Expansion Lesson Plan

Piece:

Expansion is a colorful artwork by creative and acclaimed artist Jun Kaneko, commissioned in April 2012 and installed in late October 2013 at the Court Avenue Pump House. The piece is lit from behind with 39,060 LED lights, and “talks” with Kaneko’s Five Dangos (“dumpling” in Japanese) just yards away in the Hubspot Plaza. This 15-foot high by 21-foot wide glass mural is constructed of blown glass, meant to highlight “rhythm, balance, and color… Hundreds of hand blown glass bands in 45 different colors were cut and each individually selected for composition by the artist.” (Find further information on this piece here: https://dsmpublicartfoundation.org/public-artwork/expansion/)

Artist:

Jun Kaneko is one of the world’s most famous and respected ceramic artists, with more than 30 public installations in the United States and Japan, and work in over 50 museums. Though Kaneko works with a variety of materials, his specialty is large-scale ceramics, such as the Five Dangos on view at the Hubspot Plaza.  Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942, Kaneko eventually established his studio in nearby Omaha, NE in 1990, which is open to the public.