January 3, 2006
Media contact: Deb Banerjee, 435-792-0358
Writer: Deb Banerjee
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY’S NORA ECCLES HARRISON
MUSEUM OF ART PRESENTS “SEMINA CULTURE: WALLACE BERMAN & HIS CIRCLE”
LOGAN — The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art on the Utah State University
campus opens the new year with a new exhibition and opening reception. “Semina
Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle” can be be seen Jan. 10-March
15, with an opening reception Jan. 10. Guest curators for the exhibit are Michael
Duncan and Kristine McKenna.
The opening reception and curator’s tour of the exhibition begins at 6
p.m. in the museum’s Upper Gallery. Refreshments will be served. The exhibition
is free and open to the public and has been made possible by a grant from the
Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. The curator’s tour and presentation has
been made possible by a grant from the Utah Humanities Council.
An important artist of the post World War II generation, Wallace Berman was
a catalyst and inspirational mentor, carrying the ideas and ideals of one group
of people to another as he moved through a wide spectrum of creative, social
and political circles during the fifties and sixties in southern California,
said Victoria Rowe, NEH museum director. Organized by the Santa Monica Museum
of Art and co-curated by Duncan and McKenna, this is the first major museum
examination of the significance of the charismatic Berman — his eclectic
worldview and non-nine-to-five lifestyle, Rowe said.
It includes the complete loose-leaf run of “Semina” — a hand-printed,
free-form art and poetry journal that Berman published and personally distributed
— and artworks by contributors to “Semina,” as well as by
those who were part of the close-knit “Semina Culture” community,
largely people from the West Coast. “Semina” and other important
objects in the exhibition are on loan from Utah State University ’s Special
Collections and Archives and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. The exhibition
and accompanying catalog offer breakthrough insights and rigorous scholarship
about an emerging counterculture whose rich array of innovative artistic voices
contrasted with the cultural conformity of Eisenhower-era America , Rowe said.
In addition to the complete “Semina” publication — an iconic
document of Berman’s idiosyncratic artistic point-of-view — the
exhibition includes more than 50 of Berman’s photographs, recently printed
from vintage negatives and shown for the first time; a 90-minute program of
short films by Berman, Russel Tamblyn, Curtis Harrington, Lawrence Jordan and
Bruce Conner; a compelling selection of publications and documents integral
to the world of “Semina Culture;” and rarely exhibited works in
a variety of mediums by 48 artists, friends and collaborators in Berman’s
artistic projects. (The 48 include: Robert Alexander, John Altoon, Toni Basil,
Paul Beattie, Ray and Bonnie Bremser, Charles Brittin, Joan Brown, Cameron,
Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, Diane DiPrima, Kirby Doyle, Bobby Driscoll,
Robert Duncan, Joe Dunn, Llyn Foulkes, Loree Foxx, Ralph Gibson, Allen Ginsberg,
Billy Gray, George Herms, Jack Hirschman, Dennis Hopper, Billy Jahrmarkt, Jess,
Lawrence Jordan, Patricia Jordan, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, William Margolis,
Michael McClure, Taylor Mead, David Meltzer, Henry Miller, Stuart Perkoff, John
Reed, Arthur Richer, Rachel Rosenthal, Jack Smith, Dean Stockwell, Ben Talbert,
Russel Tamblyn, Aya (Tarlow), Edmund Teske, Zack Walsh, Lew Welch and John Wieners.)
These artists of the “beat” generation created works infused with
memory, lyricism and a sense of the ephemeral.
Art was a joyful and creative expression for these iconoclasts, not a means
to an art world career, Rowe said. “Their approach to the purpose and
formal nature of art and culture existed on a vastly different track from the
canonical traditions of abstract expressionism, minimalism and postmodernism,”
she said.
The comprehensive catalog that documents the exhibition is published and distributed
by Santa Monica Museum of Art and DAP. “Semina Culture” will travel
to the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas (April
21–July 9, 2006); the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum &
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California (Oct. 17–Dec. 10, 2006); and
The Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, New York (Jan. 16–March
31, 2007).
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is located on the USU campus at 650 North
1100 East, Logan, Utah,
84322 , (435) 797-0163, Fax (435) 797-3423, http://www.artmuseum.usu.edu.
The museum is open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Wednesday,
10 a.m.-7p.m.; Saturday, noon-4 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays, Mondays and
major holidays. Admission is free.
For more information or to schedule a tour of the museum, call (435) 797-0165.
The museum is accessible to persons with disabilities. Parking for the museum
is available in lot "C3" to the west of the museum. The fee to park
in this area is $6.00 ($3 will be refunded if you park for 2 hours or less).
After 3:45 P.M. and on weekends, theparking is free. Parking is also available
in the parking terrace near the Taggart Student Center for $1.50/hour ($7.50/day
maximum) and lot"B" located at the corner of 700 North and 1200 East
(by Aggie Ice Cream) is available for free after 2:00 p.m.(see http://www.usu.edu/parking/Visitor.htm)
or call 797-3414.
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