Every day on Art&Seek, we’re talking to people who have tips on art in the time of social distancing.  Share yours with us on Facebook, Instagram, or @artandseek on Twitter. Click above to listen to Leigh Arnold, associate curator of Nasher Sculpture Center, share her tip with KERA’s Nilufer Arsala. 

Museum workers around the globe are grappling with the question of what the visitor experience will be like in a post-COVID-19 world. For Nasher Sculpture Center, at least for now, it’s going to be from a distance.

“Nasher Windows,” a new series of street-facing exhibitions, will be sited within Nasher’s entrance vestibule on Flora Street.  Visitors can view the installations through the windows outside of the Renzo Piano-designed museum.

“There’s probably not going to be a return to ‘normal’ for some time,” said Leigh Arnold, associate curator at Nasher Sculpture Center. “The good thing about ‘Nasher Windows’ is we don’t really have to mediate the visitors experience.”

Tamara Johnson, “Deviled Egg and Okra Column,” 2020. Photo by Trey Burns.

The first exhibition, featuring work from Dallas-based artist Tamara Johnson, will run from Fri., May 22 until Wed., May 27. Arnold said there will be signage to remind visitors to keep six-feet distance.

“It’s an opportunity for visitors, and they don’t even have to be intending to go to The Nasher to see it,” Arnold said. “They can just be walking by or driving buy to engage with art in the real.”

It’s a shift from the digital era of the pandemic, Arnold said.

Johnson’s work “Deviled Egg and Okra Column” was previously scheduled at ex ovo, a Dallas art space, before the show was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Nasher is looking for work made for previously-scheduled-but-cancelled art shows.

Image from “Start Livin’ in a New World” by Xxavier Edward Carter.

The exhibition by Johnson is inspired by Brancusi’s “Endless Column” and will feature a mirroring tower of stacked deviled eggs and pickled okra.

“Each of these works explore a personal terrain, embedding meaning in foods I associate with my upbringing, like deviled eggs, picked okra and Rotel,” Johnson said in a statement. “These items become condensed bouillon cubes of material meaning, holding vulnerability, sexuality, and humor in a delicate balance.”

On May 29, the second installment by Xxavier Edward Carter called “Start Livin’ in a New World” will be showcased.  The title comes from popular hip hop band The Roots. The work will display a collaged tapestry of paper receipts, and references the world we are living in today — a time when communities of color are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Got a tip? Email Mia Estrada at mestrada@kera.org. You can follow her on Twitter @miaaestrada.

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