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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1988)
NeKkan Arts & Entertainm ent 98 Wednesday, November 9,1988 X 1^1, .1^1 lUlillllVill' Midwestern artists show work in Sheldon By Trevor McArthur Stalf Reporter There’s something unique about the Midwest. —^-t-TRKVIl VV I While every region has something that sets it apart from the rest of the nation, for the rest of this semester, visitors to Lincoln*# Sheldon Memo rial Art Gallery eaa see the physical manifestations of this region’s uniqueness. “Midwestern Visions: ^Con structed one of the four artists who make their home and their art in the Midwest. Apart from this, the works bear little similarity to one another. The subtitle “Constructed Reali ties” refers to the general classifica tion of the works as constructions. Not just paintings and not just sculptures, each one seems to involve some amount of painting, sculpting and other crossover methods of crea tion. Granite pushes ih one corner of a painting, painted thorns stick out of one wooden star while feathers pro trude from another siftr, and some works defy brief explanation of even the most superficial kind. Several of the artists displayed were at a reception for both this show and another gallery show or paintings by University of Ncbraska-Lincoln profcssoi of art Keith Jacobshagon. Three of the “Midwestern Vi sions” artists were available to share their experiences and feelings about art. Jell Freeman is an associate pro fessor of an at the University of South Dakota. He has lived in North and South Dakota, as well as Minnesota, ,011(1 has intended school in Minnesota, Dakota and Wisconsin. He said [gest influence was a man fans Hoffman. _so much in simply what the ^ronwwVks like, but in how he talked, how he thought,” Freeman said. Hoffman had what Freeman de scribes as a “push-pull” theory, and said that a person is a dynamic rather than static force bounded by polar opposites. “I thought, ‘my God, that makes sense to me,’" Freeman said. He said he felt things were changing every second, and Hoffman’s art summed up things that Freeman was thinking about. “I gradually found a way of using what he was talking about in my own way,” Freeman said. Through his artistic creations, Freeman said he tries to blur the audience’s expectations of the between the various fields. <v ... Instead of blurring actuaT^stinc - tions, he labels something a painting but gives it three dimensions, he said. “I want a work to be not a defini tion, but acatalysl, something to raise a reaction,” Freeman said. Warren Rosser is another artist exhibited at the show. Of all the works on display, Rosser’s probably come closest to traditional sculpture. The Kansas City, Mo., dweller is the chairman of the painting department of the Kansas City Art Institute. Rosser said he has met both mno vativc composer John Cage afid pio neering engineer and architect R. BucKmcisicr Fuller in London, and enjoyed their adventurous spirits, but thru his direct anwtic influences came from legendary artists such as Piccaso and Duchamp. “f think the artists Ural one finds in museums .. . become a major influ ence,” Rosser said. The title of one nfljp displayed pieces, “Questor -- Stripped by Her Bachelor’s Even/1 rcfcfilo a work by Duchamp. Similar to Freeman, Rosser de scribes his wopt as dealing in oppo sites, “Male, Female; thin, fat; dense, solid; open, closed. Thdy’rc really about trying |o re Heel on one’s own thought process,” Rossertsaid. As an example he points to his othdr work on display, “Spirit Catcher.” “There arc male forms and female forms. There arc things set in opposi tion to each other. I think in all of us we have aspects that don’t mesh, don’t, sort of, fit tocher; we struggle wilhour own identity. These pieces, I guess, arc in my own way an attempt to son of,.. maybe try and understand the various sicks, various aspects of myself,” Rosser said. John Spence, from Lincoln, is a film 2nd video maker as welt as a still photographer. Those are the main areas*o( the arts he works in, bttl on display in the show arc several of the sjar constructions he began budding two yttars ago. “One of the problems with trying to be a filmmaker is that making films docs not have that kind of immediate, tactile* sense of accomplishment,” Spenep said, “nilms tend to stretch pul over a period of years before you Actually get something doac. The beauty of making stars is they’re immediate. I can make them every night and can jam things together. I can paint. I glue. I can saw. So there’s a very immediate kind of sense of accomplishment.” Spence said he doesn’t know why he began using stars as the basic shape for his works, except perhaps that nc found them easy tod raw as a chi Id and he is fond of them now But their shapes are not as important to him as what he docs with them. “As a photographer, I’ve spent years, literally years, out in the coun trysitie, looking, making photo graphs,” Sppncc sajd. "There aeft many other things in the countryside that I like, that I see, that appeal to me, that I really can’t put in the photo graph. “So the s ick became, what arc you goipg to do wnfcit? What are you goii^g to make ouU)f |? $o it becomes a process ol jutf. silting there and lookmg at all tMpStyff you have, that you picked up. A couple of the stars arc made out of beaver^jpks and feathers, things that I’ve haaaround for a long time.” George Neubert, director q£ the Shcldof Gallery and this show, $a»4 he h^s had people give him positive msi ' “Mid western Visions.” “We’ve had mjirc studem re sponse, I think, sometimes, jhan other shows,” Heubert said. “I ^if^mat’s partly because of the issues and ideas and the variety of matcHais. 1 think that mere’s enough to jfeok at and intcfact with* bodiRtaa^wujeaiid As to wnafuesmevwcstogelner, there is some agreement and a little disagreement. Freeman (aid it is hard to say there i$ something specifica|y Midwestern 4bout the stvfcpf the work but that Midwestern ams protected from {he coastal window fashiqp. ; ■ _ ' ' See MIDWEST.on 10 4A Chinese Ghost Story’ worth a run scare H> Micki Haller Senior I Editor Probably the best escapist movie to come out since “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is not American. The film isn’t show ing downtown, and it isn’t even in English. “A Chinese Ghost Story” is the latest offering dished up by Sheldon Film Theater’s New Chinese Cinema festival. The movie looks like it was di rected by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and the cream of the directorial crop. Ning is a simple tax collector who makes a pilgrimage to a town to col lect some money. Unfortunately, he hasn’t got any for traveling expenses, and he asks the villagers where he can spend the night for free. They direct him to Lan Ro Temple. Ning is an intelligent scholar, but he’s lacking in common sense and basic physical coordination. When he shows up al ihe Lan Ro Temple, a t ight breaks out around him. The men in black ignore him, but jump around doing amazing g> mnas tics and swinging swords. By accident, he finds himself be* tween an old warrior and a young, brash fighter. The Ninja, or whatever they are, trade some nasty barbs, and Ning tries to placate them by telling them to love each other. “Love conquers the world. Love is the most powerful weapon,’* Ning said. “Get out of here,” one warrior growls at him. “Your love can’t save you.” Ning is allowed to duck out of the swordplay, and find a room in the deserted temple. Then, the ghost appears in the window, just for a moment. And we see what’s in the attic above Ning’s room. Petrified mummy creatures hiss and crawl around on the floor, obviously excited at a tender young meal like Ning. Meanwhile, the ghost has decided to take a bath in a nearby stream. One of the warriors secs her, and she se duces him. But in the middle of fore play , she rings little bells on her ankle, and the man shrivels into a mummy creature. Obviously, she’s not the best girl to take out on a date, but she cries when she secs what has happened to her lover. The old man races when he hears the bells, but he is too late. He decides to take care of the body, but when it starts making menacing moves on him, he annihilates it with a flaming spear. The old man notes that there’s not much difference between the warrior when he was alive, and when he was dead. “You still fight when you’re dead,” he says. The next major event is when Ning meets the ghost. She lures him to a temple with her siren song and lute playing. He falls in love with her, but he’s extremely shy. “You’re sick, you look pale,” he said when she tries to kiss him. “You should see a doctor.” She asks him to carry her inside the temple, but he answers, “I can’t. You’re too heavy.” Frustrated, she makes him faint by her special powers, then losses him into the pond beside the temple and flics off. He comes to, sees her lute, and tries to return it to her. Eventually, she falls in love with him also, and decides not to kill him. She tells him that she is under the power of an evil tree monster, which makes her kill men. The old warrior, Swordmaster Yen, is against all ghosts, and tries to kill them with his special powers of Tao. But even he agrees to iielp this particular ghost. The story combines ail the ele ments of modem horror, the tradi tional Chinese ghost story, and the different Asian philosophies, but tells the tale with its tongue firmly planted in cheek. The movie is incredibly funny, even if it is in another language. It’s also horrifyingly scary, and has su perb special effects. And the action See GHOST on 10