New Visions of the American Heartland:
Malcolm Cochran, Maya Lin, Mary Lucier, and Kerry James Marshall

The character and values of the American Midwest have exerted a profound influence on the way the nation views itself. New Visions of the American Heartland explores the Midwest’s cultural identity through commissioned works by four contemporary artists: Malcolm Cochran, Maya Lin, Mary Lucier, and Kerry James Marshall. In a unique pairing of past and present, historical artworks depicting Midwestern scenes from the Weisman’s collection and select loans are also displayed. Including 50 paintings, prints, and drawings and the four installations, the exhibition captures the complex spirit of a region that spans the heart of the nation. The exhibition opens at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum on November 18, 2001 and runs through March 24, 2002.

The Midwest is a complex overlay of geography, history, attitudes, and myths. Most people approach it with a mixture of affection and disdain. Often considered the most quintessentially "American" of the nation’s regions, the Midwest was recognized as a distinct cultural and geographic entity in the early part of the 20th century. Artists in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s who lived or worked in the Midwest visually interpreted the region, creating images that remain icons of American society today. Included in New Visions of the American Heartland are works by such artists as Thomas Hart Benton, Cameron Booth, John Steuart Curry, Wanda Gág, B.J.O. Nordfeldt, Grant Wood, and others.

The search for sense of self and place has become ubiquitous in contemporary and post-modern art. The four contemporary artists of the exhibition come from very different backgrounds, but were invited because they all have significant ties to the Midwest. Maya Lin and Mary Lucier were born in the Midwest; although both have lived in New York for some time, they maintain close ties to the region. Malcolm Cochran and Kerry James Marshall were born elsewhere but have each lived and worked in the Midwest for more than a decade. The artists were commissioned to create new work that deals with the subjects of land, home, labor, and cultural myths, themes which the artists had addressed previously in their work and which embody the Midwestern sense of self and place.

Maya Lin’s Untitled (Topographic Landscape) derives its idealized, garden-like form directly from her experience of the southeastern Ohio hills where she was born and raised. Kerry James Marshall’s Home Theater, a collection of three archetypal houses, emerges from his experience living in housing projects as well as his own home in Chicago. Malcolm Cochran’s Steel Tanks continues his interest in industrial forms and processes that he finds uniquely emblematic of his adopted Midwestern home. In Mary Lucier’s austere video installation Migrations, words weave together histories and legends of people who have immigrated to the Midwest or, as in her own case, have moved away but remain spiritually rooted there.

The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary artworks in New Visions of the American Heartland reveals persistent cultural values that underlie disparate artistic expressions regardless of chronology or overt style.

New Visions of the American Heartland was produced by Arts Midwest and the Ohio Arts Council’s International Program in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum. The contemporary installations in the exhibition are drawn from Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland.

Illusions of Eden is part of The Heartland Project, a series of traveling museum exhibitions and an interactive website that evaluate the impact of culture on present-day life in two different, yet intertwined, regions of the world: the Central United States and Central Europe. Other components of The Heartland Project include Aspects/Positions: Fifty Years of Central European Art, 1949-1999; Staking Middle Ground: Images of Central Europe and the American Midwest; and the website www.heartlandproject.org. Illusions of Eden has toured to the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio; Museum of Modern Art/Ludwig Foundation in Vienna, Austria; Ludwig Museum/Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, Hungary; Madison Art Center in Madison, Wisconsin; and Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Major support for The Heartland Project website is provided by AT&T.

AT&T proudly supports The Heartland Project website which accompanies Illusions of Eden. For almost 60 years, AT&T has maintained an ongoing commitment to the arts, focusing on living artists and projects that create a legacy for the future. AT&T grants are aimed at contemporary work, on encouraging diverse voices, and on mobilizing new technologies to increase access to contemporary creative expression.

As the world’s networking leader, it is natural for AT&T to bring the arts to people and people to the arts. The juxtaposition of the work of earlier artists with currently commissioned installations makes The Heartland Project a fascinating exploration. Providing access to this work, and the accompanying in-depth curriculum material for teachers via the web, broadens the definition of heartland for a global audience.

AT&T applauds the many participating institutions and international partners that have made this expansive, yet very personal, exhibition possible, and is proud to provide additional support in Columbus, Madison, Sioux Falls and Minneapolis to the museums that have formed the American network for the exhibition.

Additional financial support for New Visions of the American Heartland and Illusions of Eden is provided by The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Ohio Arts Foundation, Inc., Alliance Capital Management, and state arts council partners, the South Dakota Arts Council and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Financial and facilitative assistance is provided by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. Kerry James Marshall’s participation in this exhibition is made possible by a grant from the Governor’s International Arts Exchange Program of the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, through the cooperation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Special commissioning support is provided by Loann W. Crane. Illusions of Eden was endorsed by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and its European tour was designated an official Millennium event of the White House Millennium Council.

Support for the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is provided by the University of Minnesota; the Minnesota State Arts Board; the Boss Foundation; the Chadwick Foundation; Dorsey and Whitney Foundation; General Mills Foundation; HRK Foundation; R.C. Lilly Foundation; Target Stores, Marshall Field's, and Mervyn's with support from the Target Foundation; the Colleagues of the Weisman Art Museum; and The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning.