This Week: On Campus Art Gallery Reopens With "This Land is My Land/Your Land"
The Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst’s on-campus art gallery since 2000, was temporarily closed during the two-year renovation of the adjacent Sedgwick Hall. This fall, it comes back with a new mission, a slightly new look and a new temporary exhibition that in part showcases the city Rockhurst calls home.
The new name, the Greenlease Gallery and Panacea Project Space, reflects the gallery's two distinct areas — the permanent Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art and the adjoining space housing two contemporary exhibition each year from renowned artists in Kansas City and the world, as well as art produced by students and others from the campus community. The first exhibition in this rechristened space, titled "This Land is My Land/Your Land," will open with a reception at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 2 and remain on display through Dec. 4. The temporary exhibition is anchored by Brooklyn artist Cynthia Daignault’s “Light Atlas,” on loan from the Art Bridges Foundation. This installation of 360 of Daignault’s paintings of the American landscape — one made every 27 miles on a cross country journey in 2016 — is accompanied by photographs, submitted by Kansas Citians, of the landscape within a 27-mile radius of where they call home. Together, the works of “This Land is My Land/Your Land” are a meditation on our sense of place and on the impact humans have on the natural environment.
“We had digital photo submissions from high school students as well as amateur and professional artists in the Kansas City area,” said Kristy Peterson, director of the Center for Arts and Letters and the Greenlease Gallery. “What I love about Daignault's ‘Light Atlas’ is that she calls attention to places some might consider ordinary, overlooked or neglected. It is interesting to look at these images alongside ones that may be familiar (or not) in our own city," Peterson said.
On the other side of the gallery is the Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art, comprised primarily of artwork from the 15th-18th centuries. Even this collection, which was initiated in 1967 with a donation from Virginia Greenlease and guidance from a former Nelson Gallery (now known as the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) curator, has seen a transformation. For one, much more is now known about the collection thanks to a 2017 doctoral research project completed by Loren Whittaker, Ph.D. Whittaker’s scholarship on the collection is included in new interpretive object labels installed in the gallery. New hands-on gallery interactives and section text panels, as well as a donated collection of Judaica, or sacred objects from the Jewish faith, and an educational display about the elements of a Catholic Mass have been added to compare and contrast different faith traditions.
Peterson said the temporary closure of the gallery in 2019 provided an opportunity to rethink and refocus the role that the space could play on campus and in the community. The new name, the Panacea Project Space, reflects this mission and its rooting in the Jesuit core value of “cura personalis,” or “care for the whole person.” According to its new charge, the gallery should serve as a place for gatherings, for conversations and for “solace and insight.”
“We really want to open the doors not just to campus but to the entire Kansas City community,” Peterson said. “There will be a number of opportunities this fall for our students, our faculty and the public to join us and learn more about our collection, our temporary exhibition, or take part in some creative works of their own.”
Those opportunities to explore the space include a visit from Daignault at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 25, to talk about "Light Atlas” and its message in a conversation also featuring Chad Scholes, Ph.D., professor of biology, and Ward Lyles, Ph.D., University of Kansas assistant professor of urban planning.
It’s not just the space inside that will look different according to that mission. The garden immediately outside the gallery — tucked between Sedgwick and Van Ackeren halls — has undergone a transformation this summer with the support of donors and grant funding, Peterson said.
“The hope is that this space really invites people to explore and connect with ideas and images in a personal way, whether that means a restful moment in the garden, studying in the gallery atrium space, or a self-guided tour of the collection or temporary exhibition alongside friends and neighbors,” she said.
The Greenlease Gallery and Panacea Project Space will be open to the public regular hours Thursday-Sunday 1-5 p.m. or by special arrangement for groups.
