Cather Professor of Art Karen Kunc’s Constellation Studios is hosting two exhibitions that examine that urban experience from different perspectives.
“Metropolis” is a handmade book venture in a spectrum of printmaking processes created by 303 artists from around the world, including two from Constellation Studios, Kunc and Keith Graham (M.F.A. 2016). The exhibition is here from Venice, Italy.
“Invisible Cities,” organized by Kunc in response to “Metropolis,” is an exhibition of artists’ books and folios destined to become a collaborative leporello (accordion) book that present new interpretations of urbanity.
Both exhibitions are on display through Dec. 24 at Constellation Studios, located at 2055 O St. in Lincoln.
The idea for the collaborative “Metropolis” came from Berlin-based artist Andreas Kramer, who prints at Centro Internazionale della Grafica (CIG) in Venice, Italy, where “Metropolis” was realized under the guidance of master bookmaker Silvano Gosparini.
The leporello (accordion) construction stretches fully to 215 feet.
Participating artists came from Australia, Japan, Brazil, U.S.A., Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, the U.K., France, Spain, Tunisia and Canada.
“I saw the call for participation at least two years ago,” Kunc said.
She decided to participate at a friend’s urging and invited one of her graduate students, Graham, to also submit work for it.
“That involved making three impressions of a print and sending those to Venice, where they were compiled with these other submissions of prints from artists from around the world,” Kunc said. “A German artist came up with the idea to invite artists to address the theme of ‘Metropolis’ and all of its connotations—there was a film, there are contemporary ideas about metropolis and how people are living—positive ideas and the dystopia about Metropolis.”
Three editions of the work were created, and those are now circulating to different continents around the world, including here in Lincoln at Constellation Studios. This is the premier exhibition of “Metropolis” in the Midwest.
“It’s significant,” Kunc said. “This is an important effort to have marshaled all these participants and supporters and to know that so many artists from around the world are aware of this big, collaborative project. I wanted to get this on the world stage as something I could do as a connection.”
She also felt the exhibition needed a response.
“Knowing it was coming here, I felt we needed to make an answer or a commentary back to ‘Metropolis,’” Kunc said. “So I thought of the theme of ‘Invisible Cities’ as another imaginative way to conceive of how people are living and communicating.”
The theme is inspired by the novel, “Le citta invisibili” by Italian writer Italo Calvino, published in Italy in 1972. In the novel, Marco Polo reports to Emperor Kublai Khan on fantastical, dream-like cities all named after women that he purportedly visited. After each of 11 descriptions, the two men discuss ideas that evolve from the tales, reflecting on human nature and linguistics.
“Some of the artists followed a specific city,” Kunc said. “You can see the artist did a little reading from the novel. The descriptions of the cities are really amazing and very beautiful. At the end, it turns out that Marco Polo may be only describing Venice, so that brings our new ‘Invisible Cities’ interpretations back to this, ‘Metropolis.’”
Kunc had about 175 artists who sent works for “Invisible Cities,” including printmaking students from UNL and high school students from Lincoln Northeast, as well as artists from around the world, including Finland, New Zealand and Egypt.
“I didn’t want to restrict it only to prints, which ‘Metropolis’ is,” Kunc said. “I knew I wanted to include many local artists and my students and all media. There are drawings, watercolors, prints, digital prints, collages and a lot of mixed media.”
Her Art of the Book class students will help construct the accordion book of prints for “Invisible Cities” in December.
“That’s the challenge—how do we decide the order and sequence of the work? There’s a design aspect we have to wrestle with,” Kunc said.
Kunc said there is no specific conclusion about what community means, as reflected in the exhibition.
“I think there are both positive and negative viewpoints,” she said. “Some are about multitudes of people, with a dense crowded feeling, of spaces where eyes are watching you from every viewpoint. Maybe it’s impressions of stress and where people are bumping elbows with other people. Certainly I think there are labyrinthine qualities to the architectural images, and the built environment comes through some of the abstract interpretations.”
Kunc has been collaborating with KZUM Radio’s Nick Hernandez, who hosts the radio show “Community Matters” on a series of community conversations about how positivity matters to improve the wellbeing of our community.
On Nov. 6, Constellation Studios hosted “Placemaking for Wellbeing: A Community Conversation,” which included a panel discussion that included remarks from Mayor Chris Beutler on how the creation of creative spaces improves health and wellbeing.
“Everybody is thinking about their place in the world,” Kunc said. “Where do we live? And how can that be a significant factor in how we make a place that is good for everybody to live?”
Mayor Chris Beutler cited the Canopy Street project in the Haymarket and the creation of Union Plaza as good examples of Lincoln’s ongoing “placemaking.”
“It was great to have the Mayor here,” Kunc said. “He’s made efforts toward improvement in different parts of the city to make areas vital and to make Lincoln alive. That’s why I’ve always liked it here. It seems lively. There are things to do. We have the proximity of our institutions, and the structure of our downtown, capitol and residential areas that are close.”
All of that contributes to a feeling of wellbeing.
“My personal interest has always been the value of being a Nebraskan being committed to being here,” she said. “I can make a difference in committing Constellation Studios as a real, creative place, specifically for trying to contribute to an active, creative life and lifestyle that helps people feel empowered. That’s part of what artmaking can do.”
Located amidst the Antelope Valley Project in Lincoln, which continues to develop and grow, is important for her Constellation Studios.
“There are still lots of changes that will come down here,” Kunc said. “There are always things to be done. I’m not a Pollyanna. But I also think having a visionary path can be interesting. That’s a role that I’ve always done as a teacher in trying to make that path for my students. And here is a center [Constellation Studios] where it is very visible, and which needs to be visible on a national stage, putting Lincoln forward with a landmark print center. A place where hopefully there’s a growing interest in prints, my passion. These prints can transport ideas.”
Artists have a vital role to play in communities.
“I think artists are always the ones who can interpret, and that’s the artistic role—to interpret what the world has, what they see. They serve as the filter to speak about what’s happening and their experiences,” Kunc said. “Having an art scene where people are bumping and rubbing edges into issues and artists being the observers and making a commentary is really important. We’re lucky we have an art community.”
And she likes the collaboration that comes from projects like “Invisible Cities.”
“We are pretty centrally located, and yet in some regards, we might be considered the end of the Earth,” Kunc said. “But look at what can be done from these vastly different, various places, that’s the overarching concept. The idea is really to make the impossible Invisible City—that doesn’t exist in place and time—but does through our connections.”