Kaneko Museum

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mchine73
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Kaneko Museum

Post by mchine73 »

More complex than mere museum
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1458&u_sid=1382698

I know this was announce last year, but this project continues to get better and better. This will definitely add to "SOMA"(kinda of feels weird saying that), and it looks like they are well on their way to making this a reality.
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Post by DTO Luv »

I've been waiting to hear more on this thing. It sounds interesting and add more to the urban-artistic fabric of Omaha.
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Post by Coyote »

Man this news is great. I wasn't expecting it to be like this:
OWH wrote:The space will be home to seven galleries, an experimental studio, an event space, a video room, two sculpture gardens, two research centers and administrative offices.
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Post by projectman »

This is going to be an interesting addition to the Old Market. I hope it will draw artists from all over the world instead of just from around the US.
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Post by Swift »

Bemis already draws artists from all over the world, last time I was there four of the artists in residency were from places in europe, and I saw a lecture there given by a Cuban artist (who, after seeing the lecture, happens to be the best artist alive today, in my opinion).
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Post by Coyote »

Giants of the Heartland
The New York Times wrote:Pittsburg, Kan. For the past couple of years Jun Kaneko, the ceramic artist, has been driving every month from his studio in Omaha, five hours south to a sewer-pipe factory here, called Mission Clay. There, in a pair of beehive kilns from the turn of the last century, he has been making what must be some of the largest ceramic sculptures made, maybe the largest ever made.

They’re Easter Island-like heads, the size of baby rhinos. Or they’re abstract, in hollow shapes like lozenges or lima beans or dumplings — he calls them “Dangos,” which is Japanese for dumplings. Or, in one case, a little like a ship’s billowing sail, each one weighing thousands of pounds and rising up to 13 feet....


A few days earlier, on a clear blue afternoon, Mr. Kaneko; his wife, Ree Schonlau; and I crunched through broken wood and glass in the huge light-flooded upper floor of a defunct Plymouth dealership with magnificent wraparound views of downtown Omaha. Ms. Schonlau, a cheerful Pied Piper with a mop of hair and a habit of calling everyone “dear,” founded the nonprofit Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts here around 25 years ago. Since then it has helped revive downtown and made her a local hero.

Mr. Kaneko and she are classic opposites, introvert and extrovert. Bemis first brought Mr. Kaneko to work at the Omaha Brickworks in the early ’80s. Recently they bought this dealership as storage for his art, which they’ve been accumulating. There are now plans for a nonprofit center for creative studies, called Kaneko, which will house 2,000 of his sculptures along with works by other artists. They also have bought a former heating and cooling supplier’s warehouse across the street from the dealership. That makes seven big buildings around town that they own, including his studio.

I asked how much room this adds up to, and they needed to stop and calculate. “About 165,000 square feet,” Ms. Schonlau said. That’s 12 times the size of the Metropolitan Museum’s Great Hall, or 6 times as large as all the galleries at the Whitney. Space is clearly another reason Mr. Kaneko settled in Omaha, not Manhattan or San Francisco....


We toured the studio, which occupies a former industrial building at the Old Market. In a drying room two giant heads nestled under a wood and plastic canopy, like lovers at a wedding altar. Bunches of fired pink, white and gray Dangos, not yet glazed, lined the walls, incubating like the creatures in “Aliens.” Immaculate shelves for colored glazes rose before neatly stacked bags of clay, dozens of them. Mr. Kaneko said there were 200 more tons of clay in a building across the street. Upstairs a painting studio the size of a hockey rink had a suite of half-finished striped paintings on the walls, intended for a convention center.

“I like the idea of ambient space, the challenge of it,” he said. “People going through a plaza or a convention center may not be conscious of my pieces and may not be interested in art, — but in the end they are experiencing it. And each public project has its own needs, its own ‘ma,’ ” he said, ma meaning “spirit,” a Shinto idea, which applies, he said, also to the spaces around, and in between, the sculptures.
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Post by Coyote »

Image

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Image
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Brad
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Post by Brad »

Awesome Pics Coyote.  So do they just build those right in the Kiln then remove everything then fire?
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Post by MTO »

I'm very proud that we have him and his studio here!

Brad, I think a giant bunny comes in at night and drop them off.
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Post by Uffda »

the original OWH article link is dead but it looks like he has buying up several buildings. I was told by someone he also has living quarters in one of the old market buildings that looks abandon/boarded up on the outside.
upper floor of a defunct Plymouth dealership with magnificent wraparound views of downtown Omaha.

Recently they bought this dealership as storage for his art, which they’ve been accumulating. There are now plans for a nonprofit center for creative studies, called Kaneko, which will house 2,000 of his sculptures along with works by other artists. They also have bought a former heating and cooling supplier’s warehouse across the street from the dealership. That makes seven big buildings around town that they own, including his studio.

I asked how much room this adds up to, and they needed to stop and calculate. “About 165,000 square feet,”
Last edited by Uffda on Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Coyote »

Uffda wrote:the original OWH article link is dead but it looks like he has buying up several buildings. I
All the more reason to actually quote the OWH rather than just post a link. They pull down their articles after just a few weeks.
Kaneko is going to have quite a presence in the OM in the near future.
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Post by Ben »

If I remember correctly Kaneko owns the entire south side of the block on Jackson between 11th and 12th (where the studio is), and I believe that he also has space/lives in the building on the NE corner of 12 and Jackson (the building behind the JLofts sales office).
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Post by edsas »

Whoa!  How much do those things weigh?

Kaneko is yet another one of those wonderful unexpected things about Omaha that easily makes it the best < million metro in the US.
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Post by Historic Omaha »

Has anyone heard/seen any updates on the proposed museum (site)?
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Post by Coyote »

Kaneko's Dangos are now in Omaha

Omaha sculptor takes ceramics to new heights
Omaha World Herald wrote:With the availability of two super-sized kilns and a 10,000-square-foot work space at a clay sewer-pipe factory in Pittsburg, Kan., Kaneko created dangos roughly 13 feet tall and weighing 5,000 pounds. They're nearly six times larger than his previous works, which have garnered the artist international renown for their massive scale.

There's a high chance for technical failure when making ceramics. Seemingly minute mistakes can make clay crack, bubble or burst during the drying and firing processes. And every time an artist pushes the size, the risk grows. The pieces dried for a year so they wouldn't crack during the firings. The initial low-heat firing took seven weeks. Then Kaneko spent about five days on each piece, painting patterns ranging from simple dots to intricate black-and-white bands to colorful squares.

Kaneko didn't lose any of the eight largest pieces during the process, but a dozen smaller dangos burst in the kiln because his assistants forgot to drill a tiny hole for air to escape. "It's nothing short of unbelievable," Masuoka said. "The amount of time, labor and risk involved is almost unimaginable. I don't know if anyone else in the world could even fathom doing something like that."
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Post by Big E »

The north east end of the block (11th and Jones, across from Urban Wine) has a new entryway around an old door.  It's kind of glass panels.  Looks cool.  Just noticed it the other night, not sure how long it had been there.

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Post by Coyote »

Big E wrote:The north east end of the block (11th and Jones, across from Urban Wine) has a new entryway around an old door.  It's kind of glass panels.  Looks cool.  Just noticed it the other night, not sure how long it had been there.
Mark Mercer is opening a restaurant/Bar at 1110 Jones called "The Boiler Room"
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Post by StreetsOfOmaha »

Coyote wrote:
Big E wrote:The north east end of the block (11th and Jones, across from Urban Wine) has a new entryway around an old door.  It's kind of glass panels.  Looks cool.  Just noticed it the other night, not sure how long it had been there.
Mark Mercer is opening a restaurant/Bar at 1110 Jones called "The Boiler Room"
That would be awesome.  I'm assuming that's in the Bemis Bag building there, and that corner has REALLY needed something ever since the gallery closed down.  And I wish that building would go residential already.  Jeeez!  It's such a great, substantial building.
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Post by Coyote »

Yes - this is in the Bemis Bag Company Building and I believe where that Gallery used to be. Jones is beginning to pick up. With the Urban Wine Company and Nomad already there Big E's evening walk will be shortened. Slacker. I saw ice in your glass the other day.

I can't wait for an announcement about the Kaneko Museum. That will be a crown jewel.
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Post by Big E »

The windows I was talking about are on the south side of Jones.  I had been completely under the impression the restaurant was going to be on the north side of Jones, in the building with Blue Barn.. . ??? ? ? ? ?? ?

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Post by Brad »

Kaneko returning favor with downtown space

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2 ... d=10329292
DANE STICKNEY WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER wrote:The center, a collection of Old Market warehouses, is on pace to be completed by 2010. It probably will include classrooms, gallery spaces, multimedia rooms and sculpture gardens for regular workshops, lectures and exhibitions.

The only finished space is the Bow Truss, named after the architectural support for its vaulted ceiling. It looks like a gymnasium with white walls and shiny cement floors.

Kaneko purchased the Bow Truss and the bulk of the structures on the block between 11th and 12th and Jones and Leavenworth Streets in 1993. He intended to use them for studio space and as storage for his sculptures, which often stretch at least 6 feet tall and weigh more than a ton.

About seven years ago, the resurgence of the Old Market made Kaneko feel guilty. He had prime real estate that probably could serve the community better as a public art space instead of as his personal storage unit.

So he and his wife, Ree, began exploring the idea of a creativity center.
There is a lot more to the article.
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Post by SaOmaha »

Here is the website for the Kaneko Museum or is it OPEN SPACE FOR YOUR MIND:

http://www.thekaneko.org/

This website has the mission statement, the Kaneko Newsletter (to view & download), and concept & plans for the Museum.
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Post by iamjacobm »

I hadn't seen these renderings of what could be down the road before.  Very cool.

Image

Image
Last edited by iamjacobm on Wed May 09, 2012 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ricko »

I've been following the Kaneko museum's evolution since it's beginning.  I don't think people realize how important this space is for Omaha's reputation as an arts center---Ree Kaneko (Jun's wife) was the impetus behind the Bemis Center for the Arts back in the 80's.  I just wish they'd update their website more often. Is this rendering an old one (?), 'cuz I've seen another one somewhere in the recent past that wasn't quite as ambitious.

On a related note, now that Phillip Schrager is dead, I'm wondering what's going to happen to his sizable collection of modern art----one of the best private collections in the country----housed in an art-space-warehouse in an industrial park near 96th & J.  They also have a sucky website.
Last edited by ricko on Wed May 09, 2012 6:50 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by iamjacobm »

ricko wrote:I've been following the Kaneko museum's evolution since it's beginning.  I don't think people realize how important this space is for Omaha's reputation as an arts center---Rhee Kaneko (Jun's husband) was the impetus behind the Bemis Center for the Arts back in the 80's.  I just wish they'd update their website more often. Is this rendering an old one (?), 'cuz I've seen another one somewhere in the recent past that wasn't quite as ambitious.
I honestly don't know.  SPN just had it in their latest article about Big Omaha I was reading and I had never seen it before.
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Post by iamjacobm »

Great news for the center.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20120801/G ... -art-group
The plans include construction of media and conference rooms on the building’s main level, reconfiguration and additions to the reception area, the creation of two new gallery spaces on the building’s second level and a new freight elevator.
The city’s annual Big Omaha conference takes place at Kaneko, and Langdon said the construction will give the popular event an additional 20,000 square feet to use for next year’s event.
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Post by Brad »

Building Permit in the OWH Today:
1111 Jones Street LLC, 1111 Jones St., $1,056,879.
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by Coyote »

I was at Kaneko for The New Harmonic: (Ben Phelp's) Six Ways to be Alone, Directed by Vimbayi Kaziboni (a Millard West grad) which was packed into Space 6 (the NE second floor), in fact there were probably more people standing than they had chairs.

Image

and wished I had taken more pictures from the inside, but they just ended Olson Kundig and getting ready for Fiber.

Space 1
Image

Space 5
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by iamjacobm »

Really excited for their upcoming Design in Motion exhibit.
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by MTO »

iamjacobm wrote:Really excited for their upcoming Design in Motion exhibit.
When dies that open?
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by iamjacobm »

Woah they just broke ground on the atrium project today!!
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Re: Kaneko Museum

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iamjacobm wrote:Woah they just broke ground on the atrium project today!!
This is the only picture I could find on the project:

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Re: Kaneko Museum

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Kaneko breaks ground on $3.6M atrium project that will connect 3 buildings in Old Market

http://www.omaha.com/go/kaneko-breaks-g ... 3f219.html
Andrea Kszystyniak / World-Herald staff writer wrote:Old Market gallery space Kaneko broke ground on a new atrium Monday morning.

The $3.6 million project will add nearly 5,000 square feet to the building at 1111 Jones St. and will create a new entry to the gallery.
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Re: Kaneko Museum

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This block is going to be something else.

Hope they fix all the pot holes on the abutting streets while they're at it.
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by Coyote »

This will make the new entrance where?
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by skinzfan23 »

Coyote wrote:This will make the new entrance where?
From the article:
The atrium will span the front of the gallery, running down Jones Street between 11th and 12th Streets, and will connect three buildings. It is expected to be complete in November.

The door to the facility, currently located on the northeast corner of the building, will be centered.

The installation will be constructed of steel and glass and will be surrounded by a black and white granite sidewalk, designed by Jun Kaneko.
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Re: Kaneko Museum

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Image
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by skinzfan23 »

Is the building on the southeast corner in that last rendering included in this project or is that a future phase?
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Re: Kaneko Museum

Post by Coyote »

I see, this will be a long (E-W) atrium but not very deep...
Yes, I hope something is finally done with parking and the whole Jones St Streetscape...
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Re: Kaneko Museum

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