Cooley Memorial Art Gallery’s Newest Exhibit: Las Vegas Ikebana
Artists Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi Display Their Decades-Long Friendship
Photo from @artmattersfoundation on Instagram
Nestled in the library's lobby is the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery. Here, a new exhibit is shown every semester, with artists collaborating with director and curator Stephanie Snyder ‘91 and invited guest curators in order to bring their vision to life. This semester’s exhibit has followed suit and has been curated by visiting Associate Curator Allie Tepper ‘11, supported by Snyder. This exhibition is especially Reed-driven, as both Tepper and Snyder are Reed alumni.
According to the Cooley’s website, this exhibit is the first exhibition ever “focused on the pioneering collective and cross-genre practices of artists Maren Hassinger (b. 1947, Los Angeles) and Senga Nengudi (b. 1943, Chicago).” Tepper curated the exhibition in close dialogue with both of the artists, and “is a reflexive record of their work and history, and an enactment of their ongoing practice, built through an ethos of love.”
The two artists met in their 30s in Los Angeles as a result of their shared passion for performance art, and from there, their friendship blossomed. They first collaborated in 1977 in an installation of Nengudi’sperformance piece R.S.V.P., in which they danced based on their training in the Lester Horton technique, a West Coast modern dance lineage that included stretching the body to its outer limits. From here, the exhibit displays further artistic collaboration, postcards and letters sent between the two artists, images and videos of visits between the artists, and more.
The reason for the exhibit's creative title, “Las Vegas Ikebana,” is because of a concept that the artists developed in the late ’80s. Hassinger worked in a flower shop in Los Angeles at the time, and Nengudi was interested in Japanese aesthetic forms, and from here, the phrase “Las Vegas Ikebana,” was born, and would be exchanged between Hassinger and Nengudi to symbolize many of their future creative ideas and expressions. According to the Cooley website, as Nengudi notes “she liked the term for ‘the absurdity of it, and how it stirs one’s thought processes.” The phrase also encompasses many aspects of the artists’ individual and collective work such as their interests in improvisational compositions, ritual, popular culture, humor, eroticism, impermanence, and the natural world.”
Photo from @artmattersfoundation on Instagram
In celebration of the opening of the exhibit, the Cooley Gallery held multiple events on Friday, February 16, and Saturday, February 17. Both days saw See-See Riders (2024), which was a performance choreographed for the opening by Nengudi and danced by Reed alumni sidony o'neal and keyon gaskin in the exhibit itself. If you are curious about what exactly this performance is, there will be another one taking place on Saturday, March 23 at noon, so go to the Cooley website to reserve a spot. Also on Saturday, an artist talk entitled,“Don’t be Scared”: A Talk on the Art of Collaboration, by Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi took place. This talk ended in the creation of a collaborative art piece with the audience, so be sure to look out for that in the exhibit when you visit!
The Cooley Gallery is open Thursday-Sunday from 12:00pm-5:00pm, and the exhibit will be on full display for the rest of the semester.
