Exhibition Archive: 2020-2022
Transfigurations: Reanimating Ancient Art of India
David Lebrun
September 27, 2022 – May 27, 2023
In this immersive video installation, Lebrun aligns and sequences high-resolution photographs of 12th century sculpture from Southern India, then uses intricate morphing techniques to bring these images to life. The installation includes Vishnu and Attendants, a three-screen animation based on carved temple facades, and Shiva as Nataraja (Lord of Dance) a single-screen animation of cast bronze figures. It is part of Lebrun’s larger project, Transfigurations: Reanimating the Past. Score by Yuval Ron.
Do You See What I See?
Gallery exhibition: September 6, 2022 – May 27, 2023
Click here to view the virtual exhibition
When a person thinks an iconic image or object means one thing and others interpret it differently disagreements can arise. This exhibition presents artworks that challenge viewers to engage in dialogue with those who have different thoughts about what something means. Featured works include loans from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, made available through the Art Bridges Foundation. The Friends of the Beach Museum of Art encourage you to join them in sponsoring this exhibition.
2022-2023 K-State Common Works of Art
Each year, K-State First selects a common reading for first-year students, providing an intellectual experience they can share with other students and members of the university community. The 2022 K-State First Book is The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why by Amanda Ripley. Beach Museum of Art staff have selected two prints as Common Works of Art to reflect different aspects of the book.
Salt Air
Gallery exhibition: March 15 – October 1, 2022
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Visit the beach from the Beach! This exhibition, planned in conjunction with the American Library Association’s 2022 summer reading theme “Oceans of Possibility,” features waves, shorelines, sand dunes and sea creatures in the museum’s collection. This exhibition sets the theme for the museum’s weekly summer art programs, tours, and gallery activities.
45 Paleolithic Handaxes from
Transfigurations: Reanimating the Past |
David Lebrun
Gallery exhibition: September 21, 2021 – July 16, 2022
Organized by the museum in collaboration with K-State's Information Technology Services and Cytek Media, this experimental multimedia installation is guaranteed to surprise and delight! It features the mysterious beauty of an ancient artifact through specially composed music and unique video animation. See the past differently!
Gordon Parks: "Homeward to the Prairie I Come"
Gallery exhibition: September 7, 2021 – May 28, 2022
Virtual exhibition launch: December 6, 2021
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This exhibition features photographs donated by Parks to Kansas State University (K-State) in Manhattan, Kansas, in 1973. It was the first time that the artist personally curated a set of photographs to donate to a public institution, a kind of self-portrait directed towards the home crowd. The exhibition title includes the first line of a poem written by Parks in 1984, commissioned by and published in the Manhattan Mercury. K-State's New Prairie Press will publish an accompanying open-access digital catalogue with new research on Parks and Kansas.
Doug Barrett: Find Your Voice
Gallery exhibition: September 7, 2021 – May 28, 2022
Virtual exhibition launch: December 6, 2021
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Barrett is a photographer and videographer based in Manhattan, Kansas. His work demonstrates how Gordon Parks continues to inspire contemporary artists. Barrett's projects include interviewing, photographing, and telling the stories of homeless veterans, creating a collective portrait of the Yuma Street community of Manhattan, Kansas, and documenting the Black Lives Matter movement in Kansas.
2021 K-State Common Work of Art
Each year, the K-State Book Network selects a common reading for first year students, providing an intellectual experience they can share with other students and members of the university community. The 2021 K-State First Book is The Marrow Thieves by Canadian author Cherie Dimaline (Métis). The Beach Museum of Art staff have selected the print From Upstream I Caught Fish by Neal Ambrose-Smith to complement Dimaline's story.
Sunrise over Kansas: John Steuart Curry
Virtual exhibition launch: June 29, 2021
Gallery exhibition: August 24, 2021 – February 28, 2022
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Dramatic weather plays a significant role in Regionalist John Steuart Curry’s art, especially as a symbol of menace. Less recognized is the importance of another event in nature—the sunrise—in Curry’s oeuvre. The celestial motif is explored in this exhibition of the artist’s paintings, prints and drawings. The exhibition pays tribute to the museum’s 1935 painting, Sunrise over Kansas, which suffered discoloration of its sun as a result of the artist’s experiments with materials and now has been conserved.
Two by Two: Animal Pairs
Virtual exhibition launch: March 30, 2021
Gallery exhibition: August 24 - December 18, 2021
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This exhibition features unique pairings of animals from the permanent collection, ranging from Pueblo pottery to farm animals by Regionalist artists to work by international artists. Part of the museum’s annual collaboration with the Manhattan Public Library, the theme complements the American Library Association’s summer 2021 theme “Tales and Tails.” The exhibition will inspire programming for area schools and the museum’s summer ARTSmart classes.
INSIDE OUT
This innovative exhibition features artworks from the Beach Museum of Art’s collection displayed in colorfully lighted windows. Enjoy this outdoor walking tour around the museum building and don’t miss the signs about the art on display. The views are especially striking at twilight; bring binoculars to zoom in on details.
Waylande Gregory: Art Deco Ceramics and the Atomic Impulse
Virtual exhibition launch: October 13, 2020
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Waylande Gregory (1905-1971), a native of Baxter Springs, Kansas, was one of the most innovative and prolific Art Deco ceramic sculptors of the early 20th century. His groundbreaking techniques enabled him to create monumental ceramic sculptures that had not previously been possible, including his Fountain of the Atom for the 1939 New York World’s Fair—a tribute to atomic energy that earned the attention of Albert Einstein. Gregory also developed revolutionary glazing and processing methods and was an important figure in the studio glass movement.
Inspirations: Art for Storytelling
Gallery exhibition: March 3 - December 12, 2020
View the exhibition online through Thinking about Pictures (TAP) and record your observations and insights.
Each summer the museum collaborates with the Manhattan Public Library to host an exhibition complementing the American Library Association's Summer Reading theme. These exhibitions shape the museum’s weekly summer art programs, tours, and gallery activities. The 2020 theme, Imagine Your Story, celebrates myths, fairy tales, and fantasy. Whimsical art from the museum’s permanent collection will inspire visitors to create their own stories.
Voices of the West
Gallery exhibition: February 4 - December 23, 2020
Click here to view the exhibition online.
Americans’ understanding of the history of the American West, including that of the Great Plains, has been significantly shaped by novels, movies, and television Westerns. These narratives often leave out the voices of the region’s Indigenous inhabitants, women, and other groups. This selection of works from the museum’s collection offers a more critical perspective on the historic and modern American West. Images by American Indian artists, for example, address the displacement of Native peoples and the challenge of maintaining cultural traditions. Other artworks highlight the idealization of the Western landscape as well as its overdevelopment. Still other works reassess the iconic status of historical Western figures.
2020 K-State Common Work of Art
Click here to watch the virtual celebration of 2020 Common Work of Art and K-State First Book.
Each year, the K-State Book Network selects a common reading for first year students, providing an intellectual experience that can be shared with other students and members of the Kansas State University community. The 2020 K-State First Book is The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, an autobiography of young William Kamkwamba of Malawi, Africa. William creates a windmill from scrap materials with an old science book as guide so that his village can have electricity and running water.
The museum’s painting of a windmill by Kansas-born artist and K-State graduate Shirley Smith has been chosen as the Common Work of Art to complement this year’s K-State First Book. Like Kamkwamba, Smith grew up in an agricultural community, and her later art reflected this with its depiction of cropland, livestock, and energy resources such as wind.