Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts

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Didn't Rick Santorum want to ban rainbows?

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New Bemis Center exhibit combines art and sound



As visitors walk through the Bemis Center, they’re met with various displays, ranging from a collection of 17 pianos that roar and sing to a pitch-black room that engages the senses.

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Maya Dunietz: Root of Two
May 7, 2022–September 18, 2022

At 4 PM CT there will be a special opening performance featuring the legendary saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell with exhibiting artist Maya Dunietz on pianos. They will play inside the herd of 17 vibrating pianos of Root of Two. The exhibition will be on view through September 18, 2022.


This event is in-person only, no virtual livestream.

This solo exhibition by Maya Dunietz engages the physicality of sound through a series of installations encompassing the entirety of Bemis Center’s 13,000 square foot gallery space. The works become an ensemble, connecting with each other through the viewer’s experience. As sound materializes, the works unfold and intertwine, enabling a transformative experience. In the traditional sense, they are singular works, yet they resonate with each other, rely on one another, and as a visitor walks through the galleries, the previous works sonically and physically influence what comes afterward as well as what came beforehand.

ABOUT THE ARTIST


Maya Dunietz is a composer, performer, and sound artist. She investigates the interconnections between music, visual art, performance, technological research, and philosophy. Her works are commissioned by renowned performers and ensembles and she has created site-specific sound installations and performances for institutions including Palais de Tokyo Paris, Arnolfini Gallery Bristol, Reykjavik Arts Festival, and more. Her sound piece Thicket is in the collection of The Centre Pompidou. Dunietz performs the music of Emahoy Tsegué and other composers, as well as free improvisation concerts and collaborations around the world. In 2015, Dunietz was a guest professor at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles as part of the Schusterman residence program and in 2017, she was a guest artist at the Cité internationale des arts. In 2018, Dunietz had two solo exhibitions at The Centre Pompidou, Paris and at Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille. In 2019-2020 Dunietz was in the exhibition Confined with Time in Jaffa and created a new site-specific installation for the Botanical Gardens in Jerusalem for Back to Nature curated by Hadas Maor. mayadunietz.com

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Live @ LOW END | FUJI||||||||||TA
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Thu, Jun 16
8:00pm

FUJI||||||||||TA is a sound artist living in Japan.

His unique practice utilizes various natural phenomena that respond to his interest in wanting to hear unheard sounds and noises. In 2009 Fujita hand fabricated a pipe organ that has only 11 pipes and no keyboard. Fujita conceived and built it using his imagination, without any prior or specialized knowledge. Designed to create a landscape rather than function as a musical instrument, he took the idea from the Japanese “gagaku”. The air pump (called “FUIGO”) which is kept moving by the left hand when playing, and is based on associations with an ancient blacksmith. This is a unique instrument that Fujita had to learn to play. Recently, he has added a water element, with sound synthesized water tanks, to his performance repertoire. The music consists of water sounds from multiple aquariums alongside his pipe organ and his voice. Since 2006, he has had many solo performances and collaborative works with musicians, including ∈Ｙ∋ (Boredoms), Akio Suzuki, Keiji Haino, and Koichi Makigami. He has presented his sound installation works in many contexts: the work “CELL”, which made audible the sounds of black soldier fly maggots buried in dirt, was exhibited in Sapporo International Art Festival 2017 and attracted a great deal of interest in Fujita’s artistic practice. A performance with an organ and 4 water tanks were performed in MODE (London) in 2019. In 2020, he released the albums “iki” [Hallow Ground] and “KŌMORI” [Boomkat Editions]. ​​https://fujita.bandcamp.com

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Live @ LOW END | KIKÙ HIBINO

Thu, Jul 14, 2022
8:00–9:00 PM CT
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts

Chicago-based and Japanese-born sound artist Kikú Hibino produces cross-genre electronic music. From chamber music for media productions to digital micro sound for art installations, he has collaborated internationally with a wide variety of artists and scholars, including Yuge Zhou, Mitsu Salmon, Kawaguchi Takao (Dumb Type), Curtis Roads, Theaster Gates, Mike Weis (Zelienople), and Norma Field. His recent work attempts to deconstruct Chicago House Music through the noise music production approach. The project was funded by DCASE and was presented at various locations in Chicago. HIbino is a 2017 Individual Artist Grant recipient from Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. He was also an 2021 Outer Ear Artist in Residency at Experimental Sound Studio (ESS.org). Hibino studied electronic music composition at Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus with Toru Iwatake, Atau Tanaka, and Christopher Penrose, and at University of California at Santa Barbara with Curtis Roads and Karen Tanaka, and holds M.A. in media art and technology. In 2021, Hibino and his creative partner Gregory Bae (1986-2021) launched S/N, an electronic music concert series that focuses on the work by Chicago’s underrepresented BIPOC, female, or gender minorities sound artists.
Image: Kikú Hibino; Courtesy of the University of Chicago.

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‘Root of Two’
Dunietz interactive, sound installation at BemisCenter both sensual, spiritual

If I’m being truly honest,” Maya Dunietz: Root of Two” feels very redemptive, almost like a spiritual experience. This is clearly one of Bemis Center’s most experimental exhibitions in recent years relying primarily on something that can’t even be seen: the ephemeral nature of sound rather than physical objects. That, and the work is oftentimes humorous.

With the last in-house exhibition on “Empathy All Together, Amongst Many: Reflections,” happening during the most controversial period in Omaha’s art world that highlighted how horrific and entrenched racism continues to impact the arts in town, the exhibition was poorly received as virtue signaling and tokenism. It also was just too intellectual spread out, with no common throughline that unified all the works in that show.

But stripping away all that, Maya Dunietz, the artist from Tel Aviv, takes visitors into an abstracted realm, somewhere where art and engineering exists without conflict. It’s an examination of the body through sound. Here’s the kicker, you can touch and even go inside most of the artworks.

“It became one big thing, it is in a way, a big orchestral piece that invokes eight lines of thought,” Dunietz said in a recent interview. ““The building is reacting very warmly to the sound.”



Maya Dunietz. Installation view of Root of Two, 2022. On view from May 7—September 18, 2022 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. Courtesy of the artist and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Photography by Assaf Evron.

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Root of Two Performance Series | The Fugu Plan
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Thu, Aug 11
7:00pm - 9:00pm

Fronted by the elusive vocalist/composer YUKA, and accompanied by master musician Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, The Fugu Plan's hypnotic songs, sounds, and performances are an otherworldly live experience.

The two sets will include both a classic Fugu Plan concert exploring traditions of ritual, tribal, and spiritual music through the secret customs and ancient folktales of Japan and a second set of free and wild improve that is set inside the exhibition in which YUKA and Shanir will "hack" into Root of Two in various ways, inserting objects into the pianos of the herd, hacking into the vibration system and other forms of intervention.

SUPPORT

Maya Dunietz: Root of Two is generously supported by commissioning sponsor, VIA Art Fund. The exhibition is also supported, in part, by the Albert and Eleanor Feldman Family Israel Foundation, Anonymous, Artis, Mellon Foundation, Mutual of Omaha, The Jewish Federation of Omaha, the Nebraska Arts Council and Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Omaha Steaks, and University of Nebraska Omaha's The Schwalb Center for Jewish Studies.

[ricko]

‘Root of Two’
Dunietz interactive, sound installation at BemisCenter both sensual, spiritual

If I’m being truly honest,” Maya Dunietz: Root of Two” feels very redemptive, almost like a spiritual experience. This is clearly one of Bemis Center’s most experimental exhibitions in recent years relying primarily on something that can’t even be seen: the ephemeral nature of sound rather than physical objects. That, and the work is oftentimes humorous.

With the last in-house exhibition on “Empathy All Together, Amongst Many: Reflections,” happening during the most controversial period in Omaha’s art world that highlighted how horrific and entrenched racism continues to impact the arts in town, the exhibition was poorly received as virtue signaling and tokenism. It also was just too intellectual spread out, with no common throughline that unified all the works in that show.

But stripping away all that, Maya Dunietz, the artist from Tel Aviv, takes visitors into an abstracted realm, somewhere where art and engineering exists without conflict. It’s an examination of the body through sound. Here’s the kicker, you can touch and even go inside most of the artworks.

“It became one big thing, it is in a way, a big orchestral piece that invokes eight lines of thought,” Dunietz said in a recent interview. ““The building is reacting very warmly to the sound.”



Maya Dunietz. Installation view of Root of Two, 2022. On view from May 7—September 18, 2022 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. Courtesy of the artist and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Photography by Assaf Evron.

Thank you for all of the links you post. I always look at them and find them really informative. Omaha has so much to offer for every interest, and the stuff you post means we don’t have to look as hard.
I hope people realize how important the Bemis is to the community. The last time I was in town, I spoke to one of the people employed there. I didn’t know it was the largest artist-in-residents program in the country. That’s kind of a BFD in the arts community. I was told that they support up to 36 artists at any given time. If you haven’t been there, it’s really worth checking out. It’s founder, Rhee Kaneko, was also largely responsible for the Kaneko Center across the street. Even large metro areas are less likely (along with Film Streams) to have stuff like this.

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Live @ LOW END | Sarah Hennies with Judith Hamann
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Thu, Aug 18
8:00pm - 9:00pm

The performance will also stream live at twitch.tv/bemiscenter and facebook.com/bemiscenter. Twitch account not required.

The Reinvention of Romance is a 90-minute duet for cello and percussion inspired by the care and empathy that emerges over time when two lives share space. The work consists of a series of repeating patterns that create a peculiar kind of harmony in which two musicians are rarely “playing together” but are nonetheless intimately bonded by a common center. The domestic lives of two people living together will inevitably consist of many endlessly repeating actions: sleeping, waking up, eating, going to work, coming home again, etc. Similarly, our biology is governed by repetition: breathing, blinking, heartbeat, etc. It is only through the passage of time that intimacy can evolve and increase. The Reinvention of Romance is a musical analogue that creates a startling closeness between the two performers and between the performers and audience.

Sarah Hennies (b. 1979, Louisville, KY) is a composer based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, love, intimacy, psychoacoustics, and percussion. She is primarily a composer of acoustic chamber music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at MoMA PS1 (NYC), Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Le Guess Who (Utrecht), Festival Cable (Nantes), send + receive (Winnipeg), O’ Art Space (Milan), Cafe Oto (London), ALICE (Copenhagen), and the Edition Festival (Stockholm). As a composer, she has received commissions across a wide array of performers and ensembles including Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Cristian Alvear, Claire Chase, R. Andrew Lee, Talea Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Two-Way Street, Nate Wooley, and Yarn/Wire. Her groundbreaking audio-visual work Contralto (2017) explores transfeminine identity through the elements of “voice feminization” therapy, featuring a cast of transgender women accompanied by a dense and varied musical score for string quartet and three percussionists. The work has been in high demand since its premiere, with numerous performances taking place around North America, Europe, and Australia and was one of four finalists for the 2019 Queer|Art Prize. Hennies is the recipient of a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a 2016 fellowship in music/sound from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has received additional support from New Music USA, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. Sarah is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.

Judith Hamann is a cellist and performer/composer from Narrm/Melbourne, currently based in Berlin. They have “long been recognised as one of Australia’s foremost contemporary-music cellists” (RealTime Arts) as well as a composer who “destroys the fiction of the musician who lives and works outside conventional parameters and puts in its place a series of compositions that are fundamentally humane” (WIRE Magazine). Judith's work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, field recording, electronics, site-specific generative work, and microtonal/intonation systems in a deeply considered process-based approach to creative practice. Currently, their work is focused on an examination of expressions and manifestations of 'shaking’ in solo performance practice, a collection of new works for cello and humming, as well as ongoing research surrounding ‘collapse’ as a generative imaginary surface. Hamann likes working with and thinking-with other artists which sometimes includes people like Marja Ahti, Oren Ambarchi, Dennis Cooper, Charles Curtis, Golden Fur, the Harmonic Space Orchestra, Sarah Hennies, Eiko Ishibashi, Yvette Janine Jackson, Alvin Lucier, Éliane Radigue, and La Monte Young. In the past, they mostly focused on performing as a process/practice, which took place in many contexts and locations. This included things like Tectonics, Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Maerzmusik (Berlin), The Los Angeles Philharmonic Fluxus Festival (LA), Tokyo Experimental Festival (Tokyo), AURAL (Mexico City), SiDance Festival (Seoul), and No Idea Festival (Austin). Hamann’s work has previously been published by labels including Blank Forms, Black Truffle, Another Timbre, and Longform Editions.

Images: Judith Hamann; Courtesy of the artist. Sarah Hennies; Photo: Claire Harvie; Courtesy of the artist.

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Curator-led Tour at The Bemis Center

Whether you are a casual fan or a passionate creator, everyone can find something to glean from the curator-led tour at The Bemis Center on January 21. Rachel Adams and Jared Packard will guide the tour and lead the discussion of the Elisabeth Kley exhibit entitled “Minutes of Sand + Opulence: Performative Wealth and the Failed American Dream.” The two curators are key figures at The Bemis Center. Adams is the Chief Curator and Director of Programs, and Packard is the Exhibitions Manager.


Elisabeth Kley is a New York-based artist who specializes in ceramic sculptures and draws on a variety of cultures, including Roman and Egyptian arts.

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"Opulence: Performative Wealth and the Failed American Dream" on display at the Bemis Center

Who gets to decide what is tacky and what is tasteful? Reporter Jamie Harvey explores “Opulence: Performative Wealth and the Failed American Dream” at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.