Tag: art exhibit

REVIEW: Touch by Ericka Lopez

Madi Hammond Leave a comment

“Please do not touch the art.”

In most museums, art exhibits or galleries– at least that I have attended– that message is posted loud and clear. But at Touch, an art exhibition by Ericka Lopez housed in the Institute for the Humanities Gallery, touching the art is encouraged.

Lopez was born with limited vision and today is completely blind. As a result, her art-making process comes through the sense of touch and her memories of color. The exhibit houses three different types of pieces: mixed-media sculptures, ceramics and punch-rug textiles. 

I walked into the small square room with some trepidation. The exhibit is housed in the Institute for the Humanities Gallery, a square room on the first floor of Thayer Academic Building. I went during the middle of a weekday, so the gallery was understandably quiet. What drew my eye immediately were the circular mixed-media sculptures hanging on the wall. Each one looks different, and are colorful amalgamations of yarn, beads, buttons, fabric and even keys. 

Multi-media sculptures at Touch, by Ericka Lopez. Courtesy of Madison Hammond.

It felt unnatural to touch an art exhibit. I gently reached out, and realized how much the texture of the piece added to the experience. The plastic beads and bundles of string contrast each other visually, but they contrast even more in texture. These everyday objects take on a new life in these pieces.

I moved on to Lopez’s punch-rugs. Each of these pieces follow a cohesive color scheme, and with the eye look a bit plainer than the multi-media sculptures since they don’t include as many mediums as the sculptures. (Don’t worry, though; there are still plenty of beads and buttons here).

Punch-rug pieces from Touch, by Ericka Lopez. Courtesy of Madison Hammond.

Despite being completely blind, Lopez uses color masterfully. According to Amanda Krugliak, the exhibit curator, Lopez has figured out how to distinguish different colored materials based on touch and scent. This unique method is part of what makes Lopez’s pieces so creative and imaginative; the exhibit is unlike any other that I’ve seen. It pushes the boundaries of the future of art.

I decided to try closing my eyes before touching each of these pieces– and this is how I suggest enjoying most of the exhibit, but these pieces especially. Lopez places different textiles in intentional patterns to create a landscape that comes alive as you feel it. 

In the center of the room, Lopez’s ceramic pieces sit atop two tables. The deeper meaning behind these pieces escaped me at first. I stared at the beautifully glazed coil pots before scanning the QR code to read about the pieces, where I learned that the warped and lopsided shapes come from Lopez hugging or holding the pots before firing. The relationship between the body and the art, the artist and her pieces, is what makes these pieces meaningful. 

Ceramics at Touch, by Ericka Lopez. Courtesy of Madison Hammond.

Accessibility within the arts can seem tricky. How can one convey a two-dimensional painting to someone who can’t see the painting? But exhibits like this, which also include exhibit descriptions in Braille next to the pieces, show that visual art can interact with more senses than just sight. For someone like myself, who is not visually impaired, the addition of the physical texture and sensory experience of touching the pieces made the exhibit feel so much more personal. Maybe more art should be made to be touched.

Touch is open 9-5, Monday through Friday, until December 13.

REVIEW: EMBODY 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition.

niezi Leave a comment

During a gallery visit on a cool Friday, the exhibit was quiet, uninterrupted as a projected screen on the wall played the construction and deconstruction of bread against fragile grid paper. As a common theme, EMBODY is a refinement of material in each of the exhibiting works, a process of transformation that embodies a larger significance.

From the opening entrance into Stephanie Brown’s Am I Enough, the power of material is palpable. There’s a tactile installation in a palette of skin tones, like suits someone could wear on and off in a closet. Following this idea and framed by the poem typed on the wall, is a shirt display with no bleach symbols and an exhibition of different people of colour dressed in them. The meaning is clear: no whitewashing; please wash gently with unlike colours.

The idea of an identity is juxtaposed with clothes and fabrics, the same way we wear biases. But colourism, racism, and the weight of an identity – these are things that are less easily taken off than the way someone might take off a coat.

To a more abstract kind of expressionism with material, How to draw a line by the clenching of a fist by Brynn Higgins-Stirrup explores both the geometric and fluid, with images and sculptures that are inherently tactile, a history of molding folded into their form. It is work that is engaging and dynamic to look at, something that captures attention into the process like a manual of how to create.

There are some interesting, beautiful and abstract shapes, touchable and twisted, such as the grid upon paper like a map, a pathway of how things are created. It’s an exhibit that almost elicits a need to touch and explore the pieces from their nuanced, delicate complexity.

Crossing by Brenna K. Murphy utilizes the same kind of complexity. But it’s a labour of love, painstakingly slow and focused. Within the work, there’s an idea of reverence for the length of lace that looks so breakable and easily tangled. It’s solemn, the motions of deconstructing a sweater for the threads to create something new; deconstructing the old clothes in a process of grief.

It is there, coiled but unexpressed, and the creation of this lace over a long period of time, as if looking for all the time that heals, and creating a sadness that is now tangible – it is an art piece that spans long and delicate across an entire room.

Finally, the closet of the bedroom of / offscreen / by Robert J. Fitzgerald is located near the entrance of the gallery, while the rest is situated near the back, as if a teaser to the private life of a teenage boy. The exhibition uses personal materials, creating a sense of nostalgia as projections of old films play in the intimate corners of an adolescent’s bedroom – between the window shutters, underneath bed sheets, in a sock drawer.

There is definitely something secluded about a bedroom, now opening it up for a glimpse of someone’s individual life. It’s comfortable, excluded from the outside world save for the projections of films that have influence on this privacy.

Each work exploring material to embody a particular narrative, the MFA Thesis Exhibition is worth a trip to the Stamps Gallery.

PREVIEW: What Were You Wearing?

Abby Z Leave a comment

 

Displayed previously at the University of Kansas, this thought-provoking exhibit is stopping here at the University for just one day, so be sure to check it out.  Featuring 18 stories of sexual assault , the exhibit hopes to challenge victim blaming and the idea that sexual assault survivors are ever to be held responsible for the crimes of others.   This event was organized by HeforShe and should be an important step in promoting both reflection and conversation here on campus.

 

This exhibit will be housed in the commons of the UMMA this coming Monday, Dec 4th, from 5:30-8:30. The exhibit is FREE to all and there will be desserts and refreshments provided by zingermans so be sure to stop by and check it out!  

 

REVIEW: Toledo Museum of Art / Kehinde Wiley’s A New Republic

Allie Scholten 1 Comment

“I am standing on the shoulders of all those artists who came before me, but here there is a space for a new way of seeing black and brown bodies all over the world” – Kehinde Wiley

Upon arrival to the Toledo Museum of Arts and promptly demonstrating my navigational incapability, I was kindly directed to the temporary exhibit just around the corner featuring the works of Kehinde Wiley. Near empty – my favorite way to experience museums – the gallery continued beyond my expectations, featuring a large number of works. Wiley’s portraits often reached from floor to ceiling, a daunting presence over the viewer. The pieces are beyond striking; Wiley’s characteristic style features portraits placed onto bright, almost cartoon-esque floral and geometric backgrounds that begin to creep over the bodies of the subjects. Wiley’s portraits feature men and women of color, often strangers he has approached on the street. Looking to the works of Old Master paintings for inspiration, Wiley allows the models to choose for themselves who they are modeled after, giving them authority within their representation. Wiley’s work encourages a discussion about the roles of race, gender, and religion within art. It was a strange experience to exit the world of Wiley the Toledo Museum created, only to enter into the next gallery featuring the same white, aristocratic portraits this exhibition critiqued.

Bound by Kehinde Wiley

Outside of the Wiley exhibit, the Toledo Museum of Art features a strong collection of pieces. One exhibit that struck me, to the point of gawking, was a gallery called “the Cloisters”. Set up as a medieval monastery, the ceiling can transition from “day” to “night”. Standing beneath an artificial night sky in the middle of an artificial monastery, the soft sounds of recorded monk chants filtered into space, is how all art should be experienced. The gallery and museum space almost fades away, no longer art on display, you begin to witness objects within their original context. A gallery featuring works of art that were all of different mediums, regions, and time periods particularly caught my museum-loving heart, as I don’t commonly see this in museums; it looked at what techniques made them similar or different, giving the visitor an art-history vocabulary and allowing them to be able to pick out the trends themselves.

I loved the progressive feel of the Museum. It offered chairs not merely for resting oneself from museum-exhaustion, but for pondering art in only the most immersive and slightly pretentious of manners. Technology was used in a way that enhanced the experience without encroaching upon the art itself (I admittedly did stand in line behind a group of not-quite-teenage girls for the photo booth). The Wiley exhibit featured two documentary-style videos that could have taken an afternoon to view in themselves.

Be Afraid of the Enormity of the Possible by Alfredo Jaar

Kehinde Wiley’s exhibit will be on display at the Toledo Museum of art until May 14. Whether you’re an art connoisseur or an art novice, this exhibition gives the viewer more to ponder than merely the visual, a timely and dynamic array of art.  

PREVIEW: Toledo Museum of Art – Kehinde Wiley’s A New Republic Exhibition

Allie Scholten Leave a comment

 

Art Outta Town is headed to the Toledo Museum of Art, an institution will a globally reputable collection, for Kehinde Wiley’s exhibit A New Republic. Wiley’s work draws attention to the lack of African American subjects in historical artwork and narratives. His exhibited pieces feature contemporary men and women modeled after the work of the “old Masters”, whose work heavily featured white European aristocracy. This is but one exhibit currently on display at the Toledo Museum of Art, only an hour from Ann Arbor. The museum houses pieces from almost every continent, ranging from medieval to contemporary works.

Saturday, February 11 / 11am-4pm / $5, Registration required here.