Lori Nix · The City

The highly anticipated Kansas Focus Gallery at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art opened, February 4, 2016.

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The first exhibition in the new Kansas Focus Gallery features six large-scale photographs by artists Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber. Born and raised in rural Norton, Kansas, Nix’s post-apocalyptic images as libraries, casinos, restaurants and Laundromats are both chilling and mesmerizing. Lori will be discussing her work later on March 24. Nix and Gerber began co-crediting their work shortly following this exhibition; this exhibition information has been updated to reflect that change.

Elaborate and meticulously detailed dioramas – which may take Nix and Gerber up to 15 months to build and several weeks to photograph – comprise the scenes depicted in her works. They have been pursuing their current series, “The City,” since 2005. In it, Nix and Gerber depict nature’s reclamation of the built environment. Humans are absent from these scenes where trees and vines invade the previously rarefied spaces of private libraries, art museums and violin repair shops.

Now a Brooklyn, New York-based artist, Nix earned an MFA in 1995 from Ohio University and a BFA in 1992 from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. This exhibit is Nix’s first exhibition in the Kansas City area.

To further complement the inaugural opening of the Kansas Focus Gallery, the museum’s McCaffree Gallery and mezzanine (both on the second floor) will showcase works by Kansas associated artists which have been acquired in conjunction with this new initiative. Paintings, photographs and works on paper by artists Davin Watne, Robert Bingaman, Wilbur Niewald, Keith Jacobshagen, Lisa Grossman, Michael Krueger, Birger Sandzen, Art Miller, Albert Bloch and Paulina Everitt will be included.

“This enhanced commitment to artists associated with Kansas allows us to build upon the museum’s longstanding support of area artists,” Hartman said. “The museum now houses the largest and most significant collection of works by artists associated with metropolitan Kansas City, and this new initiative will also further strengthen that aspect of the collection.”