Kurt Dyrhaug: Chan Chan Drawings at AMSET

The Art Museum of Southeast Texas is proud to present Kurt Dyrhaug: Chan Chan Drawings as the 2024 fall West Hall installation. Kurt Dyrhaug is currently a Professor and Distinguished Faculty Research Fellow at Lamar University where he teaches Sculpture, 3-D Design, and 3-D Printing. This is the first time that the entire Chan Chan Drawings series has been presented to the Southeast Texas community.

The Chan Chan Drawings were influenced by Dyrhaug’s visit to the archeological site of Chan Chan, which existed as the capital of the Chimu Kingdom (15th century) and was the chief state in Peru before the establishment of the Inca empire. Chan Chan is located 3 miles from Trujillo, Peru. It covers over 14 square miles and is distinctive for representing the Americas’ largest pre-Hispanic mud brick settlement.

Once the largest Pre-Columbian city in South America, it is estimated that over 60,000 people lived in and around Chan Chan. Chan Chan was divided into 9 walled citadels, each constructed out of adobe brick and then finished with mud. The citadels were sub-divided into temples, dwellings, storehouses, orchards, cemeteries, gardens, reservoirs, and symmetrically arranged rooms, all for the aristocracy. Most of the city’s population lived outside of the citadels’ walls. In 1986, Chan Chan was added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites. In his Chan Chan Drawings series, Dyrhaug explores architectural forms, space, and texture utilizing gesso, sand, metal coatings and patinas to bring renewed life to the city’s ancient walls.

Kurt Dyrhaug has exhibited his sculptures and drawings throughout the United States and abroad, including Germany, Japan, Poland, Peru, and Spain. He has been an artist in residence at the Atelierhaus Hilmsen in Hilmsen, Germany and the Fundacion Torres Pujales in Corme, Spain. He currently coordinates the International Symposium for cast metal & 3-D printing at the Atelierhaus Hilmsen Residency in Germany and co-chaired the 2022 International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art in Berlin, Germany. Dyrhaug earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota (1993) and his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1989).