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Tag: 2017

Enrico Isamu Ōyama exhibition brings international perspective to Beach Museum of Art

Posted on by Kelsey Longpine

FFIGURATI 88

Enrico Isamu Ōyama’s “FFIGURATI 88,” a copyrighted work completed in 2013-2014, is acrylic-based aerosol, acrylic-based marker, graphite, latex paint and sumi ink on canvas mounted on aluminum and wood stretchers. The work, from the collection of IAM Gallery, is included in the artist’s exhibition at Kansas State University’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art. Copyrighted photo by Atelier Mole.

An artist with a unique global perspective and style is the focus of the newest exhibition coming to Kansas State University’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art.

“Ubiquitous: Enrico Isamu Ōyama” is on display Aug. 15-Dec. 23 in the museum’s Hyle Family Gallery. The exhibition surveys how Ōyama channeled his interests in the street cultures of Tokyo and American cities, Western abstract art and Japanese calligraphy to create Quick Turn Structure, his signature expression. Quick Turn Structure comes in varied creative platforms, including painting, digital media, sound and fashion. Through this artistic expression, Ōyama gives visual form to the mixed-race, multicultural, transnational experiences of people in today’s world of fluid borders and interconnectivity.

The son of an Italian father and a Japanese mother, Ōyama was born and raised in Tokyo, but spent extended periods in Italy. In Tokyo, he immersed himself in an underground art scene infused with the street culture of the city, which was interwoven with global influences. In 2011, Ōyama came to New York for a residency sponsored by the Asian Cultural Council. He has since established his studio in Brooklyn.

This exhibition is sponsored by Anderson Bed and Breakfast and made possible in part by a grant from The Japan Foundation, New York.

Ōyama’s work won’t be limited to the walls of the Beach Museum of Art. Several special activities are planned that bring his art to the streets and other locations in different platforms:

• The north exterior wall of Little Apple Art Supply, 706 N. 11th St., in Manhattan’s Aggieville district, will become Ōyama’s mural lab from Oct. 5-28.

• Art in Motion, an arts festival in the museum’s parking lot, 17th Street and Anderson Avenue, will be from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday Oct. 7. The free festival, which is open to the public, will feature a live painting performance by Ōyama at 2 p.m. The festival is concurrent with the Harmony in the ‘Hatt festival in Aggieville’s Triangle Park.

• “Aeromural,” a sound installation by Ōyama, will be available Oct. 12-26 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery in the university’s Willard Hall. It is hosted by the Digital and Experimental Media Lab in the university’s art department. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

Two free film screenings will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition, both in 101 Thompson Hall on the university campus and both open to the public:

• Ōyama will present the 1977 documentary “Stations of the Elevated” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12.

• “Dark Progressivism” will be presented by the film’s director/producer Rodrigo Ribera d’Ebre at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26.

The Beach Museum of Art, at 14th Street and Anderson Avenue, is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and free parking is available adjacent to the museum.

 

FFIGURATI 89

Detail of Enrico Isamu Ōyama’s “FFIGURATI 89,” a copyrighted work completed in 2013-2014, is acrylic-based aerosol, acrylic-based marker, latex paint and sumi ink on unstretched canvas. The work, from the collection of IAM Gallery, is included in the artist’s exhibition at Kansas State University’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art. Copyrighted photo by Atelier Mole.

‘Thrift Style’ at Beach Museum of Art features feed sacks upcycled to home goods and apparel in first half of 20th century

Posted on by Kelsey Longpine

The newest exhibition at Kansas State University’s Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art shows how Americans could make fashion — and more — by using bags.

“Thrift Style,” which runs Aug. 1-Dec. 16, explores how feed sacks were reused to make clothing and other household items, particularly during the Great Depression and World War II.

“This exhibition highlights how upcycling — recycling of a discarded item into a product of higher value — of these bags mutually benefited 20th-century consumers and commercial businesses,” said Marla Day, curator of the Historic Costume and Textile Museum, which is a part of the apparel, textiles, and interior design department in the university’s College of Human Ecology.

Members of the Rees family in 1949 beside the Rees’ Westside Farm Supply’s Plymouth pickup. From left are Richard D., Robert and Leonard Rees. Photo courtesy of Richard D. Rees.

The exhibition features items from the Historic Costume and Textile Museum that were donated by Richard D. Rees, whose family owned a farm supply store, Rees’ Westside Farm Supply, in Coffeyville. The store supplied many home seamstresses with a selection of patterned feed sacks in the 1940s and 1950s. Rees’ mother made items for the family’s home from feed sack material as well as clothing for the family. Rees went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State University. He later began collecting vintage feed and flour sacks from Kansas mills and bag manufacturers for the Historic Costume and Textile Museum. The collection currently includes 125 sacks and several homemade garments made with sack fabric.

Day said manufacturers offered bags, typically made of cotton, in different colors, patterns and themes to attract customers, who would reuse the bags to make a variety of clothing items or practical items such as curtains, placemats, pillow cases and hand towels.

“Although feed-sack dresses were often made out of need, in the hands of a seamstress with an eye for design, they didn’t have to look that way,” Day said. “With a bright and stylish print, double collar, decorative buttons and matching waist belt, a child’s dress from a feed sack wasn’t that much different from dresses one could buy in a department store at the time.”

Reusing feed sacks for clothing also was pitched as patriotic.

“During World War II, civilian women were encouraged to make do with what was available since cotton and wool were needed for military uniforms,” Day said. “Dresses lost ruffles, pleats, hoods and all but one pocket so that precious fabric could be used more efficiently. Shirtwaist dresses become a simple yet fashionable style for all ages. Fabric scraps would then be made into accessories such as belts to get the most out of the sacks.”

Underwear also got the sack treatment. Among the items in the exhibition is a pair of cotton bloomers worn by Nelda Jean Koons that were made by her older sister, Velma, from a 100-pound sack of chicken feed. Nelda was the youngest of six children in a family that farmed during the Great Depression in a Dust Bowl-stricken area of the Midwest.

“Wearing bloomers made from plain feed sacks was a common practice for children and adults,” Day said.

The sacks on display in “Thrift Style” also include prints of popular stars of the era, such as the Hillbilly Boys, a Texas-Western swing band in the ’30s, and Red Ryder, Little Beaver and Yaqui Joe from Dell’s Red Ryder Comics series. Some of the sacks are whimsical, such as the exhibition’s yellow feed sack with a “raining cats and dogs” print. The feed sacks could become toys, too, as demonstrated by a bag from the Eagle Milling Co. in Edmond, Oklahoma, that features a two-sided cut-and-sew girl doll wearing a green dress.

“During the depths of the Great Depression, the mill made a bold decision to add this bonus to its product,” Day said. “The dolls were printed on several sizes of feed sacks. The first doll wore a white dress with red stripes; in later printings the dress is blue, purple, red, yellow or green.”

Other bags by manufacturers featured in the exhibit were made to be embroidered later as tea towels or featured patterns suitable for placemats or pillow cases. Books, such as “A Bag of Tricks for Home Sewing” by the Cotton Council, were also available to inspire home sewers on ways to turn the bags into useful items.

Along with the feed sacks, Rees has donated a large number of business office garments and accessories worn by his late wife, Janet, in the ’50s and ’60s; a nearly complete collection of Trans World Airlines flight attendant uniforms; and several designer fashions. His donations were made in honor of his parents, Leonard and Beatrice Rees, and his wife. Rees also has established an endowment with the Kansas State University Foundation benefiting the Historic Costume and Textile Museum.

The Beach Museum of Art, at 14th Street and Anderson Avenue, is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and free parking is available adjacent to the museum.