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