Art of Our Time: Selections from the Ulrich Museum of Art

Excellence and innovation – when human endeavor combines these qualities, a masterpiece results no matter the context. Proudly, the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University features 57 works of major artistic accomplishment in our permanent collection, works equally excellent and innovative. Art of Our Time, which comprises an exhibition and related collection publication, is the kind of project that museums infrequently pursue. Yet it stands at the heart of our mission. For 36 years, the Ulrich has built a collection of rare distinction with more than 6,300 modern and contemporary works of art. Opening eyes and minds and offering moments of visual pleasure through encounters with the art of our time is paramount to the Ulrich. This collection project reveals how the museum has assembled an art collection to serve this cause well.

Art of Our Time offers the opportunity for visitors to explore the sweep of artmaking over the past 100 years. From Robert Henri’s 1917 painting Gregorita with the Santa Clara Bowl to Zhang Huan’s photo-documentation of his 2000 performance Family Tree, from the expressive strokes of Robert Motherwell’s 1976 Les Caves No. 2 to the digital animation of Jeremy Blake’s 2001 video Mod Lang, the collection exhibition explores key artists, styles and episodes in recent artmaking. Photography is a particular collection strength, and stunning prints by Eugéne Atget, Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith and Nan Goldin will be on view.

The Ulrich is also producing a collection catalogue in association with the University of Washington Press. The Ulrich director and curator joined five guest authors to write texts on each of the 57 featured works. Eager to mix literary and scholarly voices, the Ulrich involved creative writers Laura Moriarty and Antonya Nelson as well as curators and scholars Toby Kamps, Timothy R. Rodgers and Robert Silberman. For the publication, photographer Larry Schwarm created an eloquent photo-essay of WSU campus interaction with the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Wichita architect Dean Bradley designed a striking gallery installation to further enhance and set off each work of art.

Art of Our Time:
Selections from the Ulrich Museum of Art

Künstler: Jules de Balincourt, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Henri, Luis Alfonso Jimenez, Jacob Lawrence, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Peter Sarkisian, Dana Schutz, W. Eugene Smith, Andy Warhol ...