News
June 6 - July 13
Opening: KINETIC
Omaha, NE / June 16th, 2017 - October 14, 2017
KINETIC at KANEKO explores the art and science of movement and the perception of motion. This collaborative exhibition season will feature stunning visual art, interactive sculpture, and experiential learning opportunities developed to strengthen the understanding of kinetics in everyday life.
Experience monumentous exhibition of works by John Buck in Omaha, NE at Kaneko showcasing Buck's curious kinetic works, all in one space, for the first time. Additional works on view will be bronze and wood sculpture, complemented by woodblock prints.
KANEKO | 1111 Jones Street, Omaha, NE 68102 | P 402-341-3800
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 12 p.m. – 8 p.m. & Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed Sundays, Mondays, and major holidays
Members, Mark Your Calendars!
You’re invited to a Member First Look of the KINETIC exhibition, featuring a retrospective of John Buck’s career. This event is an exclusive member’s benefit where you will experience KANEKO’s KINETIC exhibition before the general public.
WHEN: Friday, June 9 @ 6 – 9 p.m.
WHERE: KANEKO 1111 Jones Street
TICKETS: FREE for members
Opening: A Studio in Iceland
Anglim Gilbert Gallery / San Francisco, CA / November 28, 2015 - January 16, 2016
Opening: 4-6pm on Saturday, November 28, 2015
Anglim Gilbert Gallery is pleased to present A Studio In Iceland, a group exhibition of works made in the exceptional environment of a farm house in Iceland. At the invitation of Icelandic artist Þórdís A. Sigurðardóttir, six American artists used her studio building at different times and in different seasons for a special experience of nature, encounter and retreat. Sometimes as a group and sometimes alone the artists responded to both landscape and the spartan space, producing work that melds their practices with the character and culture of Iceland.
Featuring works by: John Buck, Hunter Buck, Deborah Butterfield, Þórdís A. Sigurðardóttir, Emma Ulen-Klees, Nina Zurier, John Zurier
John Buck / Untitled, 2015 / jelutong wood, leather, motor / 68 x 44 x 23.5"
John Buck / Snaefellsnes, 2015 / Woodblock Rubbing / 64" x 43 1/4" x 2 1/2"
Opening: John Buck: Free For All
September 25, 2015 - March 12, 2016 / Missoula, MT
John Buck is a dynamic artist widely known for his carved wood and bronze sculptures and large woodblock prints that incorporate a variety of diverse imagery. Recently, the artist has been creating largescale mechanical kinetic sculptures. On the event of MAM’s 40th anniversary, the museum will realize its longstanding desire to host a solo exhibition of Buck’s work. The scale of his sculptural work requires an installation in two of MAM’s larger spaces, the Carnegie and the Aresty galleries. The exhibition includes a mix of sculptures and prints on loan from the artist, paired with select works borrowed from the collections of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. The exhibition will premier Buck’s most recently completed kinetic sculpture State of the Union.
State of the Union includes a host of signs and signifiers that convey a dense narrative typical of Buck’s signature approach. Motors engage leather belts and carved gears. Cogs spin. Wheels turn. Heads rotate and rock. Figures move in elaborate gestures. Objects come closer then move away. Motion, however, is only the most immediate sensory experience. His sculptures, comprising a vast array of objects and symbols, offer profound and layered messages often with a pointed social or political undertone.
Art historians and critics often attempt to include artists in particular art historical movements, but the challenge of how to frame Buck’s significant production is self-evident. MAM curator emeritus Stephen Glueckert states, “using monikers such as ‘modernist’ or ‘post-modernist’ can seem really silly when thinking about Buck’s work…I would most humbly assert that he is an artist who tries to be realistic in telling a more accurate story… that the artist’s shapes, forms, and motion can tell a more engaged and encompassing story than words in history books. Artist’s stories are sometimes laced with irony. This is especially true in the language he uses…I think of him as ‘a realist’.”
Buck’s love of materials, attention to composition, and sensitivity to surface and color are all the characteristics that reflect his obsessive thinking process. The artist states, “The nature of my sculptures is that they are compositions that balance the weight of form and imagery. I think of my carvings as being somewhat matter-of-fact. If there is any appeal to this, it is due to the nature of the wood. The unfinished wood has a warm glow resembling flesh.”
Greg Kucera, whose gallery represents the artist in Seattle, states, “Buck uses jelutong wood as his primary material. It is a soft, white wood culled from Malaysian farming operations. Too soft to have any value as a building material, it is perfectly suited to the furniture maker and wood sculptor. The process of its own making becomes very apparent in the finished piece. Each hack mark and chisel cut remains visible.”
Buck’s artwork, however, is not constructed for the sake of formality. Even though it is obvious that he enjoys the materials and creative process, his sculptures and prints address very real concerns. His work has a profound directness that targets casual inhumanity, outright stupidity, or gross negligence. While these kinetic works feel playful, Buck elucidates his observations of the fragility of the human condition and his feeling of helplessness about the impending consequences of human action.
Buck has created acting and moving instruments with a potent message. Like many storytellers and balladeers, the artist has a soft side and a dark side. That contrast of light and dark is something that seems completely consistent and natural in Buck’s work. From Daumier and Goya to Picasso, artists have wrestled with depicting current social and political affairs, seeking to offer commentary and resolution through their artwork. In our time, Buck takes on this important role. But for artists like Buck, this is not a choice; it is an imperative.
While this exhibition is intended for art connoisseurs of all ages, it is the foundation of the Fifth Grade Art Experience in 2015. MAM is fortunate to share this rich exhibition and a related hands-on experience with every fifth-grade student in Missoula, Lake, and Ravalli Counties.
Through funding from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation and the Art Associates of Missoula. Special thanks go to the Missoulian for media sponsorship. Lastly, MAM would like to thank John Buck’s support team, particularly Dawn Ahlert and Guy Klaas, MAM installers, and Rocky Mountain Moving and Storage.
Related Programs:
Members Preview: September 24, 5-7 PM
First Friday Artist Reception: October 2, 5-8 PM
Artist Gallery Talk: October 2, 7 PM
Distinguished Artist Lecture: John Buck, October 3, 1 PM
State of The Union, 2014 will be on exhibition with several other large kinetic sculptures at the Missoula Art Museum, 9/25/15 - 3/12/16 in Missoula, MT.
High Water, 2013 will be on exhibition with several other woodblock prints at the Missoula Art Museum, 9/25/15 - 3/12/16 in Missoula, MT.
Opening: John Buck
Robischon Gallery / July 16, 2015 - August 29, 2015 / Denver, Colorado
Robischon Gallery is pleased to present the highly-compelling work of distinguished American artist John Buck. Buck’s intricate and commanding kinetic wood sculptures are prominently featured in an extensive summer showing along with the artist’s additional series of medium and large-scale figurative sculptures, carved wood panels, rubbings and woodblock prints. Exhibiting in parallel to Colorado’s Biennial of the Americas 2015, John Buck’s provocative artworks reflect and explore a wide range of cultural ideas and global topics. The mesmerizing and symbolic works reveal an expansive and committed inquiry by the artist into many complex societal issues, while providing the viewer the opportunity to experience the sheer wonder and inventiveness of the artist-as- seeker. The several new and recent works engage visually on a folkloric level through their materials of unpainted jelutong wood and peg construction, while their sophisticated and masterfully carved elements make visible the direct and truthful mark of the artist’s chisel. Balance is a driving force in all of John Buck’s works, from their measured, hand-hewn elements, to the functionality and marvel of the artist’s kinetics. Each sculptural artwork is built with a kind of weighted scale in mind and is exquisitely assembled with intent to balance not only from one side to the other, but also with regard to content. Often a marriage of both historical and contemporary references, the sculptures, carved wall panels and colorful woodblock prints, are brimming with symbolism and invite the viewer to speculate and interpret their many layered meanings. Engaged and resonant with the world that surrounds, John Buck’s wit, intricate compositions and stimulating subject matter further ignite the visual in ways both unexpected and illuminating.
John Buck received a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, Kansas City, MO and an MFA from University of California, Davis and also attended the well-known Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting. He has been honored as a recipient of numerous honors including a National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Grant, a National Artists Award, an Outstanding Nationally Recognized Alumnus in Sculpture award from The Kansas City Art Institute, the Governor’s Arts Award from the Montana Arts Council and was the Artist of the Year at the Yellowstone Art Museum, among others. His work has been exhibited across the US and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Denver Art Museum, Joslyn Art Museum, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Seattle Art Museum, Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana and many more.
Cat's Cradle, 2012 will be on exhibition with several other large kinetic sculptures at Robishcon Gallery, July 16, 2015 - August 29, 2015 in Denver, CO.