Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts facilitates the creation, presentation, and understanding of contemporary art through an international residency program, exhibitions, and educational programs. Located in an historic warehouse district in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, its studios, exhibition and rehearsal spaces, sculpture and ceramics facility, dark room, computer stations and new state-of-the-art recording studios are open to residents 24/7. Eleven artists are selected from applicants around the world to come to Bemis in three residency periods a year which last from 2-3 months.
Bemis Center
Paul Mpagi Sepuya; “Drop Scene,” 2020; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; Photo: Colin Conces.
Maria Antelman; “Soft Interface,” 2020; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; Photo: Colin Conces.
Joey Fauerso; "Inside the Spider's Body," 2020; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; Photo: Colin Conces.
Laura Ortman performance at LOW END November 14, 2019 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE.
Miatta Kawinzi, Bemis 2017 Artist-in-Residence and 2019 Bemis Alumni Award Winner. Performance at Open House / Open Studios October 21, 2017 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE.
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”