How the Denning House art collection builds community and supports leadership development
A casual visitor to Denning House might wonder what a world-class art collection has to do with a graduate fellowship program. Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) Director and Co-founder John Hennessy is happy to explain: “Art can bridge boundaries between people with different experiences and from different cultures. Art often embodies ambiguity and nuance and allows us to experience difficult issues in a different way.”
Just as Knight-Hennessy scholars must undertake a rigorous application process to be selected for admission, the eight artists whose work hangs in Denning House were chosen with deliberation and care. Thanks to Roberta Denning, BA ’75, MBA ’78, and her husband Steve Denning, MBA ’78 — whose gift supports both the building and the art collection — art is an integral part of Denning House and a strong reflection of the mission and objectives of its program.
Utilizing the expertise of Zlot Buell + Associates/Art Advisors ensured that artists of international renown and representation would be considered. Sarah Elsasser, senior art advisor, adds that visiting the site and meeting with the selection committee ensured that their approach was both “holistic and collaborative” from the start.
“Our conversations helped us focus on the goals of the art collection and how the art will contribute to the larger ecosystem of the house, including in the lives of the students who are here during their time at Stanford,” she says. “Aesthetics are only one of the considerations for our selections — we also aim to put forth artists and art works that will spark thought and dialogue as well as resonate with the students and the mission of Knight-Hennessy Scholars.”
Zlot Buell does not represent individual artists but has extensive connections with galleries around the world. For each acquisition, the firm presents a first round of eight to ten artists to the committee and then a short list of three is considered.
“The striking art work at Denning House captures the rich tapestry of our multicultural and multidisciplinary community, stimulating conversations that bridge perspectives and offering new ways to see the world,” says Tina Seelig, executive director of KHS.
The eight artists currently represented come from Africa, Europe, South America, South Korea, and the United States. They are distinctive, innovative, and globally recognized artists who address complex issues and challenges, such as sustainability, racism, threats to privacy and freedom, and the lasting trauma of war and human conflict. Just as the scholars collaborate on KHeystone Projects to find solutions to these problems, the artists approach these issues with a variety of philosophies, materials, and techniques.
For Elias Sime, the problem of Western “e-waste” in his native Ethiopia is addressed by using that very material in his work. Scouring the open-air markets in Addis Ababa led him to the discarded wires, circuit boards, and computer keys that comprise his collage/assemblage pieces. Crushing these items and braiding them, using a technique he learned from local women, creates a highly textured wall hanging (Red Leaves) that is aesthetically pleasing, thanks to its bright colors, but also makes a strong statement about the impact of one nation dumping its waste in another, poorer country.
The intertwining of material and message is also an important component in the work of Teresita Fernández. The Florida native, who is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellow, creates mixed-media paintings and sculpture that urge the viewer to rethink the traditional genre of landscape. Inspired by the local Baylands, Fernández pays tribute to the environment and to indigenous cultures in Apparition. She uses natural materials including wood and charcoal to represent critical facets of California history: water, fire, and gold. “Landscapes,” she says, “are not passive.”
Collaborating and building community with students from other cultures is a hallmark of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars experience. Several artists in the collection reflect their distinctive cultural backgrounds in their work. Rose B. Simpson, who earned her MFA from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, lives and works in New Mexico. Her art, usually ceramic and mixed-media figures, reflects the indigenous traditions of the Pueblo people. Space Baskets, created using papier-mâché and Sumi ink, evoke traditional Native American basketry but are much more delicate. The artist uses a plus (+) symbol in her work “to represent protection or tracks or days marking the time or process around a journey.”
Transculturalism and transnationality play a strong role in the art of Haegue Yang, who is represented at Denning House by two works (Sonic Rotating Line Type A and Pregnant Mountains - Trustworthy #316). Yang, who has shown work at the Venice Biennale and has had many gallery and museum exhibitions in Europe, is from Seoul but lives and works in Berlin, where she is a university professor. Yang is known for her mixed-media installations that employ both light and sound, as can be seen in Sonic Rotating Line Type A. Unlike the other art works in Denning House, this piece invites the viewer to touch it and ringing the bells is encouraged. The artist likes her work to be open to interpretation but explains that she has been strongly influenced by the experience of emigrating to another, very different country and culture. She explains, “Most people cannot imagine what it means to be a non-Westerner working in contemporary art.”
Nick Cave, an African American artist from Missouri, found instant art world acclaim with his “sound suits,” a reaction to the beating of Rodney King in 1991. The New York Times described the suits, which are made of discarded materials, as “a conduit of rage and helplessness channeled into something both theoretically wearable and visually striking.” Cave, who works in sculpture, installation, and video, refers to himself as a “messenger-artist-educator” and uses found objects to encourage dialogues about gun violence, death, and loss. He often uses his own body parts, cast in bronze, as he has in Arm Peace. The arm, which emerges from the wall, is draped with a cascade of flowers that symbolize growth, renewal, and hope.
For German artist Ursula von Rydingsvard, the childhood trauma of living in Polish refugee camps after World War II is “an unspeakable, horrible thing in my life.” The memories of the wooden floors, walls, and ceilings of the barracks where her family was sent inform most of her work in cedar. Her large-scale sculptures, like MOCNA, are typical of how she tries to “coax delicate nuanced surfaces from solid or intractable materials. Resistance is a teacher.” Commissioned by Knight-Hennessy Scholars to stand sentinel at the entrance to Denning House, MOCNA is a reminder of the importance of history and cultural heritage.
Technology, and its use or misuse, will inevitably play a role in the lives of scholars as they take their place on the global stage. American artist Trevor Paglen has been recognized with a MacArthur Award for his explorations into potentially intrusive mass surveillance and data collection. His work, like the Matterhorn (How to See Like a Machine) prints in the collection, asks what can be seen/what is hidden from us — provoking the question of whether these actions are threatening our basic human rights.
Floating above the staircase in Denning House is Wolf 359c by Argentine artist and architect Tomás Saraceno. This large, dramatic sculpture looks like a space-age transport vehicle, perhaps because the artist is known for his floating sculptures that suggest a “future airborne existence that is based on the utopia of flying.” In this “airocene” there are no borders, need for conflict or wars. And while it looks futuristic, the piece is actually inspired by a very earthly creature — the spider. Saraceno, who has also spent time at the International Space Studies Program at NASA Ames Center, is a proponent of collaborative interaction. The spider’s web is a “complex social and spatial structure of naturally made architecture.”
The Denning House art collection continues to grow and Elsasser explains that the aim is “to select artists for the collection who are pushing ideas and boundaries in their work and being recognized by curators and scholars internationally.” She has no doubt that these artists are or will become “part of the art historical canon.”
John Hennessy credits the Dennings for making possible not just the building and art collection but a place where the importance of creativity is encouraged and celebrated. “Thinking about problem-solving and bridging between cultures really inspired the Dennings to create this endowment that allows us to build over time a really fantastic, interesting, and engaging art collection. We aim both for aesthetics and also for art that encourages the opportunity to explore a different perspective.”
Denning House is open to the public for tours by reservation.
