If you look hard enough, you can find art in places you’d least expect it. Dank alley walls covered in used chewing gum, musical boulders in the Huron River, even the Ross School of Business – all are places where we can see something out of the ordinary if we just look hard enough. The stunning architecture of the new-ish Ross building in combination with the highly competitive nature of its bustling inhabitants makes the B-school an intimidating place to walk past, let alone wander through. But exploring the surprisingly expressive collection of artworks inside its formidable red-orange brick and glass facade is well worth it.
Ross is home to work in a variety of media; from anthropomorphic sculptures made of skis to textural paintings spanning entire walls (courtesy of Art & Design professor Jim Cogswell), as well as work by renowned artists like Claus Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg; there is a multitude of interesting things to look at in the well-lit atrium. Sunlight is distributed evenly throughout the space by mirrors fixed on metal posts, directing the eye to sweep across every glass surface and splash of color animating the furniture and walls. Walking around inside, one can forget that they’re in a place of competitive learning and not a new art museum on campus.
Scared of B-schoolers staring you down? Don your sharpest power suit; you’ll blend right in. If by some chance they manage to see through such a clever ruse, at least you won’t attract as much attention as the performance artists/A&D students who staged a drawing studio class in the lobby last year. They didn’t even have their clothes on. And if they can brave austere architecture and calculating stares in the name of art, so can you.
You can see the extensive Ross collection online here – but we all know that the art is better in person.
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