Category: Visual Arts

REVIEW: Stamps Undergraduate Juried Exhibition

Angela Gosselin Leave a comment

The Stamps Gallery is a severely underrated gallery. Each time I visit the space, the work present engages me and shows innovation in the art world. This exhibition is no exception. Truly showing the range of the University of Michigan’s art and design students, this exhibition showcased work ranging from video to functional design to fashion and more. Leaving the exhibition, I felt excited for the direction of art and design in Michigan and globally.

 

It made me really happy to see works and artists my student group, Helicon, has included in its past exhibitions and publications. The dual visibility in both student-run and institutional contexts I find important to not only succeeding in the visual arts, but also being relevant and contributing to the student arts community. One example of such an individual is Brooks Eisenbise and their work Carrying All of This, a piece that was really intriguing to see in person after working with its image in our publication this past spring. The tactility of the work and the way it hovers between mediums and artistic forms is enough to draw viewers in. From there, though, one finds the work itself to be intimate and challenging, ultimately creating a highly contemplative personal and aesthetic experience.

 

 

Student work is important. Viewing student work is important. Putting student work in a gallery is important. It’s easy to look back at old masters and funky modernists and feel that art ends at Van Gogh and Kahlo, but art is a key part of the never ending process of culture-making. To disregard the current state of visual arts practice is to disregard what will come to play a part in defining our cultural moment. It is a great disservice to oneself, too, to miss out on placing oneself in the presented realities of others. Not to say an undergraduate exhibition at the University of Michigan offers the complete range of perspectives necessary to build the contemporary world of art, but going and looking and taking in the

student perspective and its subset of forms is a small step forward to contextualizing the world through the powerful and (in this and most cases) un-contrived form of visual arts. It’s also just plain exciting to examine the trajectories of these skilled artists and what their early work means for the direction of art and design. The exhibition is open until December 15th– go play the individual’s part in the arts and look.

 

 

(pictured at left: Obsession39 by Sophie Linden)

 

REVIEW: 2019 Stamps Undergraduate Juried Exhibition

Shannon Z 1 Comment

The 2019 Stamps Undergraduate Juried Exhibition opened amidst great excitement and contemplation on Friday, November 22nd, as most gallery receptions do. The exhibition consisted of over 50 Stamps undergraduate pieces, including both personal and course-related work, spread relatively evenly among each graduating class. I was pleasantly surprised with the diversity of subject matter, artistry, style, and media – which ranged from two-dimensional mediums like printmaking and collage work to three-dimensional and even four-dimensional mediums like embroidery, upcycled materials, and animation. Not only is the this annual Stamps Gallery tradition an excellent opportunity for students to showcase their work, but it additionally bridges the Stamps undergraduate community to Stamps alumni. All three of the visiting jurors, Parisa Ghaderi, Cynthia Greig, and Cosmo Whyte, are Stamps MFA graduates, as well as nationally and internationally recognized creatives.

 

Beyond the award-winning pieces, a couple of other works piqued my interest after after catching my eye for their emotionality and aesthetic appeal. Anna Cao’s Flowing Water and Falling Spring immediately stuck out for its vivacity, in both its rich imagery and allusions to Japanese aesthetics. From a distance, the serene scenery seems to surrealistically flow together in a seamless fashion, as if painted on one canvas. Yet as the viewer closes that distance, the rippling waters, snowy mountains, and familiar figures setting down water lanterns reveal to be collaged paper elements from different contexts – each vivid in their individuality yet still cohesively merged in dialogue with one another.

 

 

Gray Snyder’s Abstract Self Portrait, a monochrome, triptych timeline of the artist’s emotional growth and development, evoked within me a sense of peace yet empty solitude. I thought Snyder’s universally interpretable linear forms, spiraling shapes, splatters, and shadows that seemed to fall across the tapestry were ingeniously effective in portraying emotional transformation and the various stages of grief.

 

 


Another tapestry work imbued with the artist’s emotional histories, this one of embroidered, dyed, and woven cotton, was Brook Eisenbise’s Carrying All of This. Each aesthetic aspect of this work was carefully chosen by the artist to communicate her grandmother’s complex experience with her husband’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis. Even without reading the accompanying information about the piece, the tension created from Eisenbise’s graphic color scheme, typographic elements, and jostling French knots was highly evocative of stress and human experiences of pain.

 

 

 

 

 

This exhibition will be on view until December 15, 2019 at the Stamps Gallery on S Division – I highly recommend making a trip down to experience the diverse, exceptional talent and hard work concentrated in the Stamps student body!

PREVIEW: Stamps Undergraduate Juried Exhibition

Angela Gosselin Leave a comment

This Friday is the opening of the 2019 Undergraduate Juried Exhibition for the Penny Stamps School of Art and Design.  The show will be featuring selected works from Art and Design students, and is sure to be an excellent showcase of the creative and innovative force found in our student body.

 

The show is on display at the Stamps Gallery on 201 S. Division through December 15th. Its opening reception will be from 6-8pm Friday. Saturday, students who have won awards for their work will be chatting about their work in the gallery from 2-4pm.

 

Go out and support students making excellent work!

 

REVIEW: WSG Gallery Autumn Salon

Angela Gosselin Leave a comment

The WSG Gallery is currently running their Autumn Salon, a show true to the salon spirit with works stacked up to its ceilings. It’s a format I don’t see as much in museums and galleries, but one I think should still have its place in art display. While one doesn’t meditate quite as much on singular pieces, the collage of work displays both the variety and also the more general themes and techniques used by these local artists. This makes for a rich display of individual and community artistic sensibilities.

 

There was an interesting mix of art forms, especially seen in the abstract sculptures found in the window. In a gallery where two dimensional works tower over you, finding common ground with some three dimensional forms creates a more dynamic, engaging experience as one has moments to appreciate the translation of different artistic principles and elements (like color, shape, and form) to a completely different manifestation of creativity.

 

As I have a personal history of learning and preferring figure drawing and painting, the figural work on display consistently stood out to me. One artist that stands out is Nora Venturelli, a professor at the Stamps School of Art and Design. Their rhythmic, daring compositions and color schemes attracted my eye, and I found their work to be really engaging. I never get tired of playing with human contours and movement in my own work, so to see a take using bolder color and thoughtful paint application was really enjoyable for me.

pictured: Nora Venturelli, Vice Versa, no. 48

 

Lastly, Maria Ruggiero’s Hillside Houses, Tuscany stood out to me. What’s so interesting about this piece is the layering of different paint strokes and application patterns, and the way Ruggiero does so in a way that is evidently done with considerations to atmospheric perspective inso that these different techniques work together to create unity rather than falling apart. I’m not really a landscape person, but this work definitely takes the concept to a different place, offering playful technique and lively color that convinces viewers to linger just a little bit longer.

 

pictured: Maria Ruggiero, Hillside Houses, Tuscany

 

I encourage students and community members alike to go take a look at what’s being offered at the WSG Gallery and get a feel for some of the art being produced out of Ann Arbor and the surrounding area. The show closes November 23rd; go enjoy the last remnants of fall while you can!

REVIEW: Parasite

Angela Gosselin Leave a comment

Parasite is a film best seen going in with no prior background information; I’ll say that first. Once one does have the chance to experience this film,  it becomes very evident why it has garnered so many awards and positive reviews. 

 

This movie is a perfectly orchestrated descent into total class warfare. What begins as a sort of heist film with comedic points becomes a gruesome thriller, sucking in the audience into a shocking and layered story of privilege, identity, and sacrifice. The story is well-paced and original, showing the way a family from a lower-class background infiltrates and profits off of an unsuspecting upper-class family. So much is said about the way class functions, whether that’s through a metaphor like living in a basement versus a semi-basement versus a modern home or in a symbolic device of a club-like gift meant to bring about wealth. 

Image result for parasite movie

In terms of cinematography, the film aesthetically is simply beautiful to watch. There are some points where I found myself struck simply by the artistic style of Parasite. An especially jarring example for me was in the contrast of two sequences towards the end of the film: one being a family saving their personal belongings from their flooded home and thus spending the night in a shelter with other affected families, and the other sequence being a privileged young boy waking up in a sun-soaked, clean tent after deciding to camp out on his family’s perfectly manicured lawn for the evening. The thematic meaning of this juxtaposition was distinctly amplified due to the dutiful attention to light, composition, and color in these shots. The rest of the film has plenty of examples like this, where firstly one feels awe towards the beauty and complexity of the visual and then, due to the striking image, one finds meaning that goes beyond plot.

 

The performances in this film were crucial to adding dimensionality to the conflict and avoiding binary definitions of characters, their motives, and their actions. All the actors and actresses were extraordinary, but Song Kang-ho’s performance as Kim Ki-taek, the father of the Kim family, was especially powerful. There’s so much behind his character that comes through in his expressions and tone, especially when the film reaches its twist. In an emotional scene with Choi Woo-shik, who plays his son Kim Ki-woo, he speaks of the futility of planning anything in life. His performance here says so much implicitly about his character’s difficult life and what it means to persist in a world where one is perpetually marginalized, and it’s both amazing and devastating to watch.

Image result for parasite movie

This review may seem like simple praise, and that’s because it is. In a time where franchise films are finally getting critical attention outside Rotten Tomatoes praise, Parasite offers an excellent example of what films should be getting space in theaters. This film is not only technically executed with precision and style, but it is an important piece of work that speaks to today’s alarming social and economic disparities.

REVIEW: WSG Autumn Salon

Shannon Z Leave a comment

On a mildly dismal Friday afternoon in Ann Arbor, I braved the bitingly cold winter currents to trek over to the Autumn Salon exhibition presented by the WSG Gallery on S Main. The idea behind Autumn Salon‘s clustered arrangement originates from the famed Salon de Paris, in which artwork is hung from every available space in the gallery, pinched together in forced dialogue in their nearly floor-to-ceiling occupancies. Not only was the Salon de Paris considered the greatest Western art event of its time, during 1748 to 1890 France, its signature method of exhibition was also adopted as the focus of many painted works of the century.  As I wandered through the WSG modern-day interpretation, a visual mingling of color, medium, and style, I could sense a similar cohesion of artistic energy that flowed throughout the gallery space.

I had the chance to speak with Adrienne Kaplan, a WSG member known for her large and expressive painted portraits of human faces – she informed me that there was no intentional ‘theme’ to Autumn Salon besides that of the mode of exhibition resembling the original Salon de Paris. Nevertheless, as I made my way around the maze of closely hung artworks, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern between the selected works – many depicted the essences of nature, the human figure, or both, with some utilizing the repetition of organic forms found in the natural world as motifs and/or inspiration.

Among those that I found myself most drawn to were two works by WSG Visiting Artist Helen Gotlib: Water Garden V and Water Garden VII. Both pieces consisted of woodblock prints accented with gold leaf and presented on hand-dyed paper. Compared to the boisterous energy emanating from neighboring exhibition walls, these two pieces instilled within me a sense of peace and calm. As I observed the endless ellipses and fingerprint-like patterns formed by the woodblock prints, my eyes naturally began to travel, almost in a hypnotized state, up and around each aged tree ring until they were almost oscillating in rhythm to the tree’s ‘story’.

WSG member Lynda Cole is another artist whose work seems to explore organic forms and their repetition, almost through a hypnotic lens. Pictured here are images of her original digital drawing, Nautilus Ghost, and their placement in the exhibition – this piece immediately caught my attention for how well it epitomizes the, personally ephemeral, sensation of ‘floating’ – the mesh-like form seems to both cascade and twist into itself before disappearing into a flat void.Nautilus Ghost : original digital drawing printed with pigment ink on archival paper : various sizes : open edition

I left these two artists’ works and the beautifully overwhelming Autumn Salon with a vaguely fulfilled sense of loneliness – the exhibition made me feel swallowed in various different artistic voices for its clustered arrangement of works, and both Cole’s and Gotlib’s pieces visually engaged me much like an optical illusion would.

 

WSG Autumn Salon will be on view until November 23, 2019, so be sure to stop by the WSG Gallery to see these works and more in person!