Several UNL museums and galleries will offer visitors extended hours, free admission and activities on Feb. 7 in conjunction with Lincoln’s First Friday festivities. From City Campus to East Campus, art lovers will have a variety of offerings available.
Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q. St., 5-7 p.m. – “The Maximilian-Bodmer Expedition.” Karl Bodmer’s vivid reflection of the landscapes, wildlife, frontier settlements, and American Indian peoples that he and Prince Maximilian of Wied encountered during their expedition of 2,500 miles along the upper Missouri River in 1832-1834. The exhibit is equipped with a mobile phone tour enabling visitors to learn about the expedition while they view the artwork.
Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, second floor of Home Economics Building, 35th Street north of East Campus Loop), 6-8 p.m. – Public reception for the “Capturing a Style” exhibit. Artist Lindsay Ducey will give a gallery talk at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition explores the variety of illustrating styles and techniques used by four 20th-century illustrators – Tony Viramontes, Erte, Bernard Blossac and Mats Gustafson – and how their work can be used to inspire both contemporary illustration and design. Each illustrator was known for a distinct style, and the garments and illustrations work to capture the spirit of the illustrator. Ducey, a textiles, merchandising and fashion design graduate student, completed the collection of original garments and illustrations as part of her thesis work.
College of Architecture, lecture at Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 313 N. 13th St., 4:30 p.m. – In conjunction with his exhibit at the College of Architecture, “925,000 Campsites: The Commodification of an American Experience,” Martin Hogue, William Munsey Kennedy Jr. fellow at the State University of New York’s Department of Landscape Architecture, will give a lecture on this and other research projects. A reception will follow immediately in the College of Architecture, 10th and R streets. Using author-produced maps and diagrams, as well as a collection of archival materials, the exhibit examines how this cultural ideal of rugged American character came to be appropriated and transformed into widely replicated templates and generic spatial protocols.
International Quilt Study Center and Museum, 1523 N. 33rd St., 4:30-7 p.m. – Assistant curator of exhibitions Jonathan Gregory will present “The Importance of Being Ernest” at 5:30 p.m. The lecture, in conjunction with “The Engineer Who Could: Ernest Haight’s Half Century of Quiltmaking,” will also broadcast live at http://www.quiltstudy.org. Haight, a Nebraska farmer and trained engineer, generated quite a buzz with his quilts in the 1960s and 1970s, not simply because he was a man making quilts, but because his techniques were innovative and his quilts were bold and surprising. Quiltmaking gave him a buzz, too, keeping his life balanced through its highs and lows, even in his senior years when his health and vitality declined.
Rotunda Gallery, Nebraska Union, 14th and R streets, 5-7 p.m. – “Rearrange,” an exhibition featuring graduate sculpture students Kelly Stading and Liana Oward. The show, which runs Feb. 3-14, will have a special opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 3 and extended viewing hours on First Friday.
Sheldon Museum of Art, 12th and R streets, 5-7 p.m. – The public is invited to a reception honoring Jorge Daniel Veneciano, who resigned in December to become director of El Museo del Barrio in New York. The reception and admission to the museum are free. Exhibitions on view at the Sheldon are “Painting from the Collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art,” “ArtWork: Art and Labor,” “Art that Binds: Books from the Blue Heron Press,” “Mary Riepma Ross: A Personal Collection” and “Society and Style: Prints from the Sheldon Museum of Art.”
For more information about the museums and galleries on UNL’s campus, visit http://www.unl.edu/lincoln/play-art-and-museums.
