KANEKO Soirée 2023

KANEKO is delighted to announce that our 10th annual Soirée will be held on Friday, September 29, 2023, celebrating the marvelous exhibitions and programs that KANEKO produces annually and our community partners in these creative projects.

Featured at Soirée 2023 is the opening of Linda Fleming’s exhibition Experimenta De Vacuo Spatio. One of five artists whose pieces are currently displayed at the Gene Leahy Mall Sculpture Garden, Fleming’s KANEKO exhibition will take place throughout our space in an exciting juxtaposition of early and new works, illuminating Fleming’s explorations of place, structures, and matter. 

The Honorary Chair of Soirée 2023 is Jeffrey P. Gold, MD. He is the Chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and also serves as the Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Nebraska System. The event will be designed and planned by Carissa and Tony Schrager, who are serving as Co-Chairs.⁠

⁠SOIRÉE COMMITTEE⁠

Melissa Hegarty, Katherine Hoberman, Kim Kula, Erin Strunk⁠

⁠WHAT TO EXPECT⁠

Cocktail Attire, Music & Dancing, Food & Drink, Free Valet Parking, New Exhibitions⁠, Hand-blown sake cup gift by glass artist Billy O’Neill,⁠ Glass Eye Studio, Seattle, WA.⁠

ENTERTAINMENT

Brent Crampton

Award-winning DJ, promoter, and entrepreneur. Brent Crampton, a prominent figure in the nightlife scene, will be our DJ at this year’s Soirée. In Nomad tradition, he will be elevated behind the bar. And since we’re pairing his music selections with an incredible night-club-inspired light installation, you may want to bring some sneakers for the second half of the night as we end things with another epic dance party.⁠

The Bel Canto Duo

2016 by Grammy-nominated cellist David Downing & Darci Griffith Gamerl (oboe/English Horn).⁠ The duo provides a rich tapestry of sound, with a variety of selections that feature us as soloists and as a duo. Our music features a wide variety of selections from original works, those adapted popular classical and classical crossover favorites.

Aaron Bressman

For decades, Aaron Bressman has been providing entertainment for venues & events throughout the Omaha area & across the country. With a thoughtful blend of guitar and piano, his versatile vocals allow for a night of your favorite familiar songs. From The Beatles to Bruno Mars, Cash to Coldplay, Elvis to Eagles, and Toto to Taylor Swift, Aaron will have everyone singing along throughout the night!⁠

Vōx Dance Collective

Established in 2021, Vōx Dance Collective is a modern dance collective that exists to extend the landscape of art through movement. Vōx has a deep passion for collaboration, people, and the stories that make them who they are.⁠ Most recent projects include our original show, Filament, at the Omaha Fringe Festival and collaborations with Saigon-based choreographer Dieu-Thao Duong for tbd. Dance Collective’s Making Space Dance Festival and Dorian Wood’s Canto de Todes at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. ⁠

Yellow and Gray Waves, Paper, 2022. Gramma Seed, Steel, 1993. Artist: Linda Fleming

LINDA FLEMING

Linda Fleming creates places that are as much air as material: places of shadows and light where the viewer can sometimes become a participant by entering the sculpture. The intangibility of flowing gaseous materials, the shape that a sound might take, or a diagram of the wind are starting points made manifest in these constructions. They are molecular and galactic and attempt to coax the intangible into sturdy structures and durable materials that will not easily disintegrate as much of the work of women has throughout history.  Physical sensation and perception are interdependent… the thing that is seen and the thing that is seeing conjure our world.

Experimenta de Vacuo Spatio brings together sculptures, drawings, and wall sculptures that embody 56 years of Fleming’s thinking. Beginning with her first wall sculpture built in 1967 and exhibited at Park Place Gallery in New York, she incorporates multiple parts that create a whole. These discrete components evoke the particles comprising all matter and have been a constant thread in her work whether they are dense as they were in the 1990’s or openwork as they are now. Fleming constantly questions a monolithic reading of reality and strives to evoke the presence of the many and the one.

Fleming’s current work can simultaneously be seen from the outside as an object, from the inside as an interior architecture, and seen through to the world surrounding it. Some have two layers of color that also transform as your position changes, allowing the colors to mix in the mind’s eye and become a hue that is not physically there. Glimpses of the environment seen through the openwork forms also become a part of the transforming whole. Her works are devices for seeing.

Fleming’s practice draws from the desert and mountain environments surrounding her Colorado, Nevada, and California studios. She has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Art Matters, the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and the Athena Foundation. Her work has also been reviewed in numerous periodicals, including Art in America, Sculpture magazine, and The New York Times. Fleming’s works are exhibited in major art museums and in public and private collections throughout the world.

Linda Fleming Sculpture

Image: Insinuation, 1997, Steel, 8 ft. x 30 ft. x 17 ft.
Photo Courtesy of Linda Fleming

Sponsorships of Soirée 2023 will support KANEKO’s continuing efforts to host world-class exhibitions, develop innovative programming, create unique education opportunities, and foster creative community endeavors in all fields. Our goal is to raise $315,000 through Soirée 2023, ensuring that KANEKO’s role as an incubator for remarkable ideas and activities continues to expand and flourish in Omaha.

Soirée Sponsorship Opportunities 2023