For 40 years, UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum has served as Southern Nevada's must-see destination for contemporary and local art.
After a four-month closure for upgrades, the museum reopens on October 23 with four new exhibitions, just in time for that evening's UNLV ArtWalk, the College of Fine Arts' annual open house.
As UNLV's original gymnasium, the Barrick needed upkeep, especially its roof. "It shows that UNLV is taking care of us," said executive director and curator Alisha Kerlin.
Among the four shows — all to remain up until the end of the school year — is "More," the first solo show of local multimedia artist and UNLV instructor Krystal Ramirez. The bright, text-heavy works draw inspiration from UNLV's collection of photographs documenting decades of demonstrations in Nevada.
"Specifically, I'd been looking at the Culinary Union protests that happened during the '90s," said Ramirez. "My mom has been a Culinary worker for most of my life, and I have a lot of family members who work in the Culinary Union, and so I started there, and then I just started researching more protests — the nuclear test site protests, the welfare rights protests in the '70s. And so I definitely just started expanding my view of what protest can look like in Nevada."
All four exhibitions feature themes and artists with connections to Mexico and Iran, two countries that have been in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration. The Barrick has been primarily focusing on exhibitions with social, cultural, and/or political themes for almost a decade. Kerlin uses inclusion as a curatorial guide, which fits a collegiate student body once proclaimed the most diverse in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
"We wanted to say something important with these exhibitions, and what I think ties them all together is that they use visual art to express something," said Kerlin. "I honestly believe that museums have a responsibility to broaden what they present, and I truly believe that these exhibitions will create opportunities for connection, dialog, and understanding across differences."
Guests: Alisha Kerlin, executive director and curator, Barrick Museum; Krystal Ramirez, artist and UNLV instructor
