2004 Past Exhibitions

Libby Black, Good Enough to Fool Anyone, 2004

The Hunt: Ritual and Narrative

November 5, 2004 – January 14, 2005

This multidisciplinary project explores the ritual and tradition of hunting through exhibitions of contemporary art, historical works, a film series, and evenings with writers and sociologists. The program will create a dialog within the community about the various perceptions of the hunting tradition. Visitors will consider the roots of the ritual and its relationship to narrative and nature.

Have you ever considered hunting and where the ritual comes from and why the story is sometimes more important than the hunt itself? Don't miss the last week of this humorous and provocative exhibition exploring the roots and ritual of the hunt and its relationship to narrative and nature.

Several trophies and decoys made with found objects and appropriated imagery by artists Sherry Markovitz, Tommy Freeman, Ken Little, Gordon Chandler, and Libby Black grace the walls of the gallery's trophy room. Nathan Lynch developed a bar installation where hunters might gather to share tales of the hunt complete with rifle-handled beer taps and neon signs. Vanessa Renwick's multi-media refrigerator installation, Hunting Requires Optimism, features videos of wolves hunting and comments on the food chain while subtly suggesting our place, as humans, within it. View a wall filled with historical images from regional collections ranging from The Hailey Public Library to Grumpy's Burgers and Beer. Dating as far back as 1880, photos depicting local heroes and founding families are juxtaposed with contemporary color images by Tracey Baran whose photographs record the camaraderie of a group of hunters that gather annually to hunt in the woods of Eastern New York.

Members Only! Opening Celebration

Friday, November 5, 6-9pm

It's the First Place to Be!

Fridays, November 26 and December 29

Wine tasting 5:30-6:30, Gallery Tour at 6:15

Begin your gallery walk at the Center Gallery

Open for Gallery Walk until 8pm

Docent Tours
Every Tuesday through November, 11am
Bring your friends before or after a fall hike and learn about the exhibition in a relaxed, informal and welcoming environment.

READINGS, LECTURES, FILMS AND A WRITING WORKSHOP

The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth- Century America
Lecture with historian Louis S. Warren, Ph.D
Thursday, December 2, 7pm
At the Center, free of charge
University of California, Davis, Professor Louis Warren will give a lecture based on his book by the same title. Warren provides interesting historical and local environmental perspectives on the subject of hunting. Until the turn of the century, hunting was unregulated, and for many of the working-class it was a way to supplement their family's diet. When the government intervened, designating wildlife as a community resource that had to be managed, war broke out between immigrant communities and wildlife officers sent to enforce the new regulations. After nearly 100 years hunting regulations remain a contentious issue and the story Warren tells is more relevant than ever.

A NIGHT OF DOCUMENTARY FILM
Thursday, December 9, 7pm
At the Center, free of charge
The Center presents an evening exploring cultural rituals that have long been associated with the hunt with two films about African people and hunting's role in tribal life. The Great Dance has received international awards for its presentation of the hunting and tracking skills of the San people. A Rite of Passage presents the marking ceremony that follows a young man's first large kill. The screenings will be followed by a group discussion led by Mark Farris.

In Celebration of The Hunt

A reading and discussion with Rick Bass

Thursday, January 13, 2005, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, free of charge

Rick Bass has been widely applauded as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Terry Tempest Williams refers to him as “a force of nature.” Less known but equally significant is his reputation as an environmental activist. Working for a decade now to preserve the wildlife corridor that surrounds him in his home in northern Montana, he is does not fill the bill of the stereotypical hunter. Having devoted essays and books to his love of the hunt, it would be difficult to call him anything short of an hunting advocate. His profound love for the wild, for his dogs and for the ritual of the hunt are beautifully and sometimes humorously written.

Two-Day Writing Workshop with Rick Bass
Friday, January 14, 5-7:30pm and Saturday, January 15, 10 am- 1pm
$75 Sun Valley Center for the Arts members/$125 non-members
Writers of all levels and genres are invited to submit short manuscripts prior to the class. After talking about his own approach to writing, Rick Bass will offer critiques, allowing students to learn from his comments and each other. The class is limited in size and the atmosphere will be relaxed.

The Vanishing: Re-presenting the Chinese in Idaho

August 6-October 29, 2004

Serving critical roles as railroad workers, miners, business owners, farmers and cooks, Chinese immigrants were a significant factor in the West's development. By 1870, Idaho had the largest percentage of Chinese people per capita in the nation, comprising nearly 30% of Idaho's entire population. Today in many western towns and communities this legacy has virtually vanished. In the most recent census Idaho's Chinese population was barely measurable. This multidisciplinary program will explore and expose the history of Chinese immigration in the Western United States, particularly in Idaho where the Chinese were crucial to the development of the young western territory.

The Vanishing will include an exhibition of paintings and drawings by contemporary artist Hung Liu and an installation by artist Rene Yung. Lectures and readings will complement the visual works. Hung Liu's large-scale paintings are a powerful means for exploring memory and truth, loss and recovery. Using historical photographs from local and state archives as the basis for her paintings, these works will make real Idaho's Chinese population in the last decades of the 19 th century. Artist Rene Yung's installation addresses issues of memory for immigrants. Walls of soap imprinted with the word REMEMBER, are slowly dismantled throughout the run of the exhibition as the soap is used by visitors to wash fabric imprinted with words referring to things remembered. As the fabric is washed and hung to dry, both the imprinted words and the soap's REMEMBER fades away referencing the vanishing memory of the valley's Chinese occupation as well as the Chinese individual's lost histories.

This project has been generously sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Charitable Foundation, The Deer Creek Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation, Michael S. Engl Family Foundation, The LEF Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and Western States Arts Federation, Richard and Judith Smooke, Roselyne C. Swig, The Jeri L. Waxenberg Foundation, and The Works of Grace Foundation.

Artist Preview with Hung Liu

Slide lecture and exhibition walk through

Thursday, August 5, 7pm

Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Hung Liu was born in Changchu, China in 1948 and came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Trained as a social realist painter and skilled as a political muralist, Liu emigrated to the United States and ran headlong into abstract expressionist painting. Today her powerful paintings demonstrate an integration of both traditions. Rich gestural marks and paint trails over the foundation of a deftly recreated photographic image reflect her interest in memory and history. Liu has created a unique body of work commissioned specifically for The Vanishing exhibition based on historic photographs from Idaho's libraries' archives. Recently Liu's exhibition Strange Fruit traveled throughout the United States. Her works can be found in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; LA County Museum; National Museum of American Art, the Kemper Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Opening Celebration!

Friday, August 6, Wine tasting 5:30-6:30, Gallery Tour at 6:15

open for Gallery Walk until 8pm

It's the First Place to Be!

Fridays: September 3, and October 8, Wine tasting 5:30-6:30, Gallery Tour at 6:15

Begin your gallery walk at the Center Gallery

Open for Gallery Walk until 8pm

Saturday Gallery Tours

August 21 & September 4, 11am

Sun Valley Center, free of charge

Join us for a gallery tour! Bring a friend and enjoy an intimate discussion with Jennifer Gately, Director of Visual Arts.

An Evening with Installation Artist Rene Yung

Thursday, August 26, 7pm

Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Rene Yung, installation artist, designer, and writer, grew up in Hong Kong before relocating to California as a teenager. Yung will discuss her diverse career and share images of her work exploring cross-cultural issues relating to the Asian experience in the Western world. Her multimedia installations have been included in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale; the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art. Yung has conducted numerous community-based art projects and has been commissioned to create public artworks in Seattle and at various sites in California. Her work is represented by Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco.

Public Art Workshop with Installation Artist Rene Yung

Saturday, August 28, 10am – 12pm

For adults and children over 10.

As a part of The Vanishing , visiting installation artist Rene Yung will work with members of the community to create a public art installation addressing the history of the Chinese in the Wood River Valley. Using templates, participants will assist in the painting of laundry with images or text relating to the exhibition. The painted sheets will then be installed on clotheslines in a public location. Over the course of the installation, the images will fade, like the history of the Chinese here in our community.

See Art Education for more classes related to The Vanishing.

Stories My Other Country Told Me

Reading and Discussion with Maxine Hong Kingston

Sunday, October 3, 7pm

Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston addresses the Chinese American experience in her work – the journey to Gold Mountain, the labor on the railroads and in the mines, and her own families' account of running laundries and gambling houses in Stockton, California. Part myth, part memoir, part history, the author addresses the role of Chinese Americans in American history and the meaning of being Chinese American.

Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey and her recent memoir, The Fifth Book of Peace . She has earned numerous awards, among them the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the PEN West Award for Nonfiction, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the title of “Living Treasure of Hawai'i.”

Polly Bemis: China's Daughter, Idaho's Legendary Pioneer

Ruthanne Lum McCunn reading from Thousand Pieces of Gold

Thursday, September 16, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, Free of charge

Chinese American Portraits

Brown Bag Lunch and slide lecturewith Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Friday, September 17, 12:30pm

Hailey Public Library, Free of charge

The biographical novel Thousand Pieces of Gold tells the true story of Lalu Nathoy, later known as Polly Bemis. Born in nineteenth-century China, Polly was sold by her family at a time of great drought, auctioned off as a slave in San Francisco, brought to a mining camp in Idaho, and eventually settled on the River of No Return with her husband Charlie Bemis.

Ruthanne Lum McCunn will read from her novel and discuss her research before and since its publication. Ruthanne Lum McCunn, born to a mother from Hong Kong and a father from Idaho, has published eight critically acclaimed books about Chinese on both sides of the Pacific. Her work has been translated into ten languages and adapted for stage and screen.

Journey to Gold Mountain

H.T. Chen & Dancers

Saturday, October 23, 7:30pm

Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and WESTAF

Celebrating its 25 th anniversary, H.T. Chen & Dancers has created a uniquely Asian-American experience by embodying its cultural heritage. The company performs a diverse repertoire of works that are a dynamic fusion of the spirited energy of American modern dance and the poise of traditional and contemporary Asian aesthetics. In their first retrospective program, H.T. Chen & Dancers will present their latest work Journey to Gold Mountain which traces 150 years of Chinese American history. Journey to Gold Mountain celebrates the dramatic and dynamic interweaving of generations and cultures that occur in Asian immigrant families; giving voice to their experience.

The Furniture of George Nakashima

June 9 - July 31

George Nakashima is recognized throughout the world as a master craftsman and innovative designer. In 1952 he was awarded the gold medal of craftsmanship by the American Institute of Architects and in 1989 was declared a National Living Treasure by the American Craft Museum. His furniture has been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Nelson Rockefeller; the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico, Columbia University and the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.  

Born in Seattle to first generation Japanese Samurai, George Nakashima was raised valuing hard work and a moral life. He chose architecture as his field of interest, graduating from the University of Washington in 1929. Trips to Japan and India solidified the artist's life path. In Tokyo, Nakashima immersed himself in Japanese culture and embraced the Mingei movement whose aim was to celebrate Japan's ancient craft tradition. While supervising construction at a Hindu ashram, Nakashima adopted a spiritual philosophy, which taught that beauty is an expression of divine truth, freedom fosters creativity, and discipline is cultivated through focus. These ideals proved essential to Nakashima throughout his life and are evident in his furniture.

From 1942 to 1943 George Nakashima was held with his family at the Hunt internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho. Twelve years after Nakashima's death and some sixty years after the family's internment, Mira Nakashima has agreed to share her father's furniture with the Wood River Valley community and the state of Idaho.        

Family Day: Twigs to Furniture
Sunday, June 13, 3-5pm
Free of Charge

With inspiration from George Nakashima's furniture on exhibition in the gallery, local furniture maker Don King and SVCA staff member, Heather Crocker will guide families as the create their own maquette (model) chairs out of twigs.

Opening Celebration!
Friday, July 2, wine tasting 5:30-6:30pm

Gallery tour at 6:15 with Victoria Thiessen, Sotheby's 20th Century Furniture Expert

Open for gallery walk until 8pm
Free of Charge

Saturday Gallery Tours
July 10 and 24, 11am

Free of charge. Bring a friend and enjoy an intimate discussion with Jennifer Gately, Director of Visual Arts.

At the Epicenter of Design: Paris and George Nakashima

Slide lecture by Derek Ostergard
Thursday, July 8, 7pm
Free of Charge

George Nakashima was exposed to design trends of the 20th Century when he lived in Paris in the 20s and 30s. As a young architect, Nakashima embraced the avant-garde in Paris, the epicenter of modernism, but eventually he became disenchanted with what he saw there.

Despite his disenchantment, Paris left an indelible mark upon Nakashima. From the French who were engaged in the production of elitist, Art Deco designs, to their arch rivals, the functionalists, Nakashima would glean principal design concepts that would powerfully shape his later work. This lecture will present the personalities, designs, and events of Paris during this era and reveal those elements that shaped Nakashima's growth as a major designer.

Derek Ostergard is the Founding Dean of the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in New York. He regularly publishes and lectures about 20th century design movements and was the essayist for George Nakashima's 1989 exhibition Full Circle at the American Craft Museum.

Nakashima's Life and Legacy

Lecture by Mira Nakashima with Cristina Grajales
Friday, July 16, 7pm
Free of Charge

Mira Nakashima, the artist's daughter, continues her father's rich legacy by directing his workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Trained as an architect and accustomed to working at her father's side, her lecture will provide insight into the choices, interests and influences of George Nakashima. The lecture will be followed by a discussion of the current marketplace for and rising popularity of Nakashima's work by Cristina Grajales, a celebrated New York Modernist furniture dealer and the former director of Gallery 1950.

Sound of Place/Place of Sound
March 19 – May 14, 2004

In the second half of the 20th century composer, performer and philosopher John Cage revolutionized the concepts of sound, music and art by stating that all sound is music therefore all sound is art--the sound of rain against the window pane, car horns, the purr of a cat, a sneeze, even silence.

Through gallery exhibitions, a community installation, public lectures and performances with visiting artists Sound of Place/Place of Sound introduces Sound Art as an important and complex genre by examining connections between sound and our surroundings.



In the Center Gallery
Sound of Place/Place of Sound

The places we live and the spaces we move through all influence our perceptions of the world. Truly knowing a place includes all our senses and the auditory understanding of our environment, our soundscape, is no exception. Choosing to highlight the many ways in which sound can inform place, this exhibition explores visual and audio works by emerging and established artists inspired by the sound of place—places as diverse as a cramped apartment in the busy city of Los Angeles and the sonic environment of the high desert of Central New Mexico or as familiar as Idaho's beloved Silver Creek and New York City's nightscape. The works range from visual forms and those that integrate sound with a visual component, to purely aural forms, which evoke visual images and sensations through audio triggers. With each work, sound is the primary medium and inspiration.  

Over twenty American and European artists have contributed works to the project, including a unique commissioned sound installation by Steve Roden, located on the south facing exterior wall of Iconoclast Books. Additional artists include: Olivia Block, Loren Chasse, David Dunn, Bill Fontana, Richard Lerman, Kaffe Mathews, Michael Barton Miller, Jesse Paul Miller, Seth Nehil, Max Neuhuas, Ed Osborn, Steve Peters, Jane Philbrick, Steve Roden, Douglas Ross, and Stephen Vitiello. The exhibition, curated by Jennifer Gately, Director of Visual Arts, is free and open to the public and remains on view through May 14, 2004.

A work of sound requires the visitor to listen rather than to merely hear and can take on many forms. A work of sound can be presented as a continually sounding installation, a sound sculpture, performed live by voice or through the manipulations of objects or electronics, or it can be captured in time and reproduced though speakers or headphones. It can be generated organically as in the vocal work of Jane Philbrick whose interactive piece was inspired by the contour of an island harbor in Maine, or electronically as heard in Stephen Vitiello's recording based on light meter readings taken from the streets of New York. It can also be created by momentary human interactions with objects, a process most clearly illustrated in the video featuring Loren Chasse at work with his contact microphones in an abandoned greenhouse. Sound can be found in the environment and then preserved—a process perfected in the 1970's by the environmental recording artist David Dunn who has traveled to numerous remote locations around the globe. The sonic landscape can be recorded in the field and remixed in the studio--a practice used extensively by Seth Nehil and Olivia Block as they travel to urban sites performing their work, or constantly produced in a site-specific installation, an example of which by Steve Roden is installed at the corner of Main and Second Streets in Ketchum (south wall of Iconoclast Books). Sound artists also create sound through improvisation with the surrounding environment as recorded by Kaffe Mathews whose electronic work is often developed through complex interactions with the acoustics of a space.

The places we live and the spaces we move through all influence our perceptions of the world. Truly knowing a place includes all our senses. We invite you to learn to listen to your surroundings in new ways by exploring the various works presented here by these leading and emerging artists.

In the Project Space
The History of Sound Art in the 20th Century

Visitors will be able to learn about the history of Sound Art through an interactive jukebox radio show developed by music critic and radio host Kenneth Goldsmith. Goldsmith's lively program will guide listeners through diverse examples of noise art, musique concrete, sound poetry, surrealism, minimalism, acoustic ecology and more.



Site-Specific Sound Commission by visiting artist Steve Roden

Visual and sound artist Steve Roden created a site-specific sound installation at the corner of Main and Second Streets in Ketchum based on the landscape surrounding Emily Dickinson's home. In Roden's sound works, singular source materials such as objects, architectural spaces, and field recordings, are abstracted through electronics to create new audio spaces, or 'possible landscapes'.

Roden's work has been recently seen or heard at the Stadt Galerie Museum in Saarbrucken, Germany, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum & the Mak Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.



Two opening night events!
Exhibition reception and presentation:
The History of Sound Art in the 20th Century, 1902-2002:
100 Years in 90 Minutes
With Kenneth Goldsmith and guest artist Steve Roden
March 19, at the Center Gallery, reception begins at 6, performance at 7pm
Please join visiting artist Steve Roden and New York music critic and radio host Kenneth Goldsmith for a special exhibition preview prior to the evening's Sound Art performance:

This lively and energetic evening of sound, music, spoken word, and video by Kenneth Goldsmith exposes the evolution of Sound Art and avant-garde musical technique from the early 20th century to the present. The audience will hear and see examples of noise art, musique concrete, sound poetry, surrealism, minimalism and site-specific sound installations. Kenneth Goldsmith is a music critic for the New York Press, radio host for WFMU in New York City, frequent commentator on NPR, Curator of Sound for the exhibition The American Century Part 2 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and regularly lectures on the subject of Sound Art around the country. Visiting artist Steve Roden will accompany Goldsmith and discuss his relationship to sound and sound making and then perform examples.

Cowboys and Indians: the West as Muse in Contemporary Photography
January 16 – March 12, 2004
The American West has inspired artwork and popular culture for centuries from Edward Curtis's manipulated portraits to the Marlboro Man advertisements. This exhibition explores the work of contemporary photographers who continue to be intrigued by the myth and muse of the West and how one German writer has influenced generations of Europeans and their perspective of the American West.

Featured artists: Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, David Levinthal

Andrea Robbins and Max Becher's photographic series, German Indians, ironically documents an annual gathering in Germany celebrating the life and fiction of German author, Karl May. These images of blond - haired and blue-eyed tribe members dressed in a mix of Native American fashions are curious illustrations of how pervasive the myth of the American West has become. Bits of Native American lore are honored while at the same time exploited by misrepresentation.

While the German Indians series documents attempts to make fiction real, The Wild West series by photographer David Levinthal, turns fiction into reality and then back into fiction. Levinthal, who grew up transfixed by television Westerns, carefully sets German toy figures of cowboys and Indians into poses that mimic scenes from classic western films –scenes that illustrate the deeply romantic western myth as it is understood by both Americans and Europeans alike.

In the Project Space
Photographs by Zig Jackson

Zig Jackson is an American Indian who uses photography to de-mythologize his own history and to break down the romanticized stereotypes of Indians perpetuated by popular media and folklore. In the straightforward photographic style of Robert Frank, Jackson captures the world of contemporary Native Americans in silver gelatin prints: touching upon complex issues of tourism, marketing, myth, tradition, and stereotyping.



Evening Gallery Walks at The Center Gallery
It's the First Place to Be! from 5:30 – 8:00pm
March 12
Free Wine Tasting 5:30 – 6:30
Tour with the Curator at 6:15



U pick ‘em Western Film Series
The Center Gallery
February 26, March 4, March 11 at 7 pm
Free

Saturday Gallery Tours with Jennifer Gately, Visual Arts Director
The Center Gallery
11 am, February 7, 21 and March 6 Free
Come join us for a free personal gallery tour! Bring a friend and enjoy an intimate discussion with the exhibition's curator.



Talk with the Artist: David Levinthal
The Center Gallery
Thursday, February 5, 7pm, Free



Cowboys, Cameras, and the Myth of the West
Slide lecture with Byron Price
Thursday, January 29, 7pm



Opening Party for Cowboys and Indians!
The Center Gallery
Friday, January 16, 7-10 pm PAST!



At the edge of science
November 10, 2003 – January 9, 2004

As humans, we have an irrepressible urge to understand the elusive mysteries of the Universe in order to better grasp our place within it. Through drawing, video, and cameraless photography, nine artists explore the cosmos and examine the relationship between chance, causality and the Laws of Nature. Many choose the basic tools of any science, trade or art—pencil and paper. With these more ephemeral means, they are freer to synthesize scientific thinking, to investigate primitive and universal languages and, even, the mapping of the soul. They find themselves at the edge of science, between theory and art--a place where creativity and the capacity to dream is, perhaps, what defines us most.

Artists included in the exhibition:
Amy Myers
Russell Crotty
Grace Weir
Charles Lindsay
Rob Craigie
Roland Flexner
Gerhard Mayer
Wes Mills
Claude Zervas