lacque Janssen, arts/features editor
University Daily Kansan / Friday, April 1, 1988
Arts & Entertainment
9
Works of Japanese women displayed
Works of Japa Art exhibit is the result of 4 years of planning
By Kevin Dilmore Kansan staff writer
Patricia Fister, left, and Mark Roeyer, right, unpack a shipment of artwork from Japan.
Janine Swiatkowski/KANSAN
Museum exhibits may seem to appear magically, springing from storage rooms onto gallery walls at a moment's notice. But when the doors open to the Kress Gallery and the "Japanese Women Artists: 1600-1900" exhibit in the Spencer Museum of Art tomorrow, it will mark the culmination of more than four years of work that will not cease when the exhibit leaves May 22.
The exhibit is the brainstchild of Patricia Fister, curator of Oriental art for the art museum. She began shaping the basics of the exhibit as soon as she assumed her staff position in the fall of 1984.
"I wanted to explore what was theoretically a very restrictive time for women," she said. "I delved into biographies to see what classes women artists came from or what roles they played." The work is beautiful, but the world of the women is just as interesting to me."
Fister went to Japan in search of information for the exhibit, wading through Japanese texts and artwork to use as a foundation for a proposal.
She said that any idea for an exhibit must be cleared through the museum's board of directors.
"We discussed the idea to see if it had any scholarly interest and to see if it was similar to anything that had been done before," she said. "I wanted to make it not just scholarly but visually exciting for the public to look at."
The next step for Fister was to get funding for the exhibit. She applied for grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Japan-United States Friendship Commission.
An application to these agencies is not as simple as filling out a request form. Fister had to provide, among other things, a complete list of intended works, a floor plan for the exhibit and letters of intent from the speakers she wanted during its run. All of this work was completed
three years ago. The agencies approved the grants. But if they hadn't, the work might have been scranned
"It's kind of a Catch-22 situation," Fister said.
The plan still would have had some hope, though.
"The exhibit could have been postponed while we looked for corporate sponsors or simply run on a smaller scale," she said. "It could have been canceled, but only as a last resort."
For the list of works, Fister came up with what she called a wish list of pieces she wanted in the exhibit. She said her yearly travels to Japan helped make the compilation progressively easier.
"I had an idea of what artists I wanted to include, and my search spread word-of-mouth through Japan," she said.
She said that her original list had been slightly modified and now contained 88 pieces for the exhibit, including scrolls, paintings, pottery, calligraphy and a bamboo tea scoop.
Fister worked with Mark Roeyer, the museum's exhibition designer, on setting a layout for the pieces. The exhibit was divided into 10 sections, grouping the women artists by social and chronological backgrounds. Wall panels from each company each provided information about the painters and roots.
"I really respect his judgment and aesthetic sensibilities," she said.
"I wanted the sections to fall in a sensible order," Fister said. "I like to divide up space so you don't come across your words and become inundated with objects."
But an exhibit is not designed with just information in mind. Consideration also is given to the physical placement of each object in regard to its height and lighting for the best possible view. Fister said she left almost all the designing to Roeyer.
With the framework of the exhibit complete, Fister began compiling the catalogue of the exhibit, which was still more than two years away. She built on a sample chapter of entries
Fister said the catalog was an intensive writing project, requiring about four years to research, write and edit. It has 198 pages, and it includes each piece in the collection along with a history of the artists.
The catalog also features a guest essay by Fumiko Yamamoto, associate professor of East Asian languages and culture. Yamamoto coteaches a class with Fister this semester on Japanese women in art and literature. The book, "Japanese Women Artists, 1600-1900," was completed eight months ago and was published in agreement with Harper and Row. It will be sold at the exhibit and in bookstores.
ground but expanding on the theme of woman artists," Fister said.
Fister was notified that the show received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Japan-United States Friendship Commission when she was finishing the book last year. It was then that she began working with the university's curator of education, on setting up films, videos and guest speakers to appear in conjunction with the exhibit.
The trial arrangements for the exhibit were mostly bureaucratic, Fister said.
"I tried to choose things with a general Japanese cultural back-
"We had an informal OK from loaners of the objects, but we usually get official loan agreements a year in advance," she said.
But these problems seem small compared to what could happen while trying to borrow an object from another country. Fister said she had to prepare two books with photographs of every Japanese piece for the Agency of Cultural Affairs.
Museums have various policies for loaning objects, Fister said, and sometimes the policies can become frustrating. For instance, a museum might require a piece to be personally accompanied instead of shipped by air freight. Or a museum could require an exhibitor to insure a piece separately from the rest of the show. Fister said that some pieces in the exhibit were insured in the tens of thousands of dollars.
"They instituted a program protecting any piece that is declared to have important cultural properties or to be a national treasure," she said. "These pieces cannot be
removed from a country but for special exhibitions."
Fister's exhibit does not include any national treasures.
when any piece arrives at the museum, Fister said, the piece is unpacked and undergoes a detailed condition report. The piece is photographed and verbally described so that, in the event the piece suffers damage, the damaged can be assessed.
"The reports take into consideration every detail, every crease and abrasion that you would not detect with the naked eve." she said.
After all of the pieces have arrived, the exhibit is assembled. Fister said that she hoped for a leeway of a couple of weeks between assembly and opening but that the delay of some pieces consumed that time.
"If we are here hanging things the day before the exhibit opens, it won't be the first time it has happened," Fister said. "It'll be tight, but it'll get done."
After the exhibit closes May 22, each piece will be given another condition report before the exhibit moves to the Honolulu Academy of Arts for a month.
New film is funny, shocking
By Kevin Dilmore
Kansan staff writer
Film Review
Submitted for your approval: a bizarre black comedy. A movie brought to life by talented performers playing dead people. A movie sometimes too funny to be shocking and sometimes too shocking to be funny. Imagine, if you will, an episode of "The Twilight Zone" with Pee Wex Herman as host instead of Rod Serling. You are about to enter "Beetlejuice."
The film, now playing at the Cinema Twin Theatres, 31st and Iowa streets, stars Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as Adam and Barbara Maitland, a typical young married couple living a quiet life until their car plunges off a bridge and they die.
They try adjusting to their new existence by haunting their former house and trying to scare away its new owners (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara), but with no success.
The Maitlands hire Beutelgeuse (Michael Keaton), a professional bio-exorcist who stops at nothing to frighten people. But Beutelgeuse (spelled phonetically in the film's title so as not to upset people with no pronunciation skills) helps them reach out, they spend the rest of the film trying to break their contract with him.
"Beetlejuice" plods along for its first 20 minutes but kicks into high gear as soon as Beetlejuice appears. Keaton is electric as the hip and nasty ghost. He seems to spend little time on screen because he makes the film move quickly whenever he appears.
"Beetlejuice" is the second film directed by Tim Burton, who also directed "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." He loads the same weird characters and outlandish special effects into this one.
"Beetlejuice" is rated PG for adult language and graphic violence.
ALPHA PHI ALPHA (As a contribution to KU's War on Hunger) Presents
DICK GREGORY
He gained fame as a comedian and is today a human rights activist, social satirist, author, lecturer, recording artist, actor, philosopher, and political activist. Moveover, he combines these roles to serve the cause of human liberation and alleviate human suffering.
He is the provocative and outspoken DICK GREGORY.
Credited with opening many doors for black entertainers, GREGORY found comedy an expedient avenue toward getting people's attention, to make them think as well as laugh. Once he achieved success as an entertainer, he used it to assist causes he knew desperately needed help.
His participation in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is well-documented, as are his efforts roward world peace, hunger, and rights of American Indians. His efforts, however, have had a cost. GREGORY was virtually barred from the entertainment business; he was jailed numerous times for his part in demonstrations; and cancelled bookings, travel costs, and legal fees have run over one million dollars.
Yet DICK GREGORY continues in his struggle for human dignity. He ran from Chicago to Washington, D.C. in 1974 to call attention to world hunger. His fasts have become legendary, as he employs them to symbolize the suffering of oppressed people everywhere. His 1980 journey to Iran saw him take only liquids for 145 days as he prayed for the release of American hostages and for the cessation of world hostility. While in Iran, GREGORY met with the Ayatollah Khomeini, the last westerner to do so. More recently, he visited IRA hunger strikers in England and, while arriving too late to help, the experience was the catalyst for his medically supervised fast in New Orleans in 1981. There, he proved fastings to be not only effective but could be done without risk to life. In 1982, GREGORY assisted the ERA movement by instructing hunger strikers in Illinois on proper fasting methods.
A self-taught authority on nutrition, GREGORY's nine books include Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature in addition to his acclaimed autobiography, Nigger.
This well known political activist will address the campus of the University of Kansas as a part of this year's 'Alpha' week events. The event will take place on April 5, 1988, at 7 p.m. in the Kansas Union Ballroom. There is no admission charge. All students and faculty are welcome to attend.
Certainly difficult to label, DICK GREGORY is simply, as he says, "For People."
Watch the 'Hawks on 4 Big Screens at Gammons.
We will be open at 3:00 this Saturday for K.U. vs. Duke! Come out and Cheer the Jayhawks on to victory.
Free Hors D'oeuvres
We will also be open Monday at 7:30 for the National Championship.
Don't Forget Taco Bar Today at 5:00