Johnson County Community College
Press Release
College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Director, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122
9/20/07
Story by Peggy Graham
JCCC Opens a Signature Museum
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Contemporary art will take a threefold quantum leap locally, regionally and nationally with the opening of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in October.
The JCCC Gallery of Art will move from its former 3,000-square-foot exhibition space in the Carlsen Center to a 38,000-square-foot free-standing building with multiple galleries, auditorium, classrooms, store, offices and Café Tempo, making it the largest contemporary art museum in the four-state region. Designed by the internationally award-winning firm, Kyu Sung Woo Architects, Cambridge, Mass., working with the local architectural firm Gould Evans Associates, the Nerman is visually stunning, its Kansas white limestone and glass exterior transforming the northeast corner of the JCCC campus from prairie grass to a geometric architectural icon.
In October, visitors will have their first chance to see the interior of the museum and one of its first exhibitions, American Soil, with two openings. The first is a gala fund-raiser from 7-10 p.m Saturday, Oct. 20. Tickets are $125 per person, available by calling the JCCC Foundation, 913-469-3835. Proceeds benefit the Nerman Museum. Patrons will meet renowned artists, view the Oppenheimer Collection of Contemporary Art and receive the new Oppenheimer Collection book. The evening includes hors d’oeuvres, champagne and wine.
The second event is a public opening from 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, during which time people are invited to tour the museum and art across campus. Activities for the entire family include refreshments, giveaways (t-shirts, magnets, sketchbooks, pencils, bags) and hands-on art activities – a scratch-art drawing project for family
groups and t-shirts and fabric markers for children. Docents will be in all the galleries to speak with visitors, and a video featuring three artists in the collection will play in the Hudson Auditorium.
Entering from the northeast, one of the building’s first unique architectural elements comes to view – a 25-foot by 55-foot cantilevered entrance, itself a work of art. New York light sculptor Leo Villareal created an installation for the cantilever using 60,000 points of light radiating from 12,000 individually controlled LED light nodes changing in a seemingly infinite number of abstract patterns.
“Light has a primal effect. I want it to give the sense that something exciting is going on inside the building,” Villareal said
Inside, visitors will step into an almost three-story lobby which functions as one of 10 museum exhibition spaces. Gray Spanish limestone covers the floors in the public areas, and a 16-foot high, 140-foot long expanse of glass defines the south wall.
The first floor holds the museum store, Café Tempo, storage and three changing galleries for temporary exhibitions – the H. Tony and Marti Oppenheimer Gallery and two smaller galleries. The first and second floors are connected by two monumental stairways – one cascading and one a switchback.
Six galleries are on the second floor – three permanent, three changing; the Tearney Education Center with two classrooms – one for children K-12, one for adults; the Lichtor Conference Room; the 200-seat Hudson Auditorium, wrapped in beech wood and engineered with high-performance projection and acoustics; and administrative offices. Controlled natural lighting is provided for almost all of the galleries except for the Oppenheimer New Media Gallery, which is specifically designed for showing video and computer art enhanced by 16 surround-sound digital speakers.
The museum’s six changing (or temporary exhibition) galleries will change exhibits every 10 weeks on a rotational basis – with 16 exhibitions presented annually.
The museum is linked to the Regnier Center by a two-story atrium, to the landscape by a future Jerome and Margaret Nerman Sculpture Garden and to distant landscapes by strategically placed windows.
The museum is named for Jerome and Margaret Nerman and their son, Lewis, whose lead gift in 2003 helped to establish the museum. Tony and Marti Oppenheimer, well-known patrons of contemporary art, together with the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation, have pledged more than $2,100,000 since 1993 toward the Oppenheimer collection, which includes sculptures across campus as well as their collection featured in the permanent collection galleries of the Nerman Museum.
The first major exhibition for the NMOCA will be American Soil, curated by the Nerman’s director, Bruce Hartman, from Oct. 27-Jan. 27, 2008, featuring works byTomory Dodge, Nicola Lopez, Angelina Gualdoni and other rising stars of American art.
NMOCA allows JCCC to expand its art education program. In 1980, the college’s board of trustees approved a yearly art acquisition program. In 1990, JCCC opened a 3,000-square feet Gallery of Art. Continued collecting and generous donations have made it possible for art, from sculpture to paintings, to be displayed across campus. Focus installations will remain even with the opening of the new museum.
Woo employed minimalist architecture to complement the museum’s main focus – contemporary art.
“Johnson County Community College is very unique in the fact that art is a part of its everyday life. I wanted the building to be a beginning of that journey,” Woo said.
Admission to the museum is free. Hours for the museum are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Mondays and JCCC holidays. For information, call 913-469-2344. (After the NMOCA opening, the phone number will change to 913-469-3000.)
