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2013 Contemporary Art as an Educational Resource: The oC ckerline Collection Leda Cempellin South Dakota State University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Cempellin, Leda. "Contemporary Art as an Educational Resource: The ockC erline Collection." Cockerline Collection: Prints of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. South Dakota Art Museum, 2013: 7-9 Print.

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From an eager college printmaking international scene, Cockerline originally student in Michigan to a major collector envisioned a collection that would of prints, Neil Cockerline has embraced educate future Michigan art students his educational mission by providing by providing a multi-faceted context as students with direct exposure to great art. inspiration for their own work. By including The adventure started during Cockerline's the offshoot of , early formative years at Alma College in Color Field, Hard-Edge Abstraction, Michigan (1977-1981), in an exchange , New Realism, Photorealism, of academic work with his mentor, Conceptual Art, plus several artists printmaker Kent Kirby. After graduation, whose work does not easily fall into he became of Collections at specific categories, the collection the Anderson Fine Arts Center in Indiana. acquired a truly encyclopedic width During frequent visits to the Indianapolis in presenting the variety of styles, Museum of Art, he purchased the experiments, and outcomes that serigraph Miles by after characterized those decades. being forced to rent it for three months. In the following years, Cockerline has been The blurring of distinctions between fine arts and crafts and the emerging practicing all the tips that Keren Blankfeld (2011), suggests to create a good pluralism in the Seventies allowed women collection: such as buying what he loved, artists a more equal access to the art rather than relying on the ever-changing world through emerging galleries and art world; extensively reading about art- alternative exhibiting spaces. Lynda keeping an eye on auctions; familiarizing Benglis was a student at Yale when the himself with the art market; being advised art department head tried to discourage by galleries and museums (p.23). her pursuit of an art career; "Lynda Benglis remembers Tworkov's telling them With a few exceptions (such as a Man that his wife was an artist and his sister Ray and De Chirico), the collection's was an artist, and that it was just too timeline spans from the Sixties difficult - there were too many obstacles." (correspondent to the collector's youth) (Tomkins, 1989, p.46). Besides Benglis, to the early Eighties, when Cockeriine the Cockerline collection has holdings graduated and methodically started of well-known and established women this collecting adventure. In 1981 Alma artists, such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Lee College initiated a competition of Krasner, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson and printmakers living in Michigan; with a Beverly Pepper. With a keen eye and the keen eye on both the regional artistic skills of a talent-scout, Neil Cockerline community and the larger national and has also included Greek-American artist Chryssa Vardea, activist Sister Mary media by Pop art has been paralleled Corita, and performance and multimedia by the extensive introduction of prints artist Colette Maison Lumiere, into the art market since the early Sixties, sharing the same "essentially The collection includes works by Fritz democratic strategy, having largely to Scholder, a well-renowned Native do with accessibility and affordability, American artist as well as lithographs as artists explored alternatives to of illustrious personalities among the conventional painting and " Sioux and Cheyenne by Leonard Baskin, (Genocchio, 2006, p.5), In an era in an artist committed to memory and which other artistic forms, such as history in figurative terms, By denying Earthworks and Performance Art, were the contemporary artists' bowing to vv challenging the art market mechanism irrationality, Baskin embraced the by going outdoors or by eliminating the courage and intelligence to use the past material and expensive fine art object, without being used or used up by it, the Pop artists were producing cheaper endless desire to know man again and prints to be distributed "independently again in all its avatars of flesh and art" of the museum and gallery system" (Kaplan, 1999-2000, p.459). (Genocchio, 2006, p.5). In particular, A few collectors born outside the art Christo turned photos of his projects world and having relatively modest into signed posters to be distributed to means have collected with a non- sponsor his work. Cockerline loves what discriminatory eye the art they truly he defines the "educational process" loved, without the preoccupation of involved in Christo's work, as he tries to following institutional trends or aligning lobby constituents towards approving his to exclusions dictated by mainstream art projects and to involve the audience in politics. Neil Cockerline, a curator and sponsoring the projects by purchasing conservator, has been preceded by drawings, lithographs, and photos. Dorothy and Herb Vogel, described by Running Fence, whose photo is present in Ruth Fine (2008), as respectively a well- the collection, summarizes Christo's artistic educated librarian and a post office clerk philosophy by presenting the fence "not (p.3). Having embraced public service all as a barrier, but as a means to foment their lives, these collectors have carried collaboration" (King, 2010, pp.28-29). a genuine mission of Visual democracy' Through the years, both the size and into their vision, scope of this collection increased Cockerline has been assisted in the beyond Cockerline's initial expectations; fulfillment of this mission by the choice of in 2011, he made his final decision to printmaking. The massive appropriation donate the entire collection to the South of subjects and techniques from the mass Dakota Art Museum. In 1972, art collector Ben Goldstein co-curated an exhibition of political posters from the 1930s-1940s at the New York Cultural Center, with an "internal logic" reflecting a heartfelt didactical role (Buhle & Smulyan, 2001, p.671). Likewise, Neil Cockerline was involved in selecting the works for this first exhibition of highlights from his collection. When a collector renounces to exclusive consumption and donates his/her collection to a museum for public display and for meeting students didactical needs, "possession" evolves into "access", thus resulting in an even more satisfactory and refreshing relationship with art objects enriched of ever-changing meanings (Chen, 2009, pp.925-926).

Leda Cempellin, Ph.D.