The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Presents a Survey of Leo Villareal

Written by Stevie Grecuer Wednesday, 17 August 2011 01:41

Overland Park, Kansas  - 'Leo Villareal' opened in the first-floor galleries of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas from 6-8 p.m. Friday, June 24th. A lecture by the artist begins at 7 p.m. in the M.R. and Evelyn Hudson Auditorium on the second floor of the museum. The exhibition will be on view through September 18th. The opening reception and lecture are free and open to the public. The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art will present the first-ever museum survey of the work of the prominent sculptor Leo Villareal, a pioneer in the use of LEDs and computer-driven imagery. Leo Villareal, organized by the San Jose Museum of Art, will feature approximately 20 sculptures and expansive installations by Villareal on loan from public and private collections, as well as video documentation of his architectural, site-specific works.

The exhibition traces the artist’s work during the past decade, from his earliest experimental sequencing of strobe lights to his recent hypnotic patterning of thousands of pinpoint LEDs. The exhibition and publication are timely as Villareal’s reputation in the art world and his popularity reach new heights.  In addition to his public commissions at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., such institutions as The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the newly reopened Tampa Museum of Art have recently acquired Villareal’s work for their permanent collections. “The piece, Microcosm, is now one of the museum’s most iconic works,” said Bruce Hartman, executive director of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. “Leo Villareal’s survey exhibition will be a dazzling and extraordinary experience for our entire community.”

The works on view in Leo Villareal range in scale from the 36" x 30" x 7" sculpture 'Red Life' (1999) to the 10' x 15' installation 'Diamond Sea' (2007).  Some works will be experienced in immersive installations. For example, 'Firmament' (2001) consists of a 16' diameter, ceiling-mounted strobe light sculpture, sequenced by a microcontroller; visitors will recline on specially designed couches to experience the hypnotic animated patterns above. The exhibition seeks to place Villareal’s body of work within the continuum of modern and contemporary art, from minimalism to the present. At the same time, it explores Villareal’s new vision for an art that responds and relates to the innovations of the 21st-century by using computer code and new technology as a medium for abstraction.


Born in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1967, Leo Villareal was raised in El Paso, Texas, and in northern Mexico. He began his studies in stage design and art at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and later pursued graduate studies at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, N.Y. From 1994 to 1997, Villareal worked on cutting-edge virtual reality projects at Paul Allen’s Interval Research Corporation in Palo Alto, California. In 1994, Villareal first attended the counterculture festival Burning Man, which inspired him to begin creating immersive experiences on a larger scale. In 1997, he programmed a 16-light strobe structure that he brought to Burning Man. Originally conceived as a nighttime wayfinding device using pulsing light, the simple light piece was well received and became the precursor to his work in the light medium.  His recent major commissions include Sky (Tampa) (2010) at the Tampa Museum of Art, FL, Stars (2009) at the Galería Javier López in Madrid, and Multiverse (2008) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y., the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan, as well as other public and private collections.

The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art is an integral part of Johnson County Community College. And as such, it is a public institution governed by the college and its publicly elected Board of Trustees. In 2003, Jerry and Margaret Nerman made a pledge (naming opportunity) of $1.5 million to assist in funding the construction of a contemporary art museum on the campus of JCCC. Jerry and Margaret Nerman (along with their son Lewis) are among the area’s most prominent collectors of contemporary art. Jerry Nerman often expresses his collecting philosophy as “the three s’s” – search, secure, and share. The elegant, minimalist building was designed by architect Kyu Sung Woo and is clad in Kansas limestone. Throughout the museum’s two levels are ten expansive galleries for temporary exhibitions and the permanent collection. The museum boasts two lobbies – the impressive Cantilever Entrance (featuring a dazzling 60,000 white LED installation by artist Leo Villareal) and the glass and metal Atrium Lobby. The museum’s permanent collection is comprised of works gifted by Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation. Art from Johnson County Community College’s Permanent Collection (acquired largely through JCCC’s annual acquisition fund) supplement the Oppenheimer Collection on view in the permanent collection galleries. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nermanmuseum.org

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