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While the word “craft” is a loaded term that may imply hierarchical notions of artistic validity and cultural importance, so-called craft media have played an integral role in the trajectory of 20th-century art. These materials, such as glass, metal, fiber, and ceramic, are themselves steeped in histories of labor, class, and gender, as well as regional and familial identity. Craft media therefore can embody layered content that conveys both the meaning of the specific piece and the deeper implications of the material. Crafting Continuities, which inhabits three distinct spaces within the 20/21 Gallery, aims to inspire conversations about materiality, process, and their implications, exploring the ways that contemporary artworks made from venerable media can forge connections to the past, while the creative process itself looks to the expressive potential of those materials.

The installation juxtaposes contemporary objects from the collection with their historic counterparts and with remnants of the process, such as preparatory drawings. In this way, Crafting Continuities seeks to engage deeper content found in the Spencer’s contemporary artworks in textile, blown-glass, metalwork, wood, and ceramic, while highlighting the depth of the Museum’s collection of historic artworks in these media. The exhibition will incorporate a broad range of artworks, underscoring the legacies of these materials and revealing some of the cultural tides that have transmitted media and techniques across both time and space. Due to popular demand, Crafting Continuities has been extended. The exhibition will undergo transformation in late January, when new textiles, drawings, and prints will be installed, and will be on view through June, 2012.

Gallery hours: Closed Monday// 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Friday & Saturday// 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday // Noon-4 p.m. Sunday // Admission to the Spencer Museum of Art is free; donations are welcome.

This exhibition will be the platform for sharing the creative projects made by a group of KU researchers who travelled to the Peruvian Amazon last summer. The team included seven undergraduate students and two graduate students under the direction of KU curator/professors Caroline Chaboo (Entomology) and Steve Goddard (Spencer Museum of Art). Everyone involved relied heavily on a small map of the base of their activity, the Cicra Biological Field Station. The map detailed thirty-nine trails, underscoring the human presence in the rain forest, as well as the difficulty of navigating it.

Three of the undergraduate students were part of a pilot program: The Rudkin Undergraduate Scholarships For International Interdisciplinary Research Experiences. This new scholarship strives to give the students an arena for integrating disciplines and synthesizing knowledge across the sciences, arts and humanities in a global setting.

In addition to sharing the creative work by the three Rudkin Scholars, the goal of the exhibition is to include contributions from all members of the cohesive research team to give a fuller account of the different ways the rain forest experience touched everyone involved.

Each member of the team will have a small plexiglass case to use as they wish in summarizing their experiences. In addition to the items in these cases and the written and pictorial creative work of the Rudkin Scholars, the exhibition will include printed leaves, photographs, insect specimens, and possibly a means to listen to audio recordings made at the CICRA biological research station where the group spent ten days in focused work.

Gallery hours: Closed Monday //Tuesday, Friday & Saturday// 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday 12-4 p.m. Sunday// Admission to the Spencer Museum of Art is free; donations are welcome.

Cryptograph is organized in conjunction with the many celebrations taking place around the world in honor of the centenary of Alan Turing (1912-1954), the brilliant British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist.

Turing’s world-changing innovations include the Turing Machine, a conceptual machine that builds on the notion of the algorithm and lays the foundation of modern computing. As a cryptanalyst during World War II, Turing’s breakthroughs in logic allowed him to decipher the German encrypting device known as the Enigma Machine which was used extensively in communication between German U-boats. Turing was also deeply involved in the idea of “Machine Intelligence,” and he developed a test for artificial intelligence that is still in use today. Late in his career Turing became fascinated with the field of mathematical biology, a field that explores the mathematical underpinnings of morphogenesis, the origins and evolution of biological form.

The exhibition draws from the Spencer’s permanent collections seeking works that resonate with the kinds of questions that drove Turing’s research: finding meaning in patterns, and finding connections between mathematics and computing, intelligence and natural form. The exhibition was conceived in consultation and collaboration with KU’s Information and Telecommunication Technology Center and the Biodiversity Institute.

Gallery hours: Closed Monday// 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Friday & Saturday// 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday// Noon-4 p.m. Sunday// Admission to the Spencer Museum of Art is free; donations are welcome.

(Chen Shaoxiong William T. Kemper Foundation Artist-in-Residence )

This Spring Beijing-based artist Chen Shaoxiong will spend three weeks (March 1, 2012—April 5, 2012) working with university students, faculty, staff and a broad cross section of the greater Kansas City community to create art works designed to impart a better understanding of effective protest strategies. Since his early involvement with the “urban guerrilla” group Big Tale Elephant in Guangzhou, China to more recent collaborations with the Xijing Men’s Collective, Chen has developed an artistic practice that deploys humorous play in an abiding pursuit to uncover and understand the mechanisms of contemporary political culture.

As part of this project, a core group of 30-40 students will work closely with Chen Shaoxiong to create new, collaborative artworks in a wide range of media from photography and video to posters and on-line websites. Participants and the general public can participate by attending and contributing to weekly seminars, lectures, and workshops that will include a roster of experienced activists, KU faculty, and artists. This grassroots, organic process will be the impetus for the collaborative artworks that will eventually form the core of the exhibition. Workshop topics are still being planned; however, participants will be invited to create and perform a “briefing” that will encapsulate the results of the three-week technical training camp for the exhibition opening.

Gallery hours: Closed Monday// 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Friday & Saturday// 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday// Noon-4 p.m. Sunday// Admission to the Spencer Museum of Art is free; donations are welcome.