The Nature of Waste: Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds

The Nature of Waste Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds August–December 2021 Learning Guide

The Nature of Waste Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds August–December 2021 Waste is an inescapable part of modern life, frequently mythologized and often deeply misunderstood. As discarded materials play an increasingly key role in scientific and social practices around the world, The Nature of Waste surveys artists’ engagements with waste cycles from the height of industrial modernity to the globalized production streams of the present day.

Images have long helped to reveal ecosystems in states of crisis.

This selection of works from Sheldon’s collection also traces broader artistic and scientific discourses on castoffs, leftovers, junk, detritus, hoarding, and ruins to illuminate the role of art objects in challenging assumptions about waste. Seen as a whole, the works propose numerous ways to re-evaluate what is lost, leftover, or excessive.

Each gallery presents a different question intended to probe the importance of waste to the lives of both human and nonhuman actors. What skills or knowledge systems help us make use of castoff materials in moments of scarcity? How are spaces of human habitation inseparable from their own waste products? Is it possible to manage the relationship between accumulation and excess in modern consumer societies? What happens when waste intensifies into ruin and loss, creating worlds that can no longer sustain life? In the face of such devastation, how might we begin to mourn and repair for the future? And in what ways have contemporary makers reimagined discarded materials to create new paradigms for living and building?

This exhibition is organized by Katie Anania, assistant professor of art history in the School of Art, Art History & Design. Exhibition support is provided by Hixson-Lied Endowment, Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Sheldon Art Association, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Daugherty Water for Food Institute.

The Nature of Waste Material Pathways, Discarded Worlds August–December 2021

Diane Arbus Lady at a masked ball with two roses on her dress, N.Y.C.

Eugène Atget

Libourne, France 1857–Paris, France 1927 Ragpickers’ Hut from the 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget portfolio 1910, printed 1956 Gold-toned gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-837.14.1963

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Käthe Kollwitz

Konigsberg, Germany 1867–Moritzburg, Germany 1945 Help Russia 1921 Lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-580.1959

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“Hunger, hunger everywhere,” the German artist Käthe Kollwitz noted in her diary in 1923. The Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War had caused devastating economic disturbances to the newly forming Soviet Union, and in 1921 the country suffered an extended famine. When Kollwitz heard that Russian peasants were resorting to cannibalism to stay alive, she

Käthe Kollwitz

joined the international All-Russian Central

Help Russia

Famine Relief Committee, alongside Albert Einstein and other influential thinkers. Her powerful lithographs of the famine use evocative images of the human body to implore European and American consumers to aid the Russians.

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Alfredo Zalce

Patzcuaro, Mexico 1908–Morelia, Mexico 2003 Homes of the Poor 1941 Color woodcut University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-549.1959

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David Burke

Dates and places of birth and death unknown Coal Pickers 1939 Color woodcut University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-398.1943

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Anne Ryan

Hoboken, NJ 1889–Morristown, NJ 1954 #289 date unknown Collage, paper, fiber, gold foil on paper University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Sills U-1836.1976

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Bill Traylor

Benton, AL 1854–Montgomery, AL 1947 Untitled date unknown Opaque watercolor and graphite on cardboard University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of John E. Ground U-6770.2018

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Born into slavery in 1854 and occasionally living without housing, the self-taught Alabama artist Bill Traylor began drawing on discarded pieces of cardboard in the 1930s.

His typical subject matter included members of the Black middle class who frequented the town where he lived, as well as scenes of rural life. Traylor’s ability to convey intense vitality in his work is evident here; the aged cardboard background shows no ground lines, so the figures transcend interior and exterior space, creating and inhabiting their own world.

Bill Traylor Untitledv

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Raymond Jennings Saunders born Pittsburgh, PA 1934 Untitled date unknown Pencil, paint, cardboard University of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-4564.1994

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Bruce Conner

McPherson, KS 1933–San Francisco, CA 2008 JULY GEORGE: PORTRAIT OF GEORGE HERMS 1962, reworked 1991 Mixed media University of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-4442.1992

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In the early 1960s, as the Cuban Missile Crisis approached, artist Bruce Conner became convinced that a nuclear holocaust was imminent and fled his home in California to live and work in Mexico City. JULY GEORGE was Conner’s attempt to create a sculpture from found discarded objects that evoked the persona of his friend, the artist George Herms.

But since consumer trash in Mexico was in

Bruce Conner JULY GEORGE: PORTRAIT OF GEORGE HERMS

short supply, Conner instead incorporated mass-produced Mexican objects such as the brightly colored knotted threads at the top of the sculpture. The work also once included a broken maraca gourd that Conner had found during his stay.

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Elizabeth Olds

Minneapolis, MN 1896–Sarasota, FL 1991 Mending Nets circa 1935 Wood engraving University of Nebraska-Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-320.1943

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George Bellows

Columbus, OH 1882–New York, NY 1925 Splinter Beach 1916 Lithograph on Japan paper University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-1230.1967

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Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Mexico City, Mexico 1902–Mexico City, Mexico 2002 Carrizo y Tele [Reed and Television] circa 1976 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of John Marvin U-3657.1.1983

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Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Mexico City, Mexico 1902–Mexico City, Mexico 2002 Paisaje Chamula [Chamula Landscape] circa 1970 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of John Marvin U-3657.13v.1983

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Kálmán Kubinyi

Cleveland, OH 1906–Stockbridge, MA 1973 Calla Lily circa 1935–1943 Soft ground etching University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-356.1943

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O. Winston Link

New York, NY 1914–Westchester County, NY 2001 Swimming Pool at Welch, West Virginia 1958, printed 1988 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-3044.1995

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Andy Warhol

Pittsburgh, PA 1928–New York, NY 1987 Bathroom date unknown Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts U-5499.151.2008

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Robert Morris

Kansas City, MO 1931–Kingston, NY 2018 upper, from left to right Earth Projects, Mounds and Trenches Earth Projects, Dust Earth Projects, Burning Petroleum Earth Projects, Piles and Pit Earth Projects, Temperature lower, from left to right Earth Projects, Steam Earth Projects, Vibrations Earth Projects, Waterfall Earth Projects, Hedges and Gravel Earth Projects, Walls and Ditch All from the Landscape Projects portfolio 1969 Color lithographs University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2888.1–10.1989

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In 1969, the Detroit Institute of Arts invited land artist Robert Morris to produce a set of prints for its Friends of Modern Art collectors group. Each picture in Morris’s ten-print series is a proposal for a different large-scale outdoor artwork, inspired by phenomena “that can best be experienced outside … dust storms, earthquakes, plowed fields, sudden changes of temperature, Indian mounds, concrete dams, formal gardens, steam rising from dumps of vast quantities of materials.” If built, the projects could only be experienced fully by walking through them. By burning, smoking, or artificially heating the terrain, Morris approaches land as an artistic medium, using matter from industrial and natural processes as active components of the works.

Robert Morris Earth Projects, Mounds and Trenches Earth Projects, Dust Earth Projects, Burning Petroleum Earth Projects, Piles and Pit Earth Projects, Temperature Earth Projects, Steam Earth Projects, Vibrations Earth Projects, Waterfall Earth Projects, Hedges and Gravel Earth Projects, Walls and Ditch

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Dennis Oppenheim

Electric City, WA 1938–New York, NY 2011 Cobalt Vectors, An Invasion 1979 Lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2877.1988

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Cobalt Vectors is an expanded drawing, documented through aerial photography. In an outdoor installation on a stretch of land at El Mirage Dry Lake in California that spanned almost 1.5 square miles, Dennis Oppenheim drew lines of dry cobalt on 2,000-yardlong strips of earth painted with asphalt primer. The photographs of the project show Oppenheim’s commitments to the land art movement of the 1970s, juxtaposing natural resources and spaces with comparatively cultural phenomena such as geometry. The work’s subtitle concedes to the invasive, yet temporary, quality of this work executed on public land.

Dennis Oppenheim Cobalt Vectors, An Invasion

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Robert S. Zakanitch born Elizabeth, NJ 1935

Sunset Stacks from the Etiquette series 1987 Watercolor and graphite on paper Nebraska Art Association Anonymous gift in honor of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood of Lincoln N-766.1996

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Anthony Hernandez born Los Angeles, CA 1947

Landscapes for the Homeless, #11 1989, printed 2004 Cibachrome print Nebraska Art Association Woods Charitable Fund N-787.2004

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Donna Ferrato

born Waltham, MA 1949 Provenzano Garage (Last Landmark), West Broadway, Tribeca 2006 Archival pigment print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Paul R. Knight (‘82) and Lynn Knight U-6795.2018

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Joseph Pennell

Philadelphia, PA 1857–New York, NY 1926 Coal Mine, Oberhausen 1911 Etching University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2340.1980

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Boris Gorelick

Russia 1912–Place of death unknown 1984 Discarded 1937 Lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-367.1943

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Harry Gottlieb

Bucharest, Romania 1895–New York, NY 1992 Primitive Coal Mine 1937 Color lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-399.8.1943

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Mary Huntoon

Topeka, KS 1896–Hoyt, KS 1970 Kansas City, Kansas - Grain Elevator circa 1935 Etching University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2486.1981

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Louis Lozowick

Ludvinovka, Ukraine 1892–South Orange, NJ 1973 Granaries to Babylon (Babylon to Omaha) 1933 Lithograph Sheldon Art Association Gift of Louis and Rose Leviticus S-1069.2016

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James Alinder

born Glendale, CA 1941 Grain Elevator, Palmyra, Nebraska 1971 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the artist U-670.1976

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Frank Gohlke

born Wichita Falls, TX 1942 Landscape - Grain Elevator and Lightning Flash, Lamesa, Texas 1975 Gelatin silver print Nebraska Art Association Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-418.1976

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Frank Gohlke

born Wichita Falls, TX 1942 Grain Elevators, Minneapolis, Series 1, 19 1974 Gelatin silver print Nebraska Art Association Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-371.1976

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Robert Starck

born Lincoln, NE 1945 Grain Mill, Crete date unknown Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the artist U-3157.1977

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Lynn Dance

born Los Angeles, CA 1949 Columbus 1976 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the artist U-2093.1977

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Bill Ganzel

born Lincoln, NE 1949 Grain Elevator, Near Axtell, NE 1978 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of the artist U-3485.1983

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Richard Florsheim

Chicago, IL 1916–Chicago, IL 1979 Off Shore Rig 1976 Three-color lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Dr. Christopher and Janet Graf U-2234.1976

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Chicago printmaker Richard Florsheim was well known for his depictions of shorelines. As liminal spaces where human habitation and industry meet the open water, they became a focus of his mature style. This scene of an offshore oil rig plays up the textural effects of the water and sky and the refractions of a luminous moon, as well as the oil rig’s linear structure. Its moody, thoughtful qualities position industrial oil production as one of many rhythms that enjoin the natural world and the built environment.

Richard Florsheim Off Shore Rig

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Paul Strand

New York, NY 1890–Orgeval, France 1976 Oil Refinery, Tema, Ghana, from Paul Strand: Portfolio Three 1963 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Michael E. Hoffman U-4055.10.1987

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John Pfahl

New York, NY 1939–Buffalo, NY 2020 Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant, Niagara Falls, NY 1981, printed 2013 Color print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-3116.2013

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John Pfahl

New York, NY 1939–Buffalo, NY 2020 Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, Columbia River, Oregon 1982, printed 2013 Color print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-3118.2013

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Elliott Erwitt

born Paris, France 1928 Coke Machine & Missiles, Alabama, U.S.A. 1974 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of John Marvin U-3998.2.1983

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Ai Weiwei

born Beijing, China 1957 Bombs 2019 Offset lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Joell J. Brightfelt Art Acquisition Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6919.2020

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“Today, we have many bombs with unthinkably destructive power, capable of reducing civilization to dust and smoke,” noted the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in 2019, when he created an exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum that was the impetus for this print. The print’s design emphasizes orderly 3-D renderings of common bombs and is at once an unvarnished look at their variety, as well as a critique of their over-production.

Arranged by name and date, from 1911 to 2019, the international weapons denote our global tendency to solve problems through armed conflict, “against any humanity and rationality.”v

Ai Weiwei Bombs 2019

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O. Louis Guglielmi

Cairo, Egypt 1906–Amagansett, NY 1956 Phoenix (Portrait in the Desert; Lenin) 1935 Oil on canvas Nebraska Art Association Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial N-275.1969

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O. Louis Guglielmi produced this work as the United States was recovering from both economic and environmental collapse: the Great Depression of 1929–1939 and the Dust Bowl of 1930–1936. As Fascism gained ground in Europe, Guglielmi painted Phoenix as a critique of American industrial agriculture and a testament to the potential of Socialism to solve world hunger. The pile of trash and human bodies in the painting’s middle ground shows industrial agriculture’s dystopian future, while a portrait of Lenin—accentuated with a stalk of corn—suggests the promise of renewal, like a phoenix rising from ashes.

O. Louis Guglielmi Phoenix (Portrait in the Desert; Lenin)

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Aaron Bohrod

Chicago, IL 1907–Madison, WI 1992 Slag Heaps 1938 Oil on canvas University of Nebraska–Lincoln Allocation of the U.S. Government, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration WPA-106.1943

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Roy DeCarava

New York, NY 1919–New York, NY 2009 Graduation 1949 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Catherine M. Johnsen Acquisition Fund U-689.1970

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Roy DeCarava came of age during the Harlem Renaissance and was deeply affected by his time serving in the Army during World War II in the Jim Crow South. Graduation is one of his best-known photographs, showing his mastery in modulations of light and dark as a young girl on her graduation day walks into a shadowy part of the street strewn with

Roy DeCarava Graduation

refuse. The image shows the extent of urban neglect in the postwar United States, and is an indictment of the effects of systemic racism on urban spaces; inequities that worsened as white homeowners rapidly fled cities for newer suburbs.

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Van Deren Coke

Lexington, KY 1921–Albuquerque, NM 2004 Chemically Polluted Swamp 1961 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-961.1966

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Antonio Frasconi

Montevideo, Uruguay 1919–Norwalk, CT 2013 Field of Scrap 1963 Color lithograph University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Michael and Kim Sherman U-4827.1996

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David T. Hanson born Billings, MT 1948

Mine Spoil Piles and Intersected Water Table 1984 Chromogenic color print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-2759.1986

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Robert Glenn Ketchum born Los Angeles, CA 1947

Bald Eagle from the Tongass, Alaska’s Vanishing Rain Forest series 1985 Cibachrome print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert A. Belkin U-4731.1994

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Robyn O’Neil

born Omaha, NE 1977 The Last Man on Earth 2007 Graphite on paper Nebraska Art Association Purchased with funds from the Sheldon Forum N-854.2008

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Nadav Kander

born Tel Aviv, Israel 1961 Priozersk XIV (I Was Told She Once Held An Oar), Kazakhstan 2011 Chromogenic print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6561.2016

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For his project Dust, inspired by T. S. Eliot’s epic poem The Waste Land, photographer Nadav Kander trained his lens on small towns on the Russian-Kazakhstan border converted into Soviet nuclear testing sites during the Cold War. This photograph depicts a civic statue in Priozersk, Russia, which remains a closed city to this day. “As I pondered these burnt and fallen ruins, I was reminded

Nadav Kander Priozersk XIV (I Was Told She Once Held An Oar), Kazakhstan

of [Hitler’s chief architect] Albert Speer’s notion of ‘ruin value’,” the idea that buildings should be designed to eventually fall into aesthetically pleasing ruins,” says Kander. “I wonder how [these] ruins will speak to future generations.”

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Dorthe Alstrup

born Herning, Denmark 1973 Untitled, Swamp #1 2003 Archival pigment print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Michael and Tanya Hare U-5676.2012

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Otto Dix

Untermhaus, Germany 1891–Singen, Germany 1969 Crater with Flowers, No. 4 1916 Etching University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-488.1958

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Eikoh Hosoe

born Yonezawa, Japan 1933 Untitled #25 from the An Extravagantly Tragic Comedy series 1968 Gelatin silver print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-1422.1970

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This image documents a collaborative project by two major figures of Japanese art and culture: the photographer Eikoh Hosoe and the choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata. To create this photographic series, Hosoe and Hijikata traveled together to Hijikata’s home in Northern Japan, which Hijikata had not visited since its devastation during World War

Eikoh Hosoe

II. Hijikata, who founded a dance style called

Untitled #25 from the An Extravagantly Tragic Comedy series

Ankoku Butoh (dance of darkness), created a dance specifically for the field that reflected his own memories of wartime devastation and themes of psychological suffering in general.

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Frank Stella

born Malden, MA 1936 Cieszowa II 1973 Acrylic on canvas, felt, corrugated cardboard, chipboard, paper compress board, Masonite, and wood Nebraska Art Association Purchased with funds from the Snowflake Gala N-666.1985

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Frank Stella painted this large work on corrugated cardboard, wood, and other materials as part of a series called Polish Villages. The titles for the paintings were taken from the names of wooden synagogues destroyed during World War II in Poland and Russia. Stella, who was Jewish, had received a book on the wooden synagogues of Poland from his friend the architect Richard Meier in 1970, and was captivated by the rich Jewish culture that had flourished in Central and Eastern Europe for almost a millennium. The

Frank Stella

wooden synagogues and other buildings

Cieszowa II

had been burned to the ground in World War II and the Holocaust, and Stella’s use of unconventional materials and monumental form are a memorial to these lost spaces.

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Lee Bontecou

born Providence, RI 1931 Untitled 1969 White charcoal on black paper University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Jacques Koek, Chicago, IL U-4339.1991

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Ana Mendieta

Havana, Cuba 1948–New York, NY 1985 Silueta Series: Tumba #2 1977 Color print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-5367.2004

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Colette S. Bangert born Columbus, OH 1934

Wind Stripped: Spring Weed 1976 Acrylic on gesso cotton duck Nebraska Art Association Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-501.1978

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Jaune Quick-To-See Smith born St. Ignatius, MT 1940

Grasp Tight The Old Ways 2011 Oil and acrylic on canvas with collage University of Nebraska-Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund, through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6293.2013

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Drips and daubs of white paint punctuate the surface of Grasp Tight the Old Ways, which the artist, who is an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, has stated are an allusion to climate change: “Melting snow is everywhere.” The work’s round lunettes and other compositional features contain references to First Nations knowledge as well as to European modernist painting: the main figure, for instance, holds a mask-like head derived from Pablo Picasso’s work. Its title is from a Yupik saying that emphasizes the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems. “Without this kind of vision,” the artist says, “we will use up our resources and damage the planet irreversibly.”

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith Grasp Tight The Old Ways

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Lucas Foglia

born Long Island, NY 1983 Esme Swimming, Parkroyal on Pickering, Singapore 2014 Pigment print University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6760.2018

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Alexander Brook

New York, NY 1898–Sag Harbor, NY 1980 The Bay Beyond 1950 Oil on canvas University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of A. Bromley Sheldon U-210.1955

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Chakaia Booker born Newark, NJ 1953

Visual Impression 2 2003 Paper and wire University of Nebraska–Lincoln Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-5531.2009

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Analía Saban

born Buenos Aires, Argentina 1980 DANKE MERCI THANK YOU GRACIAS ARIGATO Plastic Bag 2016 Mixografía® print on handmade paper Sheldon Art Association and University of Nebraska–Lincoln 2019–2020 Sheldon Student Advisory Board acquisition purchased with funds from the Pace Woods Foundation and from the Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund, through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-6893.2020

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Donald G. Lipski born Chicago, IL 1947

Untitled #12 1985 Wire trash can, parachute bits, Plexi disk, wire, and rubber tubing University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Wil J. and Sally Hergenrader U-5646.2011

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Robert D. Kaufmann

Toledo, OH 1913–Key West, FL 1959 Design on Blotter 1954 Watercolor on paper University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Walter A. Weiss U-298.1960

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Renée Stout

born Junction City, KS 1958 The Wishing Bean 2013 Acrylic paint and color pencil over screen-printing ink on paper University of Nebraska–Lincoln The Norman and Jane Geske Fund, Norman Geske Works on Paper subfund, Director Norman Geske Works on Paper Fund U-6853.2019

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This painting takes inspiration from religious practices of the African diaspora, especially Vodou traditions that use castoff or found objects to affect a real-life situation. Here Renée Stout explores the tradition of the wishing bean, in which ordinary beans are thrown into a road or running water. If the user calls out her wish and then walks away (an act recounted in white pencil marks on this dense, thickly painted composition), the wishes

Renée Stout The Wishing Bean

should come true. In Stout’s text, the narrator mourns lost opportunities and misspent wishes, speculating that her beans may have had their own fate in mind.

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Willie Cole

born Somerville, NJ 1955 Wind Mask East 1990 Blow dryers University of Nebraska–Lincoln Robert E. Schweser and Fern Beardsley Schweser Acquisition Fund, through the University of Nebraska Foundation U-5479.2006

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Buckminster Fuller

Milton, MA 1895–Los Angeles, CA 1983 But There It Is Again Cosmic Hierarchy Radiant Photons all from the Synergetics Folio 1977 xx Color screen prints University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of Leandro P. Rizzuto U-5628.7.2011, U-5628.9-10.2011

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Buckminster Fuller’s Synergetics series, designed in partnership with the Malaysian architect Lim Chong Keat, introduces synergetics, a new field of study invented

by Fuller. The series’ ten prints incorporate principles from physics, chemistry, geometry, and philosophy. Fuller was committed to viewing the world through a synergetic perspective: to studying the ways that whole systems behaved, focusing on the holistic behavior of a system rather than isolating its individual components. The prints displayed here offer insights into energy transfer, showing that radiant energy is rarely truly lost or wasted, instead showing up in different components of a system.

Buckminster Fuller But There It Is Again Cosmic Hierarchy Radiant Photons

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Laura Gilpin

Colorado Springs, CO 1891–Santa Fe, NM 1979 Summer Hogan of Old Lady Long Salt 1953 Gelatin silver print Nebraska Art Association Purchased with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts N-468.1977

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