National Endowment for the Arts awards $50K for Spencer exhibition

LAWRENCE — The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) on Dec. 8 announced awards totaling more than $27.6 million, including an Art Works award of $50,000 to the Spencer Museum of Art for the upcoming exhibition “Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia.” Opening in fall 2016, Temporal Turn will be the first major exhibition at the Spencer following the Phase I renovation.

“Temporal Turn” will inaugurate our transformed galleries and prompt our audiences to vividly imagine the possibilities and challenges of a globalized future,” said Saralyn Reece Hardy, Spencer Museum director.

“Temporal Turn” is a major exhibition organized by Kris Ercums, curator of Global Contemporary & Asian Art. It will explore a rich mosaic of ideas about time and history from a generation of artists embedded in what has been dubbed “the Asian Century.” The exhibition draws from the Spencer’s permanent collection augmented by international loans and will feature four site-specific commissions by artists Konōike Tomoko, from Japan; Sahej Rahal, India; Park Jaeyoung, South Korea, and Rohini Devasher, India.

The Spencer Museum was one of only two institutions in Kansas to receive a grant in the Art Works category, which supports the creation of new work, lifelong learning in the arts and public engagement with the arts.

“The arts are part of our everyday lives – no matter who you are or where you live – they have the power to transform individuals, spark economic vibrancy in communities and transcend the boundaries across diverse sectors of society,” said NEA Chair Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like the one from the Spencer Museum of Art offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation. In its first 50 years, the NEA awarded more than $5 billion in grants to recipients in every state and U.S. jurisdiction, the only arts funder in the nation to do so. To join the Twitter conversation about this award cycle, please use #NEAFall15.