Day at the museum

Erika Osborne brings together topography and the human body.

William Eggleston’s photography is on display at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Photographer William Eggleston explred the U.S. in the 1960s and ’70s.

A Real Van Gogh? An Unsolved Art World Mystery. A selection of articles and cartoons about the mystery piece.

Modernist Maverick: The Architecture of William L. Pereira. “Encounter”, a Pereira-inspired piece by Deborah Aschheim; 2009; plastic and LEDs.

What’s here and what’s to come at the Nevada Museum of Art

July, Reno's month of nonstop art, has come to a close, but there's still plenty to stimulate the senses in this city. The Nevada Museum of Art's current and upcoming exhibits continue to feature art with an emphasis on the environment, and the artists showcased experiment with that relationship in every context—through architecture, the Nevada landscape, the human body and the spaces that influence our identity. If you're in need of a day out of the hot sun, here are some exhibits to check out.

The San Francisco skyline serves as a continuous exhibition for architect William L. Pereira’s memorable designs, which will also be showcased as the museum’s featured exhibit this summer. Throughout his lifetime, Pereira had a part in designing and creating more than 400 buildings around the world, including San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, the Los Angeles International Airport, San Diego’s Geisel Library, Baghdad International Airport and Reno’s own Harrah’s hotel. Often referred to as a “futurist,” much of Pereira’s designs were inspired by the science fiction of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Pereira’s concepts were criticized at the time for being sterile and stark, but many current architectural trends harken back to Pereira, including his use of vertical space, clean lines and industrial materials.

Opened on July 27, the exhibit highlights architectural models, photographs and inspired artwork, tracing the timeline of Pereira’s career. According to museum representative Rachel Milon, this exhibit uses innovative tools to help emphasize Pereira’s forward-thinking process and approach to creating spaces where people work, live, play and travel. “[This exhibit] is all about architecture with contemporary art, models [and] Google images,” she says.

The accompanying catalog features essays by prominent architects from the United States. This show runs until Oct. 13.

There’s just a few weeks left to check out this exhibit, which traces the timeline of events surrounding the controversial Van Gogh painting “Study by Candlelight.” The painting was purchased for $50,000 in the late 1940s by film producer William Goetz. Not long after the purchase, a Dutch museum curator criticized the number of fake Van Gogh paintings circulating after World War II. The doubt infuriated Goetz, setting off a debate that trickled into the delicate post-WWII politics between America and Europe. The painting has been kept away from the public for more than 20 years—until now.

A Real Van Gogh? not only showcases the painting in question—made even more famous by the controversy—but provides a thorough context of the case, featuring documents, photographs and letters exchanged during the Goetz family’s attempts to determine the legitimacy of the painting. The museum purposely avoids adding to the discussion of the painting’s authenticity, leaving that decision instead to the viewer. This show will close on Aug. 25 and is held in the Hawkin’s gallery.

An artist can make art from anything—including dirt on the ground. Germany- and Arizona-based artist Ulrike Arnold creates art around the world using a mixed concoction of minerals—including remnants of meteorites—to develop abstract paintings on canvas. Thus, each painting is unique, produced exclusively from the local geology from the places to which she travels. This provides for her an ever-changing palette of colors and textures.

“In the course of the seasons, in the course of one single day, the colours change constantly: from purple into vermilion, from ochre into golden yellow,” she writes on her website. Painting with Ground & Sky will showcase Arnold’s paintings from her many excursions. Held in the Center for Art + Environment Library, this show can be viewed until Nov. 17.

Street photography is perhaps the most organic portrait of a city, candidly capturing people interacting with urban environments. In the mid-1960s and ’70s, photographer William Eggleston explored famous cities throughout the United States, photographing the people, places and things easily overlooked in bustling environments. Color photography is often attributed to Eggleston, who helped legitimize the art form through his unique approach to photography. See this exhibit, which shares 75 of Eggleston’s photographs, until Sept. 19.

Cartography shapes exploration, and is also shaped by it, according to artist Erika Osborne, who brings together the topography of the earth and the human body. Osborne situated models facing a famous landscape, such as the Grand Canyon, and then painted the topography of the landscape upon the model’s bare back. The shades and shapes of the bodies mimic the landscape, and the topography represents the physical and metaphorical journey of human travel. This show, held in the Center for Art + Environment Library, will be open until Nov. 17.

Northern Nevadans who have made the trek to Las Vegas have seen the sparse and open stretch of Nevada’s desert. But beyond the seemingly endless sea of brown lies a unique manmade ecosystem. In this exhibition, photographer Laurie Brown captures a different side of Las Vegas away from the famous Strip, and investigates the impact of humans trying to create a lush and livable oasis in the midst of an unforgiving desert. Las Vegas Periphery opens on Aug. 24 in the Altered Landscape Gallery.

Like many artists, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo poured herself into her art, resulting in some of the most memorable biographical paintings ever created. The thousands of photographs captured of Kahlo throughout her life reveal the nuances within her personality, similar to those she captured in her paintings. Kahlo’s husband, Diego Rivera, held onto more than 6,000 photos of his wife, and these photographs were kept locked away until photographer Pablo Ortiz Monasterio was able to access the collection in 2007. Monasterio selected 240 photographs for the touring exhibition. The photographs feature Kahlo alone, with friends and family, and with other historical figures such as Leon Trotsky. This show begins on Sept. 7 in the Hawkin’s Gallery.

Artist Ashley Blalock’s fine art installations explore the concept of female-centric spaces by mimicking an item often associated with domesticity—the doily. Blalock hangs large-scale crocheted doilies, a bright red color evocative of blood, that envelop the spaces in which they are present. The result is a sense of comfort bordering on suffocation. The Small Works Gallery will feature this exhibit from Sept. 7 until next spring.

The desert is an open canvas for Burners prepping for Burning Man. Beth Scarborough—better known as Bettie June—is the associate director of art management for the annual festival, and will host a talk about the planned art exhibitions to be seen on the playa this summer. Notable exhibitions include the Desert Expedition Module (D.E.M) by Matthew Gilio-Tenan, in which participants can change the colors and lights by climbing through a geometric structure. Burners can also stop and capture their experiences at the iPhone Cult by Abraham Carmi Raphael—a giant sculptural recreation of the iconic device. The talk is held on Aug. 8, 6 p.m.