16
Wednesday, June 15, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Artists out to disprove critics Unique Kansas art displayed at museum's summer opening
By Debbie Bengtson
Kansan staff writer
When people think of an exhibit featuring Kansas Art, they envision walking through painting after painting of wheatfields and barns.
"A Kansas Collection," the exhibit featured at the summer opening of the Spencer Art Museum, may change some minds.
There are 50 pieces in the show. Included are sculptures, paintings with oil and watercolors, drawings, etchings and prints. The pieces do not have a common theme; each piece is as individual as the artist who created it.
Many of the paintings are abstract except for a few, such as "Welcome to Kansas," a pastel by Diane Newton, and "Rio Grande Orchard," a watercolor by Joan Foth.
Like the show itself, the works of sculpture lack a common theme. Jon Havener's pieces, "Entrap" and "Electric Cadet," are constructed from steel, brass and copper, producing an illusion of heaviness and darkness.
producing an allure on the other hand, uses wood brightly painted with orange or red acrylic to create his sculpture, "Keeping Your Head (While Others Are Losing Theirs)." Gormally's sculptures leave the viewer with a sense of weightlessness and brightness, deeply contrasting Havener's heavy sculpture. Each piece was different and unexpected.
A symposium, "Forty years of Kansas Art," with three speakers, preceded the collection's premiere. . . .
speakers, preachers. Jane Eby, a Wichita artist featured in the collection, spoke about art history in Kansas. She said that Kansas had moved slowly in recognizing talented artists and consequently had lost many to states that recognized art, such as California and New York.
The way to recognize artists, she said, is through the media and constructive criticism.
media and corporate crises. Croissard,
Philomene Bennett, a Lenexa artist also featured in the
collection, said the state had to remember the wealth of
talent that was in Kansas.
"We forget how much talent we have because we are taught that art is best on the East and West coasts," she said.
The last speaker, Don Lambert, a Topeka free-lance art writer, said that "A Kansas Collection" had met with bad press at its opening in Washington, D.C. He said that many critics said the collection was dull and the pieces in the show were similar.
"The only thing consistent with the show was the geographic point of origin," he said.
He said this show, despite the bad reviews by Newsweek, the New Art Examiner and the Kansas City Times, was the best thing that had happened to Kansas art and artists.
He said the critics were blinded by Kansas' reputation of wheatfields and barns.
"Local critics tried their best to sabotage the show," he said. "They didn't know how to look at art other than that produced in New York."
Andrew Morrison/KANSAN
Ann Cobb, Lawrence resident, and Linda Bailey, membership coordinator of Spencer Museum of Art, discuss a painting titled "After Blake" by John D. Boyd. The piece is part of "A Kansas Collection."
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