Sunday, August 7, 2005

Johnson County Community College is offering a sneak peek at some of the 237 works of art it has acquired in the last five years. A wave of donations and more than 100 purchases have doubled the size of the permanent collection.
The reason for the acquisitions mania is 4,000 square feet of new permanent collection space in the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art on campus, which is scheduled to open in fall 2007.
Some of the recently acquired treasures are being exhibited in the college’s Gallery of Art, along with a digitally simulated tour of the future building.
Among the 21 artists in the show are some big names: Uta Barth, Brian Finke, Brad Kahlhamer, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, John Torreano, Kehinde Wiley, Sue Williams and Aaron Young, as well as three artists with Kansas City connections, James Brinsfield, Warren Rosser and Eric Sall.
A highlight is Wiley’s huge painting “Alexander the Great, Variation” (2005). A grand portrait encased in a gilded frame, it depicts an intense African-American man wearing a puffy silver coat and lavender hooded sweatshirt. The glowing staff in his hand transforms him from the common man into a powerful historical icon.
Equally engaging is Kahlhamer’s giant oil-on-canvas “Eagle Fest USA” (2005). Depicting a hollow landscape filled with skulls, animals and coarse pictographs, the work embodies the artist’s reflections on his American Indian heritage and our country’s painful history.
Both paintings effectively drive a discussion on the historical role of leadership, race and power in America.
“I think people will be surprised by the show,” said Bruce Hartman, director of the JCCC Gallery of Art. Hartman, who’s also director of the future Nerman Museum, said, “It’s been obvious to a number of people locally and nationally that we have been buying extensively – and it has caused a great deal of curiosity.”
Much of the funding for those buying sprees has come from Kansas City philanthropists Tony and Marti Oppenheimer, who pledged 350,000 specifically for the new museum acquisitions. The couple, together with the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation, has given more than 1.3 million for art on JCCC’s campus, including major outdoor sculptures.
The Oppenheimers were originally drawn to supporting Johnson County Community College for the opportunity to help expose college students on campus to contemporary art.
“Once the Nerman Museum deadline was set, we knew we needed to ramp up on collecting,” Tony Oppenheimer said in a phone interview.
“It turned out to be a good time in the market when there were great contemporary artists available.”
After a tour of “New View” and of the art-filled JCCC campus, it’s hard to escape the impression that JCCC is collecting the art of our time in quantity and quality. Hartman partly attributes this to timing. Some of the works were purchased just before the artists’ careers (and prices) skyrocketed.
Hartman also cites the impressive provenance of many of these brand new acquisitions. For instance, Schutz’s “Surgery” (2004), a large oil on canvas that depicts a group of cartoonish hot-pink girls committing a hostile operation, recently returned from the Corcoran Biennial in Washington, D.C., and is scheduled to travel next to Site Santa Fe as part of a solo show. JCCC gave the promising young artist a solo show in 2004.
Before arriving at JCCC, Davie’s painting “Lover” (1998), featuring wavy stripes of pink and purple swooshed abstraction, was included in the artist’s 1998 “Project” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.
And Barth’s color photograph triptych, “And of Time 5” (2000), which examines hazy brownish-orange light on empty interior walls, was originally part of a series commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1995, as part of an exhibition recognizing 11 outstanding Los Angeles artists.
While collecting big-hitters, JCCC has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to collecting Kansas City art, including recent purchases of works by Jennifer Boe, Steven Hill, Anthony Baab, Lynn Smiser Bowers and Gloria Feinstein.
“While two-thirds of the collection focuses upon nationally and internationally recognized artists, inevitably, JCCC’s Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art will also house the most extensive and important collection of KC-affiliated artists,” Hartman said.
The new museum where many of these works will hang is under construction on the east side of campus.
It was launched in August 2003 with a 1.5 million gift from the Nerman family of Leawood and designed by internationally recognized architect Kyu Sung Woo. The 36,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art structure will include 4,000 square feet for display of the permanent collection, 5,000 square feet of temporary exhibition space, a gallery devoted to Kansas City artists and a new media gallery designed for multimedia and installation works.
“There are few American cities which would claim that they have two museums dedicated to contemporary art,” he added. “I see Kansas City becoming a major cultural destination point.”