Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Alumni Notices 
 
George Charman (AIR '13) has a solo show A Straight Line to the touch is worth a Circle to the sight, which runs through December 7th at the Centre for Recent Drawing in London. Charman's work explores modularity, abstraction and dwellings as they relate to the metaphysical aspects of architectural space.
 
Eve Bailey (AIR '11) is one of 21 artists taking part in the exhibition Suddenly there: Discovery on view through January 11th, 2014 at Garis & Hahn Art Gallery in NYC. The group show focuses on the creative process and its unexpected outcomes. She is also featured in the November issue of Fine Art Magazine Blog for her role in the show. 
 
Jon Rappleye (AIR '08) is featured in two group shows. Seeing Voices: Contemporary Drawings is on view at the University of Las Vegas's Donna Beam Gallery through December 13th and features mark making in a variety of media. "6 Years In: The Warehouse" runs until December 22nd at the Salina Art Center in Santa Fe.
 
Carver Bank
 
Continuing Exhibition:
Wendel White:
Manifest (Nebraska) 
Through January 3rd, 2014

For the solo show Manifest (Nebraska), New Jersey-based artist Wendel White (AIR 2011) focuses specifically on the history of black Omaha, extending and complicating the rhetoric surrounding contemporary racial issues.

White worked on this project during his residency at the Bemis Center and photographed objects, documents and books stored in cases and filing cabinets at the Great Plains Black History Museum, the Douglas County Historical Society, the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, the Brownville Historical Society and the Durham Museum.

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Artiste Xpression  
Friday, December 6th
8:00 - 10:00 PM
Doors open at 7:30

Step up to the Open Mic and show what you've got during this dynamic evening featuring spoken word, poetry and vocal expressions from the local high school artist group The Roux.
 
 
Christmas in the Village
Saturday, December 7th
12:00 - 5:00 PM

 

Celebrate the Christmas spirit by getting involved in one of the largest and fastest growing community events and celebrations in Omaha. Join Carver Bank for the third annual Christmas in the Village with Holiday art projects and craft making for children.

 
The Art of Storytelling II 
Saturday, December 14th
7:00 - 9:30 PM

Join FLIYE for an evening of innovative storytelling by local hip-hop artists. The night features three MCs, live projector feeds and turn tabling by DJ's Dojorok & Kethro.

 

 
Home for the Holidays  
Friday, December 20th
7:00 - 9:00 pm

Come home to Carver Bank for the Holidays and celebrate the spirit of the Season with a soulful Christmas. This R&B event shines light on more than a dozen local singers and band performers and showcases the private label Icon One Music.
 
Dine for the Arts 

 
Lot 2/Bemis Center Dine and Donate 
Monday, December 9th

On Monday, December 9, you can enjoy a terrific dinner at Lot 2 and support the arts at the same time because Lot 2 will donate 10% of your purchase to support the Bemis Center! Lot 2 is located in Benson at 6207 Maple Street.

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Take Action

 
Making a Difference:
The Bemis Center Annual Appeal 

The Bemis Center only comes to you a few times a year to ask for your support of our year-round programming. This is one of those times. Please take 132 seconds out of your day to watch the video below, and then make a gift to support the artists of the Bemis Center at: bemisc.ejoinme.org/give. You'll be glad you did!
Why Should I Support the Bemis Center?

Public Events and Programs

First Thursday Art Talk
Thursday, December 5th | 7:00 PM

There are only a relative handful of places in the country where you can explore the diverse practices of contemporary artists from around the globe--and the Bemis Center offers this opportunity to Omaha every month! The Bemis Center's monthly art talks are perfect for artists looking for new inspiration, art lovers in search of a fresh thrill, and engaged citizens of the world. This month, enjoy presentations by the following artists:



Shanti Grumbine (New Paltz, NY) takes newspapers and cuts away at the images in gridded patterns to make space for what is lost when translating experience into words.



Anne Muntges (Buffalo, NY) is a graphic artist who works primarily in printmaking, drawing and installation art through which she explores the concept of home.
January Art Talk Date Change 
January 9th | 7:00 PM

Due to the New Year's Day holiday, our first Art Talk of 2014 will take place on Thursday, January 9th, the second Thursday of the month. In February, we switch back to our usual monthly First Thursday schedule. Please mark your calendars for January's changed date!

Continuing Exhibitions

 
Bemis Center Displays Award-Winning Contemporary Video at Midtown Crossing
Through New Year's Day, 2014

Showcasing the diversity of artistic practices in contemporary art, the Bemis Center gives its nod to the start of the Huskers' basketball season with 28 Years in the Implicate Order by Pascal Sisto. Inspired by David Bohm's work on quantum mechancs, Sisto's single channel video consists of 28 basket balls bouncing up and down randomly in an empty parking lot. As the video reaches mid-point, the balls all align themselves to bounce at precisely the same moment and then collapse back into chaos.

Sisto's video received the Grand Prize Kodak Vision award and the Videominuto Award offered jointly by the Centro Pecci per L'Arte Contemporanea in Prato, the PAN Palazzo delle Arti in Naples and the Enzimi Festival of Rome.

28 Years in the Implicate Order is exhibited as part of Midtown Crossing's annual Miracle on Farnam. Whichever participating organization receives the most votes receives $3,000.  So if you love great contemporary art, or basketball, or quantum mechanics, please take a moment and click here to vote here for the Bemis Center's window!

 
Mel Ziegler: An American Conversation 
Through March 1st, 2014
 
For this exhibition, Nashville-based artist Mel Ziegler brings together multiple recent works that occupy cultural hierarchies and connect quintessential US subjects such as the American flag, guns, landscapes and rural life. In the broadest sense, he asserts the value of rural identities and aesthetic and locates them within the increasingly fragmented American experience.

The cornerstone of An American Conversation is the artist's ongoing work in which he explores the rural landscapes of the Midwest by documenting a series of ephemeral events. In response to the historic drought of 2012, Ziegler traveled the region, met with farmers and ranchers and staged lighting events on their land. The resulting photographs transform crops into monuments, providing new and insightful perspectives on America's agrarian heartland.

Ziegler's body of work, including his current exhibition at the Bemis Center, will be featured in the next issue of Sculpture magazine. See Ziegler's work here before it hits the news stand!

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Lossy 
Through April 26th, 2014

In information technology, the term "lossy" refers to the unintended degradation of a digital image when it is compressed in order to reduce file size.  In Lossy, the new exhibition at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the participating artists ask whether the errors and omissions that occur in the process of translation may be a good thing by opening new opportunities for constructing poetic narrative, speculative fiction, and alternative readings. In other words, is it possible for the Doppelg�nger to take on a life of its own? 

 

The artists and curator of Lossy are all former Bemis Center Artists-in-Residence whose works explore murky territory of physicality in a media era when visual representation is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated. Through sculptural and image-based surrogates, the artists in this exhibition toggle between recognizable forms and fictional imagery to explore "lossy" in terms of how we reorganize meaning and symbolism. By flipping the "loss" of original resolution from being a negative condition into a potentially positive one, Lossy scrutinizes how active transformation occurs when switching an image into an object, the virtual into the real, the original into the cast copy and the invisible into the tangible. 


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Community Spotlight
 
The Union for Contemporary Art   

The Union for Contemporary Art is building a resource library for the arts community and seeks donations of books ranging from instructional materials and texts on theory to artist biographies and work catalogs. Books can be delivered Tuesdays from 5:00 - 7:00 pm and Saturdays between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm. For questions or to make arrangements for someone to pick up a donation, email [email protected]
 
FIENDISH PLOTS 

A shout-out to our colleagues at FIENDISH PLOTS, a new artist run initiative, organized by Charley Friedman and Nancy Friedemann, that hosts interdisciplinary expressions such as exhibitions, salons, and critiques in Lincoln NE and Brooklyn NY. The inaugural exhibition, Punchcard Music, features German artist Gudrun Barenbrock and is on view through December 7th at 2130 Magnum Circle. Access by appointment only; call 917-348-3331 or 646-247-3361.

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts // 724 South 12th Street, Omaha, NE 

Open Hours:Tues - Sat 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM 

Evening Events Every First Thursday and Third Thursday of the Month