Sculptures Created in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s Bloch Lobby in Full View of Visitors

KANSAS CITY, MO.- Visitors to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will get a rare look at art while it’s being created as part of the exhibition Roxy Paine: Scumaks and Dendroids, April 29 – Aug. 28 in Bloch Lobby. A sculpture-making machine designed by artist Roxy Paine melts plastic polyethylene beads with pigments and periodically extrudes them, creating unique, bulbous-shaped sculptures. The completed sculptures will be displayed on pedestals for the duration of the exhibition, which is called Roxy Paine: Scumaks and Dendroids. Paine will flip the switch to start production at 10 a.m. Friday, April 29, in Bloch Lobby as part of a public dedication and celebration of Paine’s work.

“All of Roxy Paine’s work addresses the relationship between what occurs naturally and that which is technologically produced,” said Jan Schall, Sanders Sosland Curator, Modern & Contemporary Art. “The organic configurations that result from this sculpture- making machine follow the laws of gravity.”

The machine, or Scumak, which is short for Sculpture Maker, celebrates the installation of Paine’s 56-foot tall stainless-steel Dendroid, Ferment, in the Museum’s Kansas City Sculpture Park in mid-April.

Forty-two sculptures are expected to be created throughout the course of the exhibition. Explanatory panels of text will help visitors understand the process. Paine developed the Scumak to remove the artist’s hand from the creative process, replacing it with a computer program that he designed.

Also on display in Bloch Lobby will be five of Paine’s Dendroid models, including Model for Ferment and Model for Distillation, presented in fall 2010 at the James Cohan Gallery in New York. The scale models will be displayed on the plaza level and on the ramp leading to the Info Desk and galleries. A video slide show of Paine fabricating Ferment will be shown continuously, together with a video of the artist speaking about his work.

“Roxy Paine is a transformer,” said Schall. “He configures organic principles in technological forms and uses technology to create organic forms.”

The Café in the Bloch Building will be transformed for the Roxy Paine exhibition. Beginning May 11 it will be known as the Creative Café, offering computers and “hands-on” opportunities for visitors to learn more about Paine and to create their own Dendroids.

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