John Chamberlain’s Foam Sculptures | By Gavin Morrison
In the first installment of this ongoing series about the little-known histories of works in the Nasher collection, we see how an exhibition in West Texas helped reemerge an important body of work by John Chamberlain, of which a recent gift from the estate of former Nasher Sculpture Center Board Member William B. Jordan and Robert Brownlee was a part.
The Collage Sculptures of Carol Bove | By Dr. Catherine Craft
Curator Dr. Catherine Craft previews the exhibition Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures at the Nasher.
By Claire Taggart
The Nasher conservator considers the fragile side of a tough sculptural outlier in Nancy Grossman’s Untitled, Head Sculpture (1968).
Carol Bove at the Met | By Lucia Simek
Anticipating the opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center exhibition Carol Bove: Collage Sculpture on October 16, 2021, Nasher Manager of Communications and International Programs, Lucia Simek, sends an enamored dispatch from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Bove’s work, The séances aren’t helping I, currently adorns the façade’s niches.
Roundtable Discussion
Justine Ludwig, executive director of Creative Time; Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. director and chief curator of High Line Art; and Nasher Chief Curator Jed Morse consider public art during a pandemic and time of social and political change.
Family Guide by Colleen Borsh
A handy family guide for intrepid urban (suburban and rural too) explorers.
Words by Su Wu | Photography by Sam Youkilis
In an essay with words and an essay with images, two Americans fall for objects both intimate and strange on the streets of Mexico.
By Grant Johnson
Grant Johnson leads a tour of the outdoor sculptural giants from MIT’s Percent-for-Art Program
By Alysia Harris
In a small Texas town, a local community and an international art and literary residency work together to foster a place for sustainable creative growth.
By Julie Webb (with Bruce Webb)
Julie and Bruce Webb of the beloved Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, Texas, take a road trip to see some extraordinary yard art.
Artist Interview / Entrevista con la artista
Jer’Lisa Devezin talks about making soft sculpture, developing intention, and representing Black bodies. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / Jer’Lisa Devezin habla sobre la escultura suave, el desarrollo de la intención y la representación de los cuerpos Negros. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
Artist Interview / Entrevista con la artista
Melanie Clemmons talks about technology, click farms, and creating connections in a digital space. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / Melanie Clemmons habla sobre tecnología, granjas de clics, y la creación de conexiones en un espacio digital. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
Artist Interview / Entrevista con la artista
Dan Lam talks about the playfulness of materials, beauty in art, and immersive sculpture. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / Dan Lam habla acerca del juego de los materiales, la belleza en el arte y la escultura inmersiva. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
Connecting Virtually with Vision-Impaired Learners
By Lynda Wilbur, Manager of Tour and Access Programs
As a sculpture museum built around in-person experiences with three-dimensional artworks, finding ways to engage our public during the pandemic has brought about some exciting new approaches in the way we present educational programming. Most museums have – dare I say the word – “pivoted” to virtual versions of tours and workshops, but how do you continue to offer virtual programming to community members with vision impairment?
Track 1
The sculptures at the Nasher’s entrance reference nature in their materials and themes, inviting visitors to continue into the garden, which architect Renzo Piano described as “the museum without a roof.”
Track 2
Curator and scholar William B. Jordan organized the first museum exhibition of Raymond and Patsy Nasher’s sculpture collection; sculptures by John Chamberlain, David McManaway, and Joan Miró are part of a bequest from Jordan and his husband, Robert Dean Brownlee.
Track 3
This installation examines the legacies of Minimal art through the Nashers' support in the 1970s of artists including Siah Armajani, Martin Puryear, and Christopher Wilmarth, as well as the recent acquisition of a sculpture by Judy Chicago.
Track 4
Nature's example provided a powerful array of possibilities for artists working in the aftermath of Minimalism, even though the results may bear little resemblance to their source of inspiration.
Track 5
Taking its title from lyrics to “Never Catch Me,” a song by Flying Lotus, featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar, this installation brings together a video work by lauren woods with sculptures by Joel Shapiro and Manuel Neri to reflect upon how we interpret images of historical events and human actions.
Track 6
Subject of the Nasher Sculpture Center’s 2015 traveling retrospective Melvin Edwards: Five Decades, the artist Melvin Edwards recently made a generous gift of four sculptures and two drawings presenting a spectrum of the artist’s concerns, methods of working, materials, and themes.
Track 7
How do artists think about sculpture when it may not be feasible, or even desirable, to execute three-dimensional objects in lasting materials? Scrims have been installed in this gallery to block light, making possible the presentation of a greater range of objects.
Track 8
The Latin phrase, meaning “And in Arcadia [am] I,” implies that even in Arcadia—an idyllic, bountiful land of ancient legend—death is still present. The works in this installation consider other aspects of Mediterranean culture and its heritage beyond the more familiar values of classicism.
Track 9
At a time when the formation and sustenance of our connections with others have become more crucial than ever, Love and Delight offers a selection of works, collected by the Nashers between 1967 and 1986, that trace unexpected links between artworks through the human bonds shared among artists, collectors, dealers, families, friends, spouses, lovers, and admirers. On view through September 10, 2021.
Track 10
A selection of posters from the 1980s and 1990s by the anonymous collective targets museums, galleries, curators, writers, and artists seen as either responsible for or complicit in the exclusion of women and non-white artists from mainstream exhibitions and publications. On view through September 10, 2021.
Artist Interview / Entrevista con el artista
Artist Shelby David Meier talks about security, technology and consumption, and the impact of time. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / El artista Shelby David Meier habla sobre la seguridad, la tecnología y el consumo, y el impacto del tiempo. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
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Artist Interview / Entrevista con la artista
Artist Vicki Meek talks about the connection between Stony the Road We Trod and other works that memorialize the history of African art and culture. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / La artista Vicki Meek habla sobre la conexión entre Stony the Road We Trod y otras obras que memorializan la historia del arte y la cultura africana. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
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Artist Interview / Entrevista con el artista
Artist Nyugen E. Smith talks about the Spirit Carriers series, Bundlehouses, and the movement for social and racial justice. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / El artista Nyugen E. Smith habla sobre la serie Portadores del Espíritu, los Bundlehouses, y el movimiento por la justicia social y racial. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
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Artist Interview / Entrevista con el artista
Dallas-born artist Giovanni Valdera talks about Grit/Grind, the role of car culture, and the American dream. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / El artista nacido en Dallas Giovanni Valdera habla sobre Grit/Grind, el papel de la cultura automóvil y el sueño americano. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
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Artist Interview / Entrevista con el artista
Fort Worth artist Bernardo Vallarino talks about Pedacitos de Paz, the creative process, and themes of social justice. Hear more perspectives from artists and curators on their experience exhibiting work through Nasher Public. / El artista de Fort Worth Bernardo Vallarino habla sobre Pedacitos de Paz, el proceso creativo y temas de justicia social. Escucha más perspectivas de artistas y curadores sobre su experiencia al exhibir trabajos a través de Nasher Public.
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with text by artist Magali Reus
and Nasher Curator Catherine Craft
A couple of weeks before my sculptures were destined to ship to Dallas for my exhibition at The Nasher Sculpture Center (the making of which had been absorbing most of my time and mind over the past 12 months), it became evident that due to escalating global crisis, this would no longer be happening on the initially planned date of April 15.
The Egyptian Pavilion and the Venice Biennale
Drawings by William Powhida; essay by Paddy Johnson
This paired essay and drawing story examines controversies at the Venice Biennale and the Egyptian Pavilion that highlight issues of inaccurate representation, lack of transparency, and the undermining of suffering.
Queer Figurations in the Sculpture of Elmgreen & Dragset by David J. Getsy
David J. Getsy writes about the queer attitudes that infuse Elmgreen & Dragset's sculptural practice and how their exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center highlights a queer stance toward the universality of sculpture.
by Jeremy Strick
Barry X Ball reimagines and transforms historical artworks with the help of 3D-printing and stone-cutting technology. Jeremy Strick writes on the artist's materials and processes and introduces his January 2020 exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center.
By Eve Hill-Agnus
Artists and partners Trey Burns and Tamara Johnson co-founded Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, an outdoor space for emerging and mid-career artists to exhibit their works on a temporary basis. Eve Hill-Agnus writes about the couple's foundations and how the idea for the park originated, as well as the future of the space.
by Arthur Peña
Artist Arthur Peña speaks with Nicole Eisenman about her work Sketch for a Fountain, a recent acquisition to the Nasher Collection, made possible through the Kaleta A. Doolin Acquisitions Fund for Women Artists and the Green Family Collection, and on view in the Nasher Garden through March 2020.
Organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center, Sterling Ruby: Sculpture is the first museum survey of Ruby’s work in the medium featuring nearly thirty sculptures ranging from the intimate to the monumental. The exhibition will be on view at the Nasher February 2 – April 21, 2019, and will be accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue featuring a new essay, “Sterling Ruby and the Transcendent Life of Objects,” by Nasher Chief Curator, and curator of the exhibition, Jed Morse. Parts of his catalogue essay have been excerpted and adapted here.
by Walburga Krupp
The sudden death in 1943 of Arp’s wife, the artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, shattered a relationship that began with their first acquaintance in Zurich in 1915 and had developed in multiple ways during the French years (1926-1942), when it had become even closer and stronger, both artistically and personally. Arp’s lament in a letter to Taeuber-Arp’s sister—“Art doubtless bound us together, but it also robbed us of a great deal”1—makes art the core of their partnership. In that he stylized it as a higher power, he was able to think of Taeuber-Arp and himself as its acolytes, who willingly followed its dictates. For him, after her death, it was an elementary strategy for coming to terms with his loss. Art continued to be the defining constant of his life, and Taeuber-Arp would always remain present in his work.2
by Catherine Craft, Ph.D.
In March 2016, I traveled to Paris to participate in a conference devoted to the sculpture of Pablo Picasso held at the Muse´e Picasso. It took place during the museum’s acclaimed exhibition of Picasso’s three-dimensional work co-organized with the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Raymond and Patsy Nasher collection includes seven sculptures by Picasso, four of which played important roles in the recent wave of interest in this aspect of the artist’s work.
by Stephanie Madewell
The bell pull at Kettle’s Yard is the first clue to the place: a hefty rope with a thick knot at the end that suspends a weathered wooden disc, like a giant bead on a string. It’s unclear if the wooden object was made or found, but it is clear it was chosen. The tour guide will ask someone to volunteer to ring the bell. Pulling it, a melodious gong sounds, and then there’s the tap-tap of quick footsteps as someone comes to open the door.
With a new sound, Orpheus Unsung delivers an old, timeless truth
By Catherine Womack
For millennia, Orpheus has channeled the power of music through his lyre and his voice, taming the underworld and conquering death itself. Now, thanks to composer and electric guitarist Steven Mackey’s wild imagination and talent, the ancient mythical figure has a new melodic weapon: a custom Tom Anderson electric guitar, deployed in a dynamic work called Orpheus Unsung. At the Nasher this October, the piece will be performed in the second half of the evening’s program, preceded by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s more sparse, but no less dramatic, Galgenlieder (1996).
Excerpt from Nasher Prize Dialogues in London, 2015
On October 11, 2016 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Nasher hosted its first Nasher Prize Dialogue, a panel discussion in association with the Henry Moore Institute called “Why Sculpture Now?” which explored the position of sculpture within art practice today. The conversation was broadcast live around the world on Periscope. “Why Sculpture Now?” featured panelists Okwui Enwezor, Director of the Haus Der Kunst, Munich and Nasher Prize juror; artist and Nasher Prize juror Phyllida Barlow; artists Michael Dean and Eva Rothschild; and Nasher Sculpture Center Chief Curator Jed Morse. The panel was moderated by Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute.
Excerpt from Nasher Prize Dialogues in Dallas, 2018
On March 6, 2017 the Nasher hosted one of its ongoing Nasher Prize Dialogues series, titled Sculpture + History. Taking place in Dallas, a city marked profoundly by the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and racial inequality, Nasher Prize Dialogues: Sculpture + History considered the complex ways in which sculpture tackles the past. Panelists included artists Alfredo Jaar, Jill Magid, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and lauren woods. The event was moderated by national art critic for Artnet News, Ben Davis, at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Excerpts from this discussion are included below.
Nasher Prize Dialogues: Excerpt from Mexico City 2017
On March 16, the Nasher Sculpture Center presented a talk in partnership with Museo Jumex in Mexico City called The Public Place of Sculpture. The talk considered socially-engaged sculpture in various modes, from social practice outright to objects which employ themes of monument and document and included artists Sanford Biggers (USA), Amalia Pica (Argentina), Damian Ortega (Mexico), and Pedro Reyes (Mexico) and was moderated by Nasher Prize juror and Curator of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, Pablo León de la Barra. The discussion centered on the historical role sculpture has played in public spaces and the dynamic and evolving ways it is currently presented, especially in light of the global political climate. Each artist presented a brief talk on their work which addresses these themes.
by Leigh Arnold
In the second installment of The Nasher’s series of essays highlighting public sculpture in Dallas, we turn our attention to a work that has been on view in downtown Dallas for more than 25 years. In a shady plaza across from the Omni Hotel at the intersection of Young and Market streets, Linnea Glatt’s large-scale Cor-Ten steel cone, titled Harrow, rotates around a sand-covered circular track, completing one revolution every 24 hours.