 56 in. (overall). Courtesy of Private Collection, San Francisco.)"]

Monument to Vladimir Tatlin

Nevada Museum of Art
160 West Liberty Street
Reno

Dan Flavin:
Monument to Vladimir Tatlin
through April 26, 2009

"Take a nighttime drive by the Museum and peer into the main lobby to see legendary Minimalist artist Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light sculpture Monument to Vladimir Tatlin. For over 30 years, Flavin created dynamic sculptures made from fluorescent tubing in standard sizes, shapes, and colors. Monument to Vladimir Tatlin was named in honor of the grand tower that was envisioned by Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin in 1917, but never built. Flavin’s sculptures are widely celebrated for the way that they interact with various architectural spaces and explore the physics of light. The sculpture is illuminated daily from 10 am to 10 pm."

[Text and Flavin image from the Nevada Museum of Art Web site. Caption: "Dan Flavin, Monument to Vladimir Tatlin, 1969, fluorescent tubing. Courtesy of Private Collection, San Francisco." Graphic of Tatlin monument from Wikipedia. Caption: "Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin. Model of the Monument to the Third International." Click on images to enlarge.]