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Rusty Freeman

Welcome to My Blog

Dear Reader: This is a blog for you, and by that I mean, I want this new initiative to be a two-way street. I will blog on current events in the art world that I think will resonate in southern Illinois, and I will write about the Cedarhurst museum’s permanent collections, the Goldman-Kuenz Sculpture Park, […]

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Dennis Oppenheim Arrives at Cedarhurst 1997

Dennis Oppenheim was a peripatetic artist, working as many did in the 1960s, first in Earth Art, then Body Art and Video Art, combining the last two in Performance Art, before moving on to Sculpture proper.  In each discipline, Dennis Oppenheim was an influential artist, well-respected by his peers.  Among Oppenheim’s many accolades, he was

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Sue Shrode and Eastern Leanings

In several important ways, the conservation of Eastern Leanings preserves not only Eastman’s contribution to our Goldman-Kuenz Sculpture Park, but also the legacy of Mt. Vernon native Marejon Sue Shrode. As part of Cedarhurst’s Kimball’s Habitat conservation initiative, we are painting Eastern Leanings. We have a new concrete platform to place it on and keep

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The Role of Museums in Democracies

Regarding democracies, according to Pew Research, “Concern has been growing for the past several years about the future of democracy, and there is considerable dissatisfaction in many countries with how democracy is working in practice. But public support for democratic ideals remains strong, and by one measure, global democracy is at or near a modern-day high.” Maintaining a

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What is Art Conservation?

Conservator and art restorer Vlad Zhitomirsky studies a work of art similar to a curator. Vlad and his business partner, Mikhail Matveyev, begin by determining the forms’ various origins and histories. They determine what construction techniques were used.  They evaluate the condition of each section of the art work examining every square inch, inside and out, for

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The Origins of Museums

The history of the genesis of museums is a fascinating blend of passion for all things handmade and for the beauty and strangeness of nature. This blog will introduce the motivating impulses of education and conservation that began museums and continue to inform museums today. The Cedarhurst Center for the Arts and the Goldman-Kuenz Sculpture Park are a part

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Aesthetic Autonomy

This blog introduces the current exhibition Fables, Allegories, and Aestheticism: The Art of the Message.   The exhibition compares two modes of art making; a mode which prioritizes the art itself as “the message of form” and a mode that prioritizes “the message of content.” Artists who follow the “message of form” create art without an

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