I know that baseball season has been in swing for about a month now but at the Museum, we are getting ready for summer exhibition season. Tomorrow is opening day for our two featured exhibitions for late spring/early summer this year: Sparks! The William T. Kemper Collecting Initiative and Print Lovers at 30: Celebrating Three Decades of Giving.
We had a preview of both exhibitions yesterday. It was my first chance to see Print Lovers at 30 and I am eager to spend more time there. Hugh Merrill, printmaker and professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, is the guest curator. He gave an excellent overview of the different aspects of the exhibit and paid tribute to George McKenna, who was the Museum's curator of the print collection for almost 40 years until he passed away in 2007.
Next, we were treated to a tour of Sparks! led by Robert Storr who is the Dean of the Art School at Yale Univeristy and a former curator for the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is comprised of 36 works of art that have been acquired over the past 9 years through a generous contribution from the William T. Kemper Foundation.
Even though I am familiar with a good portion of the works, it was wonderful to get a new perspective as Storr explained the reasons behind what works of art were chosen. For instance, Marcel Duchamp's Box in a Valise and Man Ray's Object Indestructable are seminal pieces that help form a solid foundation for the contemporary collection. He also mentioned that during the collecting process, many artists were chosen because they have been overlooked and perhaps underappreciated. There are also several local artists including Stanley Whitney who help connect the Nelson-Atkins to our community.
My favorite parts of the tour were when Storr spoke about the artists themselves. He referred several times to the "elders of the tribe" including Louise Bourgeois and Dorothea Tanning, both of whom are in their nineties and still producing art. He also explained the connections between some of the artists and how they influenced each other either through personal or professional relationships.
I'm ready for the season to start. Play ball!