Extreme environments—from the Arctic Circle to outer space—have long provoked curiosity and wonder. In more recent times, these seemingly uninhabitable places have attracted attention as potential sites for development, future migration and colonization. 

Armed with this awareness, artists, designers, and engineers have worked across disciplines to power innovation, question existing systems, and seek visionary solutions to help navigate the future of extremes. These practitioners help us to understand our connection to this world and other worlds. They tackle difficult concepts to make the inaccessible accessible, and the invisible visible.  

This exhibition is organized in conjunction with the 2021 NV STEAM Conference, a statewide education conference focused on exploring ideas and strategies that incorporate Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math education into classroom practices that foster student creativity and innovation. The NV STEAM Conference is presented in partnership with the Desert Research Institute’s Science Alive program and supported by the Nevada Department of Education and the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. 

This exhibition presents work by a group of artists who use a variety of media–from oil on canvas to computer code—to manifest the concept of flow in different ways. Whether channeling the rhythms of the natural world such as waves or wind into their work, or engaging in meticulous repeated gestures, these artists produce work that manifests finely honed skills and great effort—but that effort is invisible. Featured artists include Rowena Meeks Abdy; Lita Albuquerque; Karl Benjamin; Emilie Clark; Fawn Douglas; Joseph Feddersen; Rachel Hayes; Michael Heizer; Lordy Rodriguez; Hiroshi Sugimoto; Camille Utterback; and Takako Yamaguchi.

Drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, Animal Crossings includes works that reveal various facets of the human-animal interface. The artists included in the exhibition reflect on ways that humans love, admire, study, hunt, and kill animals for a multitude of different reasons. 

As the world grapples with a pandemic resulting from a novel animal-human virus transmission, some people have chosen to cope with coronavirus-induced isolation by escaping virtually—for example, through video games. This exhibition’s title is inspired by a popular new video game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, released by Nintendo in March 2020, that invites players to interact with cute animal characters in a completely imaginary world. The artworks on view remind us that artists have always sought a deeper understanding of human interactions with animals.

This spotlight exhibition highlights a single painting by John Yoyogi Fortes. Drawing from multiple sources including Filipino culture, comics, pop culture, and art history, Fortes layers symbols, marks, and text into his multi-dimensional works, including this mixed media from the permanent collection of the Nevada Museum of Art.

One of the most noteworthy responses to the monumental Land Art interventions came at the same time as their production. Beginning in 1968, the artist Judy Chicago embarked on a series of ephemeral Atmospheres performances using colored smokes and fireworks in the deserts of the American West that were intended to “soften that macho Land Art scene,” as she puts it. Long overlooked by art historians and scholars, Chicago’s Atmospheres series provides a critical counterpoint and essential context to the predominantly male Land Artists working in the desert during the 1960s and 70s. It is for this very reason that the Nevada Museum of Art began working with Chicago in 2018 to secure the acquisition of her entire fireworks archive for the Center for Art + Environment archive collection. This exhibition debuts the archive publicly for the first time, and features never-before-seen vintage photographs and 16 mm films, ephemera such as correspondence and permits, press coverage, related clothing, as well as large-scale photographs documenting the history of Chicago’s Atmospheres performances from 1968 to the present.

Sponsors

Barbara and Tad Danz

Additional Support

Elaine Cardinale

Janna Ireland on the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams in Nevada is on view in New York at AIA New York Center for Architecture from July 13, 2023 – October 31, 2023.

This exhibition features the contemporary photography of Janna Ireland, who explores the important contributions of architect Paul R. Williams (1894-1980) in Nevada. Williams was the first licensed African American architect to work in the western region of the United States, designing buildings in the 1920s through the 1970s. His work in Nevada spans from the 1930s through the 1970s. The exhibition will open at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and will then travel to the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas from December 3rd, 2022 through May 29, 2023.

Paul Revere Williams’ architectural contributions collectively helped to redefine the built environment of the region. Some of his most iconic structures are in Southern California, and include the Music Corporation of America headquarters, and the renovation of the Beverly Hills Hotel; he was also deeply involved in the design of the master plan for the LAX Airport in association with William L. Pereira and Associates. Williams’ unique architectural creations earned him the name “Architect of the Stars,” as he also designed the homes of twentieth-century entertainers, some of which include Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant.

Williams’ architectural body of work in Nevada includes residential homes that were designed to enrich the lives of all community members, commercial properties, and religious institutions. His most notable buildings include the La Concha Motel (now part of the Neon Museum) in Las Vegas, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist (now known as the Lear Theater) in Reno.

Williams was first introduced to northern Nevada in the 1930s by Luella Garvey, for whom he designed a house in Reno in 1934. That commission was followed two years later by his design of the Ranch House at Rancho San Rafael Park. Other residential and lodging properties in northern Nevada designed by Williams include the El Reno Apartments in Reno, the Lovelock Inn and Tharpe/Brinkerhoff House in Lovelock, and E.L. Cord’s Circle L Ranch House in the Fish Lake Valley.

In southern Nevada, Williams also designed the Guardian Angel Cathedral, the Royal Nevada Casino (no longer extant) and Berkley Square—Southern Nevada’s first African American suburban community.

Janna Ireland approaches Williams’ architecture from a fine arts perspective. She produces photographs that highlight the intimate interior and exterior details of his buildings, bringing her own poetic response to Williams’ work. Ireland recently completed a photographic project on Williams’ work in Southern California, which includes architectural styles ranging from Spanish Mediterranean to Modern.

This exhibition is organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and curated by Carmen Beals. We thank spokesperson Claytee White, scholarly contributors Alicia Barber and Brooke Hodge, and community partners: Our Story, Inc., KME Architects, LGA Architects, and the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Las Vegas.

Visit the exhibition research website

Major Sponsors

The Jacquie Foundation
Kim Sinatra + Family

Sponsors

Blanchard, Krasner & French | Angela and Mark Krasner
Nancy and Harvey Fennell | Dickson Realty
Kristi Overgaard, ONIYA
The Private Bank by Nevada State Bank
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
The Phil and Jennifer Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada

Supporting Sponsors

Kathie Bartlett
Tammy and Michael Dermody
Drs. Shonda and Julian Hardman
The Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation
NV Energy Foundation
Karyn and Lance Tendler

Additional Support

Friends of the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
Nevada Humanities
NNRMLS
Katie O’Neill and Chris Gonya

Media Sponsor

PBS Reno

Karin Apollonia Müller’s photographs investigate the struggle between the natural world and the built environment. In her series FAROUT, Müller is particularly interested in human settlement patterns. During her research, she stumbled upon images from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, a joint project of NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.) The research images became the basis for Müller’s Citylights photographs.  The “lights” in these works reflect human population and distribution across the planet. While Müller did not manipulate the satellite images, she did turn the world upside down—occasionally fusing continents to encourage disorientation.

Inspired by abstract geometric paintings, fiber art, stained glass windows, fashion design, and the colors and contour lines of the natural landscape, Rachel Hayes has created fiber-art installations that cover sand dunes, cross rivers, and billow over mountains. For this unique project, Hayes was commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art to design a new site-specific installation for the Donald W. Reynolds Grand Hall.  “My thoughts were to create a color field installation that would cascade, billow, and flow…using a grouping of colors inspired by sunset in the Nevada sky,” she said.

Rachel Hayes was born in Kansas City, Missouri and lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her B.F.A. in Fiber from the Kansas City Art Institute, and her M.F.A. in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2018, Hayes collaborated with the Italian fashion house Missoni, which culminated in a solo exhibition for Milan Design Week, as well as a site-specific installation at the flagship Missoni boutique on Madison Avenue in New York. She has exhibited her work at institutions including the SculptureCenter in New York City; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; the Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH.  Recently, she completed a site-specific installation with Istanbul’74 during the 16th Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey.

Major Sponsors

Eleanor and Robert Preger
Six Talents Foundation

Sponsors

Maureen Mullarkey and Steve Miller
Volunteers in Art of the Nevada Museum of Art
Whittier Trust

Helen Glazer visited the Antarctic for two months in 2015 as a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. The overall goal of her artistic practice is to provide people “with an understanding of scientific concepts of growth and form in nature and the physical processes that shape the landscape.”

To accomplish this goal in the Antarctic, Glazer photographed ice and geological formations. She used these images as the basis for scans from which she made 3D printed sculptures. Based on these photographs, she also compiled a series of audio tours of the Antarctic landscape that include walks over frozen lakes, around glaciers and sea ice formations, into an ice cave, across fields of boulders, and through a colony of nesting Adélie penguins.

The multimedia project that resulted from this journey provides a unique representation of the world’s most forbidding landscape. 

Materials for this exhibition are drawn from Helen Glazer’s project archive at the Center for Art + Environment Archive Collections. 

Featuring 90 contemporary artworks by 35 renowned American artists, The World Stage showcases some of today’s global influencers alongside prominent names from the 20th-century art canon. The exhibition title is borrowed from the name of a series of paintings by Kehinde Wiley, an artist best known for his presidential portrait of Barack Obama which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The selected works comprise a variety of media, from painting to installation to mixed media, with a special focus on prints made in a wide range of techniques. 

Drawn from the collection of renowned art collector and philanthropist Jordan D. Schnitzer, The World Stage includes works by some of the most major American artists from the past 50 years, including Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Wendy Red Star, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley. Though unified by the country in which they live, these artists possess widely diverse backgrounds, worldviews, and approaches to artmaking.

Inform the Future with Your Comments
The Black Lives Matter movement will inform the future of our global society. We have extended The World Stage through February 7, 2021 to allow important space for expanded community reflection and dialogue during this critical moment. We value your thoughts and invite you to share them with us and the entire Nevada community.

To post your thoughts to the exhibition’s gallery screen:
Go to nevadaart.org/inform-the-future and complete the form provided.

Comments will be added to a continuous scroll within 72 hours from receipt and will remain as part of the exhibition. Comments containing profanity or vulgarity will not be included.

About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
At age 14, Jordan D. Schnitzer bought his first work of art from his mother’s Portland, Oregon contemporary art gallery, evolving into a lifelong avocation as collector. He began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in earnest in 1988. Today, the collection exceeds 14,000 works and includes many of today’s most important contemporary artists. It has grown to be one of the country’s largest private print collections. He generously lends work from his collection to qualified institutions. The Foundation has organized over 110 exhibitions and has had art exhibited at over 150 museums. Mr. Schnitzer is also President of Harsch Investment Properties, a privately owned real estate investment company based in Portland, Oregon, owning and managing office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in six western states. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.

Sponsors

Julie and Michael Teel | Raley’s
Volunteers in Art of the Nevada Museum of Art 

Supporting Sponsor

Kathie Bartlett

Additional Support

Quentin Abramo
Rory Higgins and Colby Williams
Dana and Greg Lee
Heidi Allyn Loeb
Katie O’Neill and Chris Gonya

Promotional Partner

Reno-Tahoe International Airport