WICHITA.- The Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University presents the exhibit Midwestern Unlike You and Me: New Zealand’s Julian Dashper through October 15. Spanning the past 25 years of Dashper’s art, this ambitious exhibition features over 30 works, including paintings, photography, sound recordings, videos, and readymade objects. Through a concept-based art, Dashper examines the global exchange of ideas about so-called international styles (such as American Modernism); the reception and dissemination of visual culture; and the subversion and re-positioning of what is often considered marginal elements of the art world, such as its institutional framework.

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1960. Dashper graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland in 1982. He has exhibited widely in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe since 1980. His major New Zealand exhibitions include, Julian Dashper's Greatest Hits, Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 1992; The Big Bang Theory, Artspace, 1994; and The Twist, Waikato Museum of Art and History, 1998. Much of Dashper's work concerns the connections between abstract art and popular culture. One of his themes is the reading of international modernism in New Zealand art, and how in New Zealand we know the great modernist works largely through reproduction. Another is the canon – the list of artists regarded by the culture as great. The Big Bang Theory for instance puts the names of major New Zealand regional artists on drumkits, as though they were rock bands. In 2001 Dashper was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and was the artist-in-residence at the Donald Judd Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Dashper lives and works in Auckland and travels extensively.