Professor Bauer will be included in the upcoming exhibition, The American Landscape: Beyond the Horizon, at the Museum of Wisconsin Art!
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, this exhibition offers a timely reconsideration of the landscapes we inhabit and the meanings we attach to them. Drawing from the Museum of Wisconsin Art’s collection alongside significant loans by Georgia O’ Keeffe, John Stuart Curry, and contemporary artists who reflect Wisconsin’s legacy. The exhibition also highlights contemporary voices engaging Wisconsin’s artistic legacy.
Opening Reception: May 2, 2:00–4:00 PM On View: May 2 – July 19
Bill Bohne’ Masking Tape (Early 1970s, Date Unknown) Single Channel Video transferred from ¾” UMATIC Tape B/W, Silent, 11:50
Bill Bohne’s video Masking Tape was created in the vein of early conceptual video art, specifically within the mode often described as “performance for camera.” Emerging in the late 1960s alongside the growing accessibility of portable video technologies, this approach was adopted by many artists exploring the possibilities of this experimental medium. These artists used the camera as the primary site of the work itself. Typically employing fixed framing, minimal editing, and durational actions. Such works foreground the body, repetition, and constraint while stripping away narrative and spectacle in favor of conceptual procedure.
Masking Tape adheres closely to these conceptual strategies. The camera remains static, focused on a head-and-shoulders composition as Bohne methodically places disposable dust masks over his face, one after another, throughout the tape. The action is simple, repetitive, and task-based, aligning the work with conceptual art’s emphasis on systems and instructions. At the same time, the accumulating masks gradually become sculpturally absurd and begin to impede the mask’s function, introducing a subtle tension between safety and suffocation.
Originally recorded on 3/4″ U-MATIC tape, the video was rediscovered in a storage area of the Bush Art Center and later transferred to digital format by Archival Works in St. Paul, Minnesota. This material history reinforces the work’s origin in an early moment of video experimentation, when artists worked with emerging, often fragile recording technologies that have since required preservation to prevent deterioration.
Viewed today, Masking Tape accrues new layers of meaning. The act of placing mask upon mask, once read primarily through the lens of conceptual procedure or performance endurance, now inevitably recalls the lived experience of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. What may have originally functioned as an abstract or absurd gesture takes on renewed resonance as an image of protection, anxiety, and the social politics of masking. The work’s repetitive accumulation mirrors the psychological weight of prolonged crisis. In this way, Bohne’s video not only participates in the historical discourse of early video art but also demonstrates how such works can be reactivated by contemporary conditions, generating meanings beyond their original intention and context.
– Brandon Bauer, Associate Professor of Art (2026)
Join us tonight, 6:00–7:30 PM at the Bush Art Center for an evening celebrating 70 years of art at St. Norbert College.
Experience four exhibitions: the Senior Capstone Exhibition in the Baer Gallery, new work by Donald P. Taylor in the Godschalx Gallery, Past Present Future featuring faculty across generations in the Permanent Collection Gallery, and Masking Tape, a rediscovered early video work by Bill Bohne in the Media Space Gallery.
The evening also includes a special screening of Bill Bohne’s The Last Lecture in BAC 130!
Bill Bohne – Last Lecture: A Performance Piece (1974) B/W, sound, 31:11, VHS transfer to digital video (original video source unknown)
Bill Bohne’s Last Lecture: A Performance Piece (1974) is a work in the vein of early conceptual video art, emphasizing duration, repetition, and the body. This approach frames performance as a procedural and conceptual act rather than a theatrical event.
The video begins with humorous meditations on the notion of the “last,” moving between popular culture and high art while foregrounding the lecture as a constructed performance. Language becomes both subject and material through repetition and self-reflexive commentary. Bohne states, “I don’t want to be there for my last lecture,” and goes on to say, “You’ll notice when you look around the room this evening that I am not there, only in a mediumistic manner.” These statements destabilize presence and authorship, aligning the work with conceptual strategies that privilege idea over object.
Formally, the video adheres to and disrupts the conventions of performance for the camera. Bohne’s face is never fully visible, either cropped out or turned away, reinforcing the sense of absence. Repetition structures both language and movement, while rudimentary analog editing reflects the technological conditions of early video.
Described by Bohne as a “death avoidance fake-out,” the work culminates in his promise to give the lecture the “run-around.” For the remainder of the tape, he circles the camera continuously. After briefly attempting to follow him, the camera returns to a fixed position, allowing him to pass through the frame at regular intervals, foregrounding a static viewpoint and durational action central to early conceptual video practice. The soundtrack layers repeated phrases of “this is my last lecture,” which Bohne describes as an incantation. This accumulation transforms language into a rhythmic, quasi-ritualistic structure, collapsing meaning into sound and duration. In this way, Last Lecture exemplifies how early conceptual video reduces performance to procedural constraints through which presence, authorship, and temporality are tested with both rigor and humor.
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Art students Kyler Lasee and Tyli Scheetz will present about their exhibition, It All Matters Now: A Creative Resistance, as part of the SUNY New Paltz Undergraduate Art History Symposium. The exhibition, curated from the St. Norbert College Art Collection, explored themes of freedom of expression through works from the College’s permanent collection. It was presented in collaboration with the Fall of Freedom national initiative at the Bush Art Center’s Godschalx Gallery and was on view from November 3 to December 5, 2025.
Their presentation will take place as part of Session 8B on Thursday, April 9, at 7:45 p.m. (CT) and can be viewed via Zoom with registration.
The Bush Art Center Galleries are pleased to present a new slate of spring exhibitions celebrating the past, present, and future of the St. Norbert College Art Department.
This year marks a significant milestone: the 70th anniversary of the Art department and the 25th anniversary of the Bush Art Center as our department home!
The Art program was established in 1956 to bring art education to the campus community. Founded by Professor Daniel F. Dickhut, the College’s first full-time art faculty member and notably its first lay faculty member. The Art department played a pivotal role in shaping the institution’s evolution. In many ways, the Art department helped usher in a more expansive, interdisciplinary academic environment at St. Norbert College.
The exhibitions on view reflect this legacy, featuring selections from the permanent collection, new work by past and present faculty, and the Senior Capstone Exhibition, which highlights the achievements of graduating seniors as they prepare to carry their creative practices beyond the College and into the broader world.
Exhibitions Include:
2026 Senior Capstone Exhibition (Baer Gallery) Featuring work by Margaret Byrne, Itzel Chavarria-Castaneda, Lara Deshler, Kyler Lasee, Finn Noto, Meredith Posanski, Tyli Scheetz, and G. Szczerba.
Donald P. Taylor: are you making any Art? (Godschalx Gallery) Presenting new work by emeritus faculty member and former gallery director Donald P. Taylor.
Past Present Future (Permanent Collection Gallery) Showcasing work by current and former faculty, including Brandon Bauer, Bill Bohne, Daniel Dickhut, Abbey Gagne, John Gordon, Jim Neilson, Charles Peterson, Brian Pirman, Marilyn Stasiak, Donald Taylor, and Michael Wartgow.
Masking Tape by Bill Bohne (Media Space Gallery) A work of early video art recently rediscovered and digitally archived for exhibition.
The opening reception will take place on April 17, 2026, from 6:00–7:30 p.m. and will include a special presentation of Bill Bohne’s video performance piece, The Last Lecture, in the Bush Art Center Lecture Hall (BAC 130).
Please join us in celebrating 70 years of art at St. Norbert College and the vibrant community of artists, educators, and students who continue to shape its future.
Join us for an evening of art and conversation at the Carol & Robert Bush Art Center!
Now on view: The Days Go By Like Wildnessby Colin Matthes in the Baer Gallery, Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like by Aaron Hughes in the Godschalx Gallery, and The Cut by Eliseo Ortiz in the Media Space Gallery.
Meet artists Aaron Hughes and Colin Matthes at the exhibition reception on Tuesday, February 24 | 5–7 PM.
Carol & Robert Bush Art Center St. Norbert College 403 3rd St, De Pere, WI 54115
Exhibition curated by Kyler Lasee & Tyli Scheetz, Presented in collaboration with Fall of Freedom, St. Norbert College, Bush Art Center, Godschalx Gallery, Exhibition on View from November 3 – December 5, 2025
It All Matters Now: A Creative Resistance is a student-curated exhibition exploring freedom of expression through works from St. Norbert College’s permanent collection. The exhibition examines how artists use creative expression as a means of resistance, reflection, and dialogue in moments of social and political urgency. Join us for a reception and interactive activity on November 21 at noon.
Artists in the exhibition: Kelly Armer, Brandon Bauer & Colin Matthes, Tom Diedrich, Harold E Hansen, Marion Howard, Nicolas Lampert & Paul Kjelland, Josh MacPhee, Tom Martin, Walter Nottingham, Peter Popalski, Pete Railand, Erik Ruin, Shaun Slifer
Also on view a two day exhibition of Social Media Delivers People (After Serra & Schoolman), my contemporary reinterpretation of Richard Serra’s 1970s video critiquing the power of media, in the Media Space Gallery, November 21–22.
