For more than two decades, Maya Lin (b. 1959) has engaged the vocabulary of cartography, producing artworks as diverse as stand-alone sculptures, civic monuments, and room-sized installations that manifest the complex natural and cultural systems operating in the world. In 2012 the Museum invited her to make Pin River–Tahoe Watershed in response to the unique Lake Tahoe landscape. After visiting with scientists at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, Lin created a series of works that visualize the foundational structures of the planet—in part by manufacturing an architecture of its natural features.

This work is a part of the exhibition INTO THE TIME HORIZON.

Rodrigo Cass (b. 1983) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in Brazilian Neo-Concrete art, a movement that began in 1959 to emphasize a greater sense of rhythm, poetry, and sensuality within the context of geometric abstraction. Working with his novel medium of concrete, which he blends with pure pigment, he applies this mixture to linen in an aesthetic exploration of line, color, shape, and perception in abstract painting. From 2000 to 2008, Cass was a monk in the Carmelite order in southeastern Brazil, a formative period that continues to influence his artistic approach. His early works emerged through video, while documenting repetitive gestures with everyday objects. These actions echo the contemplative rhythm of monastic rituals, inviting viewers into spaces of stillness, reflection, and meditative inquiry.

This presentation marks Cass’s first solo, museum exhibition in the United States. The immersive presentation integrates different geometric shapes, appearing in diverse media, to explore the interplay of color, movement, and gesture in a given spatial configuration. These elements create a sensorial experience that moves beyond representation, where aesthetic form becomes a vessel for poetic expression. The installation invites quiet contemplation on mysticism, inner life, and spatial construction.

Sponsors

Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida

Multi-media artist Edgar Arceneaux’s (b. 1972) artistic approach begins with three guiding principles that propel his work forward—a material investigation, a rigorous engagement with history, and his own personal connection to the given subject. A protean artist who engages many different styles and subjects, his practice encompasses drawing, painting, performance, video, sculpture, and installation.

This exhibition highlights Arceneaux’s series Skinning the Mirror, which he started in 2021. In this expansive body of work, he uses the mirror as a device to explore the formulation and fracturing of identity, specifically in relation to memory. Using found mirrors, Arceneaux separates the reflective substrate from the sheet of glass, which he then applies to a prepared canvas. The process of “skinning” a mirror becomes an exercise of control and chance, often leading to imperfections. Cracks, flaws, and small shards of glass remain on the fabric’s surface during the decoupling. The resulting works resemble traditional abstract paintings while maintaining an alluring, reflective quality. Once the separation is complete, Arceneaux places the paintings at sites tied to a historical narrative he is investigating. Over time, the atmosphere of the selected locale alters the surface of the canvas, imbuing it with the environment so that the work itself becomes a part of the history that Arceneaux is exploring.

Previously Arceneaux’s Skinning the Mirror series has reflected the changing of the seasons, riverways in the Midwest, and the often fraught and conflicting spectrum of racial, political, and cultural perspectives that transform a location into a place of interest. While in Reno, Arceneaux will investigate a new, historically significant site that inspires his work.

 

SPONSORS

Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida