America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
06.09.2007 - 09.29.2007
During their decade-long collaboration (1985-1995), Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler produced some of the most profound and influential conceptual art projects of the time, ranging from important public projects and site-specific installations to drawings and mixed media sculptures. Ericson and Ziegler, both alumni of the Kansas City Art Institute, redefined public art in a way that was welcoming to a diverse set of communities. Prior to Ericson’s untimely death from cancer at the age of 39, Ericson and Ziegler devised projects that altered sites subtly, using poetic language and wit to illuminate mainstream American contexts and highlight individual community issues. “America Starts Here,” the first retrospective exhibition of Ericson and Ziegler’s career, provided a critical analysis of the artists’ still under-appreciated position in the history of twentieth-century art. The exhibition included sculpture, installations, models, and video documents of site-specific works.
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler: America Starts Here was jointly organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. This exhibition was generously sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, Peter Norton Family Foundation, The Judith Rothschild Foundation (given in recognition of Kate Ericson), the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. The Kansas City presentation was supported by the Richard J. Stern Foundation, the H&R Block Foundation, the Missouri Arts Council, and private contributions.
