Art Collection Videos + Spotlights

Produced at the Nevada Museum of Art

Services: Graphics + Video Production

Year: 2020

In March of 2020 the Nevada Museum of Art closed it’s doors to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the Marketing + Communications Department worked to conceptualize new connect to connect our community to the Museum’s permeant collections and exhibitions that couldn’t be viewed in person. The final product was a series of short videos.

My role was to interpret artworks, text panels and collection archive materials. Once the materials were compiled, we also worked with curators for the “Collection Spotlight” to produce audio clips to narrate the story of complex artworks and exhibitions.

Judy Chicago: A Fireworks Story: To celebrate the acquisition of Judy Chicago’s comprehensive fireworks archive for its Center for Art + Environment Archive Collections, the Nevada Museum of Art asked the iconic artist to share her fireworks story. The archive, "Judy Chicago: Dry Ice, Smoke, and Fireworks," contains materials from Chicago’s extensive body of work with dry ice, colored smoke, and fireworks, manifested in 45 projects spanning from 1967 through the present. Involving a series of increasingly complex, site-specific fireworks pieces she made in the deserts of the American West, these early works were a response to what she considered the male-dominated 60s art scene, and a then-growing emphasis on monumental outdoor Land Art by male artists. Credits in video.

Collection Spotlight: Lita Albuquerque’s “Stellar Axis” installation was the first large-scale artwork created in Antarctica. This milestone of contemporary land art, widely acknowledged to be both a stunning and ecologically sensitive intervention on the continent, has received international acclaim. The archive for “Stellar Axis” is in the Collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, Center for Art + Environment Archive Collection. In 2014, the Museum organized an exhibition showcasing the archive, and, working with SKIRA Rizzoli, published the first book on Lita Albuquerque. In this Collection Spotlight, William L. Fox, director for the Center, shares valuable insight into this historic project.

Reigning Queens: The United States was founded, in part, to escape the traditional British royal system of having a supreme leader and inherited throne. Yet a persistent fascination with monarchs continues to define the American experience. Artist Andy Warhol, who once said, “I want to be as famous as the Queen of England,” created a series titled Reigning Queens, using official formal portraits of four monarchs as a starting point for his colorful silkscreens. Without a formal monarchy, America has turned to pop culture icons. Today’s undisputed sovereign of American pop music is Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, known to her myriad fans as “Queen Bey.” Oprah Winfrey, often referred to as the “Queen of All Media,” has built a powerful television and publishing empire and is considered by many to be American royalty.