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Wednesday, September 29,1999 _ Page 7
Center’s residency
program offers
stress-free creativity
By Josh Nichols
Staff writer
Often, artists have an abundance of ability and
potential but don’t have the time, money or facili
ties to do their best work.
They must work eight-hour days to pay bills
and only during free time are they able to create.
Then, the work often is done in a spare room or
some other small space.
The artist’s creativity is limited.
With a three-month residency program, the
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha
removes these limitations and allows artists to
work in a stress-free, worry-free atmosphere.
“Artists can come work on their art in a prob
lem-free environment,” said Dan O’Kane, gallery
director. “Here, they are allowed to focus all of
their time on their work. They are under no pres
sure, no deadlines and have no specific assign
ments.”
The Bemis Center is located in two warehous
es in the historic Old Market district of downtown
Omaha.
The center has 10,000 square feet of studio
space, 8,000 square feet of sculpture space, a half
block of land available for outdoor performances
and a 4,000-square-foot gallery.
It also has an extensive art library, a wood
working shop, printmaking facilities, a large-scale
ceramic sculpture facility and many other
resources.
“The Bemis is a very large place,” O’Kane
said. “The large facilities allow artists - used to
making art in the closet or dining room - more
space to make art they aren’t normally able to do.”
The Bemis residency program, developed in
1985, invites 35 artists a year from around the
world to take part. More than 400 artists each year
turn in applications.
“People are chosen strictly on the work they
have made. Anyone is eligible to apply,” O’Kane
said.
Each applicant’s work is reviewed by a com
mittee of four artists, an arts professional and a
curator or museum director, O’Kane said.
Mo Neal, an assistant professor of art and art
history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has
twice been on the selection committee at the
Bemis Center.
She said the group looks at slides of art from all
over the world.
An array of sculptors, painters, performers and
photographers come from such places as New
York, California, France and Japan to do residen
cies at the Bemis Center.
“We look for work that has been thought out
and is unique to the individual’s personality,” Neal
said.
Once chosen, an artist comes to the Bemis
Center and works on his or her art for three months.
They live at the studio for free and are provided
anywhere from a $500 to $ 1,000 monthly stipend.
A staff of professional artists helps the resi
dents build and develop their work.
a
The large facilities allow
artists... more space to
make art they aren’t
normally able to do.”
Dan O’Kane
Bemis gallery director
All that is required of the residents is that they
donate to the center a piece of artwork created dur
ing the residency.
Neal sculpted as a Bemis Center resident in the
summer of 1993.
“Having a residency is like graduate school
without a committee overlooking you,” she said.
She described her residency as three months
during which she did her work without worrying
about anything else.
“You could get up in the morning and go to
work in just a T-shirt. You didn’t even need to brush
your teeth if you didn’t want to.”
O’Kane stressed that the Bemis Center is a
nonprofit organization. With support from private
and corporate donors and public funding, the cen
ter allows artists time to work on their art, share
their talents in classes and display their creations.
“It also allows Omaha to see cutting-edge con
temporary art,” O’Kane said.
Liz Meacham/DN
TOP: Janet Laver and Barbra Hoffman, both of
Denver, Colo., came to the Bemis Center while
passing through Omaha to Iowa City.
ABOVE: Dan O’Kane is the director of the Bemis
Center for Contemporary Arts, which is on the
comer of 12th and Leavenworth streets in Omaha.
Photos link past to the present
By Danell McCoy
Staffwriter
In 1989, the fall of communism and
the disappearance of the Iron Curtain
opened an area of the world that had
been closed for almost 40 years.
For some, it meant democracy had
won. For others, including Sylvia De
Swaan, it meant the doors to their past
had been re-opened.
De Swaan, a Romanian-born Jew,
saw this as an opportunity to look at the
forgotten world of her childhood.
Until Nov. 28, a collection of black
and-white photographs - titled
“Return” - taken during De Swaan’s
return to Romania will be on exhibit at
the Bemis Center for Contemporary
Arts, 724 S. 12th St., in Omaha.
In her photographs, the viewer sees
De Swaan’s struggle to make connec
tions with the past and the present.
“This is a project about identity,” De
Swaan said. “I came to the U.S. when I
was 10 years old. It was like a door shut
behind me in a sense, because it was
another world, because there was no
contact, because it was the Iron Curtain
and because I arrived in the U.S. in die
1950s, and no one wanted to know
about anything.”
De Swaan said she hadn’t thought
about her past until communism fell,
fcfc
I do want to create something of my history.
But its not isolating it to just the past.”
Sylvia De Swaan
photographer
and she suddenly yearned to return.
Immediately, she thought a train
should carry her on her journey, during
which De Swaan would contemplate
her personal history.
Many of her pictures seem almost
antique, but a trained eye can pick out
the differences between time and place.
One of her photographs shows the
mass graves in Iasi, Romania. Although
it looks old and solemn, tall, modern
buildings fill the background.
“In some aspects, I do want to create
something of my history,” Drake said.
“But it’s not isolating it to just the past.”
De Swaan said Mien she began her
journey, she had an idea of what she
wanted to do. The how, however,
escaped her.
“I didn’t know how I was going to
depict the past or how to depict what
isn’t there anymore,” De Swaan said.
“Like Mien I got to Czemowitz, my
hometown, it was a sunny summer day,
and it was beautiful, and people were
walking around having fun like they
were everywhere else in the world. So
what was I supposed to photograph that
would express these other layers of his
tory that exist there?”
De Swaan overcame this obstacle
by taking photos of images that were
already captured.
In her photograph “The History
Lesson,” De Swaan captured images of
the German army from a film she saw
while visiting a concentration camp.
Instead of taking pictures of the
camp itself, De Swaan took a picture of
the screen during the film to bring the
camp’s horror back to life.
De Swaan said her exhibit was not
specifically about the Holocaust.
Instead, it was a way for her to bridge the
gap between time and place.
“I don’t expect people to come out
with the bottom line,” she said. “I want
them to ponder it. None of my images,
nor my text, actually draws a conclu
sion.”
Video exhibit studies
art of communication
By Danell McCoy
Staff writer
Every day and night, the streets
outside the El Paso, Texas, county
jail are clogged with people trying to
communicate with those inside.
They communicate in silence
with family and friends using a sim
ple sign language.
This intriguing phenomenon is
the basis for James Drake’s installa
tion titled “Tongue-Cut Sparrows,”
which is being shown until Nov. 28 at
the Bemis Center for Contemporary
Arts, 724 S. 12th St. in Omaha.
Drake, a resident of El Paso, was
first drawn to this private language
after watching some of the people -
including former gang members -
speak it.
“I thought, ‘This is obviously
some sort of language that, at least,
I’m not privy to,”’ Drake said.
He asked a friend, who was an
ex-gang member, to introduce him to
some of the people outside the jail.
The Bemis Center exhibit focus
es on the video and video stills Drake
made of several women interacting
with the inmates by signing.
The video is split into three
pieces. The middle piece shows one
woman continually signing. The two
side pieces change from views of the
women’s faces to poetry by
Shakespeare, Frederico Lorca,
Benjamin Saenz and Jorge Borges.
The poetry presented on the screen
translates what the girls are signing
to the inmates.
“I would copy different poetry
that I liked, that I drought was appro
priate,” Drake said. “Then I would
have (the girls) pick the different
pieces that they liked or that they
thought they could sign, and thosd
are the poems we used for the film.”
The exhibit also includes still
photographs taken of the prisoners
signing back through the reflection
of the light in their cells.
Drake said these pieces show the
power and beauty of communica
tion.
“I think that art is about commu
nication, about communicating
something,” he said. “As an artist, to
me, it meant not only communicat
ing art but communicating desires
and emotions, love and loss.”