A monthly roundup of museum events, exhibits and deals you won’t want to pass by!

Sparks Museum and Cultural Center

Through June 14

Wally’s World: The Loneliest Art Collection in Nevada

The exhibit features 35 pieces of art from Wally Cuchine’s collection. In 1987, Life Magazine described US HWY 50 across the center of Nevada as the ―The Loneliest Road in America.‖ The magazine particularly mentioned the 287-mile stretch between Fernley and Ely as ―remote with few points of interest‖ and it urged travelers to have ―survival skills‖ to make the journey.

Sierra Arts Foundation

May 28-June 27

You could say Nancy Pippin, a Twinkies and Northern Nevada enthusiast, creates one-of-a-kind art. The real Twinkies used in the mixed media pieces were purchased on the day that the Hostess Company announced it was going out of business – November 16, 2012. Nancy Peppin is a watercolor painter, known for her images of Twinkies in history and in images of the Nevada landscape. Return of the Twinkies!

Nevada Museum of Art

Linda Besemer: Sine Language

Through May 19

Linda Besemer (b. 1957) is an abstract painter based in Southern California celebrated for her stunning, optical works that upend commonly held notions of what makes a painting. Her work subtly expresses, through formal means, her distinct political outlook. Normally one expects a painting to consist of pigment, whether oil, acrylic or watercolor, applied to some sort of ground, whether canvas, panel or paper. In an exciting subversion of tradition, Besemer creates double-sided paintings (“folds”) of pure acrylic pigment without a ground.

SPECIAL EVENTS

ARTBITE Linda Besemer on Sine Language

Friday, May 3 / noon

Join artist Linda Besemer for an exploration of her optical works that upend commonly held notions of what makes a painting. Cost: Free for members or with paid admission.

Mother’s Day Trunk Show

Saturday, May 11 / 12 – 3 pm

The Mother’s Day Trunk Show features ceramics artist Dane Meier whose pieces celebrate nature and crafting with clay. Cost: Admission to the Trunk Show is FREE.

ARTBITE Tamara Kostianovsky on Meat, Sculpture, and Identity

Friday, May 17 / noon

New York-based Argentine artist Tamara Kostianovsky explores ideas about identity, geography, culture, and history in her fabric sculptures of meat in Voces y Visiones. Cost: Free for members or with paid admission.

A monthly roundup of museum events, exhibits and deals you won’t want to pass by!

The Discovery

New Hands-On Construction Exhibit

The Discovery recently added a new exhibit to the museum’s popular Build It! gallery, where children experiment with engineering, construction and alternative energy. The new exhibit entitled “What Will You Build?” includes a large flat surface for museum visitors to work collaboratively to build structures using a variety of materials. 

Nano Days

April 4-7

The Discovery will take part in Nano Days, a national celebration of nano science. At various times throughout the four-day celebration, volunteers and educators from The Discovery will be demonstrating various types of nano technology. In addition, local author and nano scientist, Ben Rogers, will give a presentation about how nano science is used in our everyday lives.

Nano Days activities are free with museum admission. For more information, visit www.nvdm.org.

National Automobile Museum

The 1930s: Bread Lines to Production Lines

April 17-20

Join the 2013 Annual History Symposium for an in-depth explorations of the 1930s; a time marked by the collapse of Wall Street, suffering farms, unprecedented unemployment and a country on the verge of being thrust into WWII. An ideal event for history and automobile enthusiast, The 1930s: Bread Lines to Production Lines features notable national and local speakers, presentations, Chautauqua performances and an optional evening at Rancharrah that you won’t want to miss.

For more information, including the symposium schedule and details on registration, visit automuseum.org .

Nevada Museum of Art

Bloom

Now through June 16

Experience the growth and fragility of the natural world when art and modern day technology come together to create Bloom. In this internet-based Earthwork, unpredictable live movements of the Hayward Fault are detected by a seismograph, transmitted continuously via the Internet, and processed to generate an evolving field of circular blooms. The size and position of each bloom is based on real-time changes in the Earth’s motion, and the vibrant colors of each circle come from photographs of flowers found on photo-sharing site Flickr.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Rocio Aranda-Alvarado on Voces y Visiones

Friday, April 19 / Noon

El Museo del Barrio Curator Rocío Aranda-Alvarado discusses the Latin American cultural and art historical contexts of highlights from Voces y Visiones. Cost: $10/ FREE for MEMBERS

Henk Tromp on Van Gogh and How the Art World Struggles with Truth

Sunday, April 14 / 1:00 – 2:00 pm

Tromp has spent nearly six years researching the historical debates that have unfolded around many of Van Gogh’s paintings. His research reveals the darker side of the art world and the motives that lead art experts to make claims about authenticity. Tromp is a cultural anthropologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and will share his views on the Van Gogh controversy The Nevada Museum of Art.

Cost: $15 Non-Member/ $10 Member

National Automobile Museum

Special Delivery

Imagine a time when the customer ruled and deliveries were commonplace. Fresh dairy and bakery goods, starched and pressed laundry, and boxes of groceries were brought right to your doorstep. Delivery trucks hit the road with the invention of the motorcar. Many were simply modified cars until demand called for light-duty trucks to meet the needs of communities across the country for both residential and commercial services. Just blocks from the museum, at 627 Mill Street, a french laundry offered delivery service in a 1912 Ford Model T featured in this exhibit, along with other historical “Special Deliveries.”

For more info, call 775-333-9300 or visit www.automuseum.org

Nevada Art Museum

EXHIBITIONS

Voces y Visiones: Highlights from the Collection of El Museo del Barrio, New York

Opens March 2
A wide ranging and diverse survey of the stellar art collection from New York’s El Museo del Barrio, the leading Latino cultural institution in the U.S. dedicated to Latino, Latin American, and Caribbean art. This lively exhibition presents over fifty objects, including sculpture, painting, prints, photographs, and mixed media installations addressing themes such as identity politics, colonialism, emotional connections to homeland, and contemporary visual culture. Artworks created by living artists are contextualized with a concise selection of ancient Taíno stone carvings.

This exhibition was jointly organized by the El Museo del Barrio and the Nevada Museum of Art.

SPECIAL EVENTS

ART BITE Meet the Artist: Frohawk Two Feathers

Friday, March 15 / noon

Frohawk Two Feathers presents mixed media paintings filled with real and imagined colonial histories. Cost: $10 / FREE for MEMBERS Funded in part by Nevada Humanities.

Art Night

Friday, March 15 / 7 – 10 pm

Join us for an all-ages night of live performances featuring Frohawk Two Feathers of SUPERDELUX, art projects, a hands-on printing workshop. an interactive photo station and more! Cost: $5 Presented in partnership with the Holland Project.

ART BITE Meet the Artist: Cecile Chong on Voces y Visiones

Friday, March 29 / noon

Join Ecuador-born, New York-based artist Cecile Chong as she discusses the entanglement of culture, history, place, and interpretation, and how we are all more alike than different from one another. Cost: $10 / FREE for MEMBERS Funded in part by Nevada Humanities.

The Discovery

Leprechaun Chase 5k Run/Walk

Are you faster than a leprechaun? Your chance to find out happens Sunday, March 17th at the inaugural Leprechaun Chase through Reno’s Midtown District. The race starts and ends at The Discovery!

A portion of the proceeds from the race benefit The Discovery, so gather your family and friends and help make this race a success.

Date: Sunday, March 17th
Time: 8:30am
Register: www.race178.com/leprechaunchase

Wilbur D. May Museum

Creatures

Visitors will come face-to-face with amazing full-size animatronics of wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, dinosaurs and sea monsters. The Creatures exhibit features educational and interactive elements for kids, including a fossil dig, a glacier simulation display, and several touch stations.

Creatures opens at the Wilbur D. May Museum on Saturday, March 2 and runs through Sunday, June 2. Tickets are $9.00 for adults and $8.00 for children and seniors.

Saya Fine Art – Grand Opening!

New medium, New works and new subject.
Opens in Reno’s Arts District along the Riverwalk We are delighted to announce the official opening of SAYA FINE ART STUDIO: Recent Paintings By well known artist, Somboun, on view beginning February 23, 2013.

The grand opening of the SAYA FINE ART STUDIO studio is the first solo gallery by artist and painter Somboun Sayasane in Reno, Nevada. The opening of the gallery follows Somboun’s very successful career in San Francisco. Open Monday to Wednesday 11 a. m. to 5 p. m. and Sunday by appointment only.

“I love it here in Reno, I have met many talented artist and decided to open this gallery in the Riverwalk because I love art and enjoy being surrounded by the talents of other painters.” Somboun explains.

A monthly roundup of museum events, exhibits and deals you won’t want to pass by!

Nevada Museum of Art

The Light Circus: Art of Nevada Neon

Through February 10

Celebrate a bygone era during this exhilarating presentation of vintage neon signs that once graced some of Nevada’s most iconic restaurants, casinos, hotels, and business establishments. From flashing incandescent bulbs to candy-colored neon tubes, the nostalgic pieces featured in this exhibition have not been seen publicly since they illuminated street side locales decades ago.

SPECIAL EVENTS

ART BITE — Meet the Artist: Jean-Pierre Bonfort

Friday, January 11 / noon

French photographer Jean-Pierre Bonfort will talk about using a cell phone camera to create the journey documented in his photographs. He will be joined by Denis Bisson, the Cultural Attaché to the French Consulate in San Francisco.

Free for Museum members and with paid admission

Reno’s Mad Men: Celebrating the Oral Histories of Old Reno in Sound, Light, and Image

Thursday, January 17 / 6 – 8 pm

Reno’s “mad men” era was a time of intense interest in Reno as a place, a destination city of gaming, glitz, and glamour, and it kindled a strong advertising sector around the old casinos. Listen to the voices of old Reno’s “mad men” through newly digitized oral histories, and join the conversation to share stories of your experiences of Reno’s past. Colin Robertson, Curator of Education, and Alicia Barber, Director of the University of Nevada, Reno Oral History Program, will facilitate an informal roundtable discussion. Following the program, enjoy a classic cocktail in the gallery, surrounded by the signs in The Light Circus: Art of Nevada Neon.

$10 / $8 Museum members

Film: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a film by Alison Klayman

Saturday, January 19 / 1 pm

Ai Weiwei is China’s most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai Weiwei expresses himself and organizes people through art and social media. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down his blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention.AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the inside story of a dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics.

$10 / $8 Museum members

The Discovery

The Discovery recently added several new exhibits focused on early motion picture techniques in its Da Vinci’s Corner gallery. The additions include a tabletop praxinoscope and zoetrope and a large, free-standing zoetrope that measures more than six feet in diameter. A humorous animated introduction to the inventors of these animation devices is also featured as part of these new exhibits.

Marvelous Marbling

January 5, 12, 19, 26

Create your own marbled stationary while you learn about the principles of density that make this unique art project possible.

A monthly roundup of museum events, exhibits and deals you won’t want to pass by!

LIBERTY FINE ART GALLERY

Grand Opening, October 4

Liberty Fine Arts is a consortium of over a dozen Reno local mixed media artists, whose gallery space is adjacent to the Nevada Museum of Art.  Their grand opening celebration is Oct. 4^th.

NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART

For Your Eyes Only

September 29 – October 20

For Your Eyes Only is an exhibition of artist’s books that explores the structural possibilities of the book, and includes works by artists and printers Julie Chen, Tim Ely, Peter Koch, Eunkang Koh, Patti Scobey, Barbara Tetenbaum, and more.

The Light Circus – Art of Nevada Neon Signs

October 13 – February 10, 2013

Celebrate a bygone era during this exhilarating presentation of vintage neon signs that once graced some of Nevada’s most iconic restaurants, casinos, hotels, and business establishments. From flashing incandescent bulbs to candy-colored neon tubes, the nostalgic pieces featured in The Light Circus: Art of Nevada Neon Signs have not been seen publicly since they illuminated street side locales decades ago.

THE DISCOVERY

Worldwide Day of Play

October 6

Celebrate Nickelodeon’s Worldwide Day of Play by getting out and getting active. To help, The Discovery is offering two children’s yoga classes… one for kids age 4-7 and one for kids age 8-12. Classes start with singing and then connect movements to nature, starting a brand new generation of yogis!