Kevin Cooley’s work examines the relationship between the natural and built environment and the moments when the two collide. This exhibition presents a concise selection of his video work. Devils Churn (2010), Path (2008), Toss (2010), and Saguaro (2010) highlight simple meditative gestures – a bobbing inner tube, floating balloon, waving flag and tossed ring – that serve as surrogates for the endurance of the human spirit in the face of an indifferent nature. Disparate and powerful landscapes play the role of nature in the videos including, the Oregon Coast, Northern Iceland, Southern Utah, and Western Arizona. Cooley did not edit these videos; instead they present moments as they unfolded in real time. Cooley recounts simple, elemental moments that his careful framing and patient depiction elevate to a higher order. The fluorescent pink in each video knits the disparate actions together into a subtle yet personally epic struggle against nature.

In a classical sense, Fire, Earth, Wind, and Water define the world we inhabit. The tension between these forces, and our struggles to exist among them, provides the framework for the series. Each video presents a real-time tableau in which two elements contend. Either a force of nature, or else a human figure or human stand-in, acts as protagonist in these subtly filmed dramas.

Cooley received a MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York City and Primal Forces will be his second solo museum exhibition. His work, Remote Nation, (comprised of 100 analog TV sets placed throughout a vacant NYC apartment building and playing programs controlled by his father’s remote control in Colorado) was recently on view in New York, seen from the High Line and his large scale video installation Skyward was recently on view at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center in Portland, OR. Upcoming exhibitions include a new two-channel video installation, A Thousand Miles an Hour, at Ryan/Lee Gallery in New York; additionally, Cooley’s work will be included in Modern Alchemy: Experiments in Photography, The Heckscher Musuem of Art, Huntington, NY, in 2014-2015.

Each year for the last ten years, Victoria Sambunaris (American, born 1964) has set out from her home in New York to cross the United States by car, alone with her camera. Her photographs capture the expansive American landscape and the natural and fabricated adaptations that appear throughout it. In conjunction with the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Nevada Museum of Art presents a selection of approximately forty photographs from Sambunaris’s body of work, marking the artist’s first solo exhibition at a major American museum. Hauntingly beautiful in their documentation of the declining American terrain, Sambunaris’s images celebrate the intersection of civilization, geology, and natural history, featuring trains in Texas and Wyoming, trucks in New Jersey and Wisconsin, the oil pipeline in Alaska, uranium tailings in Utah, and a unique view of Arizona’s Petrified Forest. Together, they present a sparse and vast landscape dotted by human intervention that is distinctly American. The exhibition will also include a comprehensive archival installation featuring maps, journals, and additional records of the artist’s travels.

ARTIST BIO

Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1964, Victoria Sambunaris documents, through the lens of her camera, the vast terrain of the United States and the impact that humans have had on the natural landscape. Sambunaris received a BA from Mount Vernon College in 1986 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1999. Her work has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States; however, her exhibition at the Albright-Knox marks her first solo museum exhibition. Her work can also be seen in numerous collections throughout the United States, including those of the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sambunaris has participated in the Ucross Foundation Residency Program in Wyoming (2010), as well as the Center for Land Use Interpretation’s Wendover Residence Program in Nevada (2004), and has been awarded a Lannan Foundation Fellowship (2002) and a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2000). She has held numerous teaching positions, and currently lives and works wherever her intuition takes her.

The exhibition Victoria Sambunaris: Taxonomy of a Landscape originated at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York and was organized by Christie Mazuera Davis, Program Director, Contemporary Art and Public Programs at the Lannan Foundation, and Albright-Knox Curator for the Collection Holly E. Hughes.

Additional support

Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Mothers–The Art of Seeing  is inspired by land, politics and the spirit in equal measures. Well known for experimenting and pushing the technical aspects of her work with new materials such as plastic, barbed wire, and fine stainless steel wire, Underwood has created three separate series of artworks for this exhibition – each stylistically distinct, all representing interconnectivity both literal and metaphoric.

A site-specific installation inspired by the geologic formations of the nearby Black Rock Desert includes a painted form with a jagged line dividing it into two, alluding to the fence under construction which separates the United States and Mexico. Nails and fibers are integrated into the surface, along with paw prints representing the presence of migratory animals. Jimenez Underwood thereby expresses her concern about the environmental impact of the Mexico-United States Barrier. “The border is one land, always has been and always will,” Underwood says. “The plants, animals and flowers know this.”

A second series of works consists of a series of five rebozos – the long flat garment worn by women, mostly in Mexico. These weavings are notably more refined and elegant than the border piece. In fact, Underwood intends these works to serve as gifts for her maternal ancestors. “Beauty, grace, and flowers soothe the quiet rage that has permeated the Americas for more than five hundred years. Thus, when I weave, sew, or embellish, the viejitas (the old ones) seem to express their encouragement and support of my creations.”

The final series consists of two separate artworks, including a flag-like tapestry that interweaves the United States flag with the flag of Mexico. The artist states, “My audience is the general public: all who live on the American continent, all who have seen and experienced the majestic power and grandeur of the American western landscape, all who care about the environment, and most importantly, it is for those who would want their descendants to be able to enjoy these visual and necessary gifts from Mother Earth.”

Crossing borders and negotiating between three perspectives – American, Mexican, and Indian – has always been a fundamental aspect of Underwood’s persona, and the basis of her creative process. She first learned how to weave from her Mexican mother, eventually refining her knowledge through formal education. She earned a Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees in Fine Art, eventually shifting her initial interest from painting to fiber arts.

For more than twenty years, Underwood was Professor of Art and Head of the Fiber/Textile Area in the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University in California.

Sponsor

Nevada Arts Council

Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948, Tokyo, Japan) explores themes of history and temporal existence through the medium of photography. His interest in art began at a young age when he discovered the writings of French Surrealist author and poet André Breton, which led to his subsequent interest in the work of Dada artist Marcel Duchamp. Sugimoto’s creative philosophy is informed by his ongoing investigation of time, memory, and metaphysics. This exhibition features selections from three of his most prominent ongoing photographic series: Dioramas (1976–), Theaters (1978–), and Seascapes (1980–).

Sugimoto’s work is in the collections of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The National Gallery, London; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Smithsonian Institute of Art, Washington, D.C., and Tate, London, among many others. Sugimoto lives and works in New York and Tokyo.

The paintings in No Boundaries were made by nine elderly men from the Western Australian desert. These men were revered as leaders in their communities, their worldview defined by an ancient cosmology in which ancestral spirits exerted a continuing presence in everyday life. But Paddy Bedford, Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Tommy Mitchell, Ngarra, Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Tjumpo Tjapanangvka, Billy Joongoorra Thomas, and Prince of Wales (Midpul) transformed the visual traditions of their people into contemporary artworks. Despite coming to art late in life, and being mostly unknown to one another, they were innovators of the highest order. Where their predecessors in the early 1970s had drawn on cartographic and figurative imagery, these men forged a new path in abstract images that broadened the possibilities of Aboriginal art.

During the last three years the Nevada Museum of Art has been working with Aboriginal artists who live in the remote Paruku region of Western Australia on a unique art & science project led by Australian painters Mandy Martin and Kim Mahood, and conservationist-rancher Guy Fitzhardinge. The paintings and materials generated by both the Aboriginal and kartiya (non-indigenous) artists were donated to the Center for Art + Environments Archive Collections in 2013 and exhibited here in the summer and fall of 2014.

There is a close connection between the Paruku paintings and the artworks in No Boundaries, which also hail from the northern part of Western Australia. Hanson Pye, the Aboriginal elder who painted two of the most important works in the Paruku project, learned how to paint from his grandfather, Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, whose works figure prominently in the Scholl collection.

Within the collections of the Nevada Museum of Art there are manifold connections among disparate artists forged through a commonality of mark-making, the preservation of stories and cultural heritage, and the conservation of the natural world. The work of Australian Aboriginal artists is of special import in this context as the roots of their work reach back more than 50,000 years, and represent the oldest continuous cultural production in the world.

All the paintings in No Boundaries are drawn from the collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl, Miami-based collectors and philanthropists.

Lead Sponsors

Nancy & Martin Cohen, and Barrick Gold

Supporting Sponsors

John & Carol Ann Badwick, Bally Technologies, John H.O. La Gatta, Stremmel Gallery, and Whittier Trust Company of Nevada

Dave Eggers’ new drawings and paintings, created especially for this exhibition, feature strange, powerful images of animals, and plaintive text—much from the Old Testament. The resulting effect is oddly spiritual, often profound and sometimes even humorous.

Eggers is widely known as a San Francisco-based writer of six critically acclaimed books, including his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. More recently he has been in the headlines for his literacy advocacy, in particular the non-profit writing and tutoring centers for children and teens that he has established across the country. However, Eggers was first focused on visual arts before he became a writer, and although his literary career is his primary focus, he is still actively engaged in an art and graphic design practice.

According to the artist, living creatures as subject matter holds a special appeal: “This past year I went back to drawing animals. The process for these pictures is pretty simple: I find an old photo of an animal that somehow has some intrigue, and I use a China marker to freehand a version of that animal onto very smooth paper.” Many of the drawings and paintings integrate short phrases, often drawn from the Bible. Eggers explained, “I think of what that animal might be thinking — if that animal had an antagonistic relationship with humans and was vying with those humans for the favor of a Catholic God.”

Eggers’ work has a singular, “stand alone” quality often associated with graphic design. He has created cover art for rock bands, designed posters for film festival, and contributed illustrations to journals and periodicals.

This is Eggers’ first museum exhibition.

In the early 1990s the California artist Daniel McCormick began to go beyond witnessing and documenting environmental damage in photographs to create artworks as ecological interventions, adding aesthetics to ecological restoration. Joined by artist Mary O’Brien, they founded Watershed Sculpture as a studio to address sites in need of environmental remediation. Their sculptures, most of which are located on public lands and in open spaces, work to restore the equilibrium of watersheds and other ecosystems adversely impacted by rural and urban communities. Using elements from the places where they work, such as cuttings from willows and other flora, McCormick and O’Brien weave natural materials into large basket forms that they then live stake onto the site. The sculptures, as they grow into silt traps, erosion control implements, fish habitat, and other ecological enhancements, eventually disappear, becoming part of the land and waters they serve to improve.

McCormick and O’Brien have been commissioned to create watershed sculptures as close as eastern Marin County, where they live, to as far away as the Louisiana coastline, where they worked to restore damage to natural storm surge barriers caused by hurricanes. Their works often become community projects involving land managers, water quality agencies, schools, and local nonprofits. In addition to creating sculptures, they are often engaged as consultants in community master planning.

In 2013, McCormick and O’Brien began working with The Nature Conservancy to create works along both the Carson and Truckee rivers. Part erosion control, part habitat development, the 360-foot-long woven structure built in spring 2014 at the River Fork Ranch Preserve in the Carson Valley is their longest structure to-date. Beginning in summer 2014 the pair drew up sketches for the work to be implemented along the Truckee River at the McCarran Ranch Site just east of Reno. This exhibition draws upon archives donated by the artists from their previous works, as well as these two local projects.

Daniel McCormick is an interdisciplinary artist with integrated skills in sculptural installation, environmental design and ecological restoration. He earned a degree in environmental design from UC Berkeley, and has studied with James Turrell. He is the recipient of numerous awards and his work has been featured in exhibitions at the Oakland Museum of California, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Bolinas Art Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, CA and the McColl Center for Visual Art. Mary O’Brien is an award winning sculptor and creative director who works in film, video and sculpture. She received a BA in Political Science from Marquette University, studied environmental communications at the University of Minnesota, and earned a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Arts from UC Berkeley.

Support

The Nature Conservancy and the J. Robert Anderson Memorial Fund

Additional support

Patagonia, Inc.

Learn more about The Nature Conservancy artist collaboration here: nature.org/nevadaart.

Australian painter Larry Mitchell has been traveling to the South Pacific Islands since the late 1970s, and for more than twenty years sailing to and painting the effects of globalization and climate change on the islands in the Indian Ocean, in particular the Abrolhos group off Western Australia. He has taken these concerns across the Southern Hemisphere to as far away as the Antarctic. His works, often panoramic paintings based on detailed topographical sketches and photographs, use the techniques of visual representation deployed by voyages of exploration during earlier centuries, but ironically now in the cause of documenting the changes wrought as a result of that very colonialization.

More than twenty years ago Mitchell noticed that life in the small islands and fishing villages in the Southern Hemisphere was changing. Tropical storms were becoming more frequent and devastating, palm trees were dying off, the fishing stocks were depleted, and reef life less robust. After the turn of the last century it was apparent that industrial-scale trawler fishing was making it impossible for local fishermen to be economically competitive, and that the warming of the oceans was causing the storms to increase and ocean levels to rise. The islands of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, and the coastal villages of Papua New Guinea were drowning. To add insult to injury, ill-advised and illegal logging was also taking a toll.

Mitchell, who had started out painting places that he loved, re-conceived this part of his artistic practice into what he now calls the 1ºC Project, which refers to the one-degree centigrade increase in ocean temperatures that is causing so many of the changes he is witnessing. His travels in the waters of the Southern Hemisphere have now taken him around the tip of Patagonia, through Tierra del Fuego, and down into the sub-Antarctic islands. This exhibition is drawn from the extensive archives of the project that Mitchell has donated to the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Larry Mitchell was born 1953 in Northhampton, just north of Geraldton, Western Australia. Spending as much of his childhood as possible near or in the ocean, he travelled to London in the 1980s, and studied the work of everyone from the abstract expressionists through Lucien Freud with the ambition to be an abstract painter. Upon his return to Australia he worked at more than fifty jobs to support himself before landing a teaching job at St. Patricks College in Geraldton (1976-1987). After working as a lecturer at various TAFE colleges in the Perth district (1989-1992), he became a full-time painter.

In this internet-based Earthwork, unpredictable live movements of the Hayward Fault are detected by a seismograph, transmitted continuously via the Internet, and processed to generate an evolving field of circular blooms. The size and position of each bloom is based on real-time changes in the Earth’s motion, measured as a vertical velocity continuously updated from the seismometer. Referencing landscape painting and abstraction, Bloom creates a sublime experience of the growth and fragility of the natural world.

Late Harvest juxtaposes contemporary art made with taxidermy with historically significant wildlife paintings, resulting in intriguing parallels and startling aesthetic contrasts. The exhibition seeks to simultaneously confirm—through historically-significant wildlife paintings—and subvert—through contemporary art and photography—viewers’ preconceptions of the place of animals in culture. An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Featured artists

Richard Ansdell, David Brooks, George Browne, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Petah Coyne, Raymond Ching, Kate Clark, Wim Delvoye, Mark Dion, Elmgreen & Dragset, Carlee Fernandez, Richard Friese, François Furet, Nicholas Galanin, George Bouverie Goddard, Damien Hirst, William Hollywood, Idiots (Afke Golsteijn and Floris Bakker), Alfred Kowalski, Robert Kuhn, Wilhelm Kuhnert, Bruno Liljefors, Polly Morgan, John Newsom, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Walter Robinson, George Rotig, Carl Rungius, Yinka Shonibare MBE, David Shrigley, Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson, Amy Stein, Archibald Thorburn, Mary Tsiongas, Joseph Wolf, Brigitte Zieger, Andrew Zuckerman

Late Harvest is organized by the Nevada Museum of Art in consultation with the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The exhibition is curated by JoAnne Northrup, Director of Contemporary Art Initiatives, together with consulting curator Adam Duncan Harris, Ph.D., Petersen Curator of Art & Research, National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Major sponsors

Barrick Gold, Maureen Mullarkey and Steve Miller, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Supporting sponsors

Anne Brockinton Lee and Robert M. Lee, Nion McEvoy, and Deborah and Andy Rappaport.