Swoon, The Canyon: 1999-2017

Savannah Ferrell

A485 Contemporary Art

Revised Exhibition Review

12 October 2017

The Canyon: 1999-2017

            Spanning from 1999 to 2017, the body of work from Caledonia Curry aka “Swoon” is enchanting, endearing, and sublime. The Canyon, her exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati opened on September 22, 2017 with an overwhelming turnout. The Canyon displays Curry’s first ever retrospective exhibition, visiting sections of her art career from the very beginning to the present. It highlights her career in specific sections throughout the exhibition. First is work from her early years, when she studied at the Pratt Institute, made woodblock and linocut prints from anonymous portraits of street-goers, and worked as a wheatpaste street artist. Then the viewer is brought to her middle years where she began to use portraits of people she knew and brought more personal meaning and pain into her body of work. Finally, the viewer comes to her later projects where she worked (and continues to work) primarily in community outreach programs, global ventures for human rights and civic revitalization in addition to her gallery shows. In this way, this retrospective really shows how Curry has grown from a student-artist, interested mainly in observing and recreating, to a professional artist interested in making change in the world using her art.

            This exhibition is separated into several different installations. The first floor is a chronological timeline from her earliest work as an art student to her more intimate works. The second floor houses her collaborative and global works. This setup makes for a very successful retrospective show because it guides viewers in a logical sense and allows them to get to know the artist and her body of work. The first section of this timeline is called Time Capsule. (Curry, 1999-2017) This installation takes up about three quarters of the first floor in the exhibition, is then split into four chronologically respective sections, and spans from the year 1999 to the present. The entire installation is made up of her work wheatpasted directly onto the walls, mirroring the street art technique that she has worked with since the beginning of her career. There are parts of an early raft project that she built in collaboration with other artists that are re-constructed into the gallery space to represent those early collaborative works and to allow for more space to paste work on. (Figure 1) She and her collaborators made these rafts out of garbage and used them to sail down the Hudson River, demonstrating that you can do a lot with reused and recycled items.

The quality of her work is impeccable. Her wheatpasted figures are surrounded by intricate paper cutouts and wallpapers displaying the detail Curry places in her work. She chose to display linoleum and wood blocks in certain spaces and viewers are free to touch them. The attention to detail in her carvings is just astounding. She works in a very sketchy, line-driven fashion, giving her figures an added dimension of depth and life. This coupled with the intricate patterns adorning her figures demonstrate her raw talent as an artist.

Curry’s earliest work was made from sketches and photographs of people she saw in the street that caught her attention. She worked from people she saw in the subway, people she saw in other countries, but (usually, save for her first ever full-length figure which was her grandfather) never people that she knew personally. She wanted to capture something special in these anonymous people, and to cross-section them with the cityscapes that she saw them in. Most of her figures from this time have structures built into the bottom portions of their bodies, and they are full-size and positioned at floor level to create an intimate experience with the figure. (Figure 1) These people bring urban spaces to life because they are the life of the city. The next parts of Time Capsule show Curry growing into her shoes as an artist more. She chooses more intimate subjects and themes such as friends of hers and later includes painful personal memories of abuse and addiction in her family, which is explored in detail in other sections of the exhibition. At the end of this installation, Curry injects global meaning into her work with Thalassa. (2011) This piece is a huge-scale modernized portrait of the mythological being from Aesop’s fable, “The Farmer and the Sea,” commenting on humanity’s complacency in the earth’s destruction. For this reason, Thalassa can be seen as a monument in the show’s timeline representing Curry’s movement into work that is more involved in the preservation and sustainment of the community, locally and globally.

            On the second floor of the exhibition viewers can see Curry’s community-based work and collaborative projects with artists around the world. Curry is a very active person globally, working with people around the world to revitalize their communities using art. Many of these projects involve teaching individuals or communities how to make art for funding and providing art therapy programs for people affected by tragedies such as rape and addiction. The projects affect people from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Meru, Kenya to Lund, Sweden. In 2015, Curry founded the Heliotrope Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at helping people who have been affected by natural or social disaster. This organization works in a few different ongoing projects, including Konbit Shelter.

“Konbit,” is a word describing a traditional form of cooperative labor in Haiti where able-bodied people help others with their farming. This project was initiated in 2010 after the devastating earthquake with the goal of providing disaster-resistant shelter and long-standing community and global bonds. Curry joined a group of artists, engineers, architects, educators and the community of Cormiers, Haiti (Komye) to build shelters in the Super-Adobe style, developed by Nadir Khalili to be completely earthquake, tornado, flood, and fire resistant. The team shared new skills with each other and created new jobs in the community, promoting education and productivity. Curry and her fellow artists and community members decorated their shelters with art that they made, echoing her original figures and patterns. The shelters themselves are 10% concrete and 90% earth, making them eco-friendly as well. This project has since developed into a long-standing relationship between communities as the group has returned and worked with them. Konbit Shelter has also created a clean stove project, partnered with local craftspeople to sell their art for funding and additional housing construction using bamboo, and started an arts-based afterschool program for children ages 3-18 in Cormiers. Curry shows the fruits of the Konbit labor through an installation on the second floor, simply called Konbit (2010-ongoing) Konbit is made up of models of the structures, photographs mounted on the wall showing the work process and the people involved, a video screen with headphones documenting the process and a bound artist book of printed photographs from the project. (Figures 2-3)

The Canyon is very successful in showing Callie Curry’s growth as an artist. It clearly shows her emerging as a primitive artist, observing and copying, making anonymous portraits and working mainly in the street, to making works of her friends and memories, painful or not, and working on huge, collaborative and humanitarian projects such as her early raft projects and her later Konbit Shelter initiative. The quality of her work only grows too, as her sketchiness remains but becomes more refined and clarified in her later works. She works with more colors and patterns now than she used to, and it is clear to me that she feels more comfortable and established in her art now than she did when she started, which is probably why she does so much outreach work. Overall, this exhibition was stimulating, interesting, and even overwhelming to see in person. Curry’s subject matter spans such a large field and her work is done on such a detailed and huge scale. It will always be exciting to see what she does next.

Figure 1 Callie Curry, Section of Time Capsule, 1999-2017, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

Figures 2-3 Callie Curry, Konbit, 2010-ongoing, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

Exhibition Review of 21c

Quentin Krajnak
September 21st, 2017
FA17: 18728

Barbra Kutis

Exhibition Review of 21c

The 21c Art Gallery was focused on modern day contemporary art. Most pieces seemed to be including an issue in modern culture rather than anything positive. Although it was mainly negative, most of the art held my interest because I could easily relate myself or my own personal experiences to them. I personally, was genuinely pleased with the week I chose to visit. 

The exhibition I chose was heavily directed towards an Andy Warhol style of pop art. An overwhelming amount of kitsch weighing on the shoulders of the entire room. There were eleven different works of art with a few being by the same artist including the same general look and theme. Most of the artwork worked very well together and deserved their rightful spot in the exhibition with the exception of three pieces by the same artist. 

As soon as you walk in there is a massive speaker on the wall made with mixed-media. Using many different carvings of wood stacked on top of each other resulted in a stunning useable Bluetooth speaker system. The next few pieces were as basic as pop art gets. Collage on canvas using various magazine advertisements and photographs created a well themed piece.

The next set of three images made in unison were by far the most different in the room. I personally, didn't think they belonged in the exhibit. Two of the of three had pictures of famous musicians while the other just had words. Words were the heart of these pieces. Intensely small font was hand written over the entire image. The best piece in this set, in my opinion, was one of Michael Jackson including every lyric to every song on one of his albums.

Moving on, a huge painting using oil on canvas was very much pop art kitsch due to its color scheme and montage style. Without any words, advertisements, nor famous people. It was a young boy with a hat on and his arms crossed looking towards the viewer. The painting method used is what gave it a pop art touch. Layers of paint looked as if they were overlapping with a cubism inspiration. The next piece was a simple black and white photo of Marilyn Monroe which seemed to be more of a tribute to the exhibition than something interesting in itself. It was just a headshot, but not the photo made famous by Andy Warhol. 

The last set of images was a set of three. Pretty basic comic book style pop art with almost a slight Jackson Pollack spatter theme over different sections. I enjoyed the their vibrancy and connection, but otherwise it wasn't too impressive.

                                                                          Personally, my favorite piece!

Alex Yanes (American) Good Migrations, 2014. Mixed Media, audio components in hand built wood enclosure.

Critique One: 

Alex Yanes (American) Good Migrations, 2014. Mixed Media, audio components in hand built wood enclosure.

Good Migrations is the bluetooth speaker I mentioned earlier. By far my favorite piece in the exhibit. The main media used appeared to be acrylic paint on wood. Bright and vibrant colors combined with its size really catches the viewers eye and puts the stamp on “pop” in pop art. The color scheme fit the tropical theme along with the rest of the room seamlessly. When it comes to this specific exhibit, I personally, think this is the anchor work of art. Not only is it the fist piece you notice, but you can also interact with it. Yes, I was actually able to play my own music to set the tone for the rest of the room. Being able to play a song really puts the viewer in control of the environment of the exhibit and how they intend on viewing it. This was the only piece in the exhibit that did not seem extensively kitsch even though is was pop art esque. Sufficient woodworking skills were required to make various pieces of wood fit together.

Critique Two:

Greg Gossel (American) Sinking, 2009. Like it or Not, 2009. What a Mistake, 2009. Mixed media on canvas.

These three pieces worked in unison with each other and was the last set I looked at in the exhibition. A comic book style woman crying with a comforting man started it off. Leading into the same woman crying without the man. There were a few chat bubbles mentioning that the world is changing and that she would be with this man whether her parents liked it or not. Moving on to the last picture she was with the man again kissing him. A short story was told here, but nothing to meaningful in my eyes. The comic book style was backed up with Jackson Pollock background splatter. This combined with dots on a grid that we see in many comic books made the image very busy. With many bright colors scattered around as well I believe it washed away the bigger picture. These were also very large images. Overall I didn’t like it much. Too big, too busy, and just hard to look at. When you’re viewing it you can't help but think you’ve seen it before due to its basic overwhelming pop art collage. 

Mapping Loss: Jennifer Palmer

 Mapping Loss

            Jennifer Palmer’s exhibition at the Barr Gallery in Indiana University Southeast, titled Mapping Loss, is a series of mixed media paintings and drawings. When entering into this exhibition, the viewer finds a room full of abstract multimedia paintings arranged strategically across each wall. There is a common color palette organized throughout, creating a nice cohesiveness. These colors include various tints of blue, green, yellow, and red. These pieces are nonobjective, simply paint splatters creating a sense of motion. The color that is present is very diluted, appearing almost like water color paint. There are also drips resulting from heavy applications. Palmer has thought about this very diligently and has paid attention to the small details that may not even be recognized by the viewer. It is these details that I appreciate most about this exhibition.

Mapping Above 49, Jennifer Palmer, mixed media on polyethylene, 2017

One of the most significant groupings are the two groups of circle canvases. They are set up on opposite walls, parallel from one another. They have black backgrounds with different colors strewn across them. When observed closer it is evident that there are many white dots throughout as well. This gives it almost a galaxy look. There are four in each group, eight total. The most interesting of these to me is Mapping Above 49 because of the arrangement of the colored shapes on the black background. Especially the blues and the pinks. Also the movement of the colors strewn onto the black background plays into the flow of the piece. From the way that these different elements mingle together it appears as if it is a comet flying through space.

Mapping Above14, Jennifer Palmer, mixed media on polyethylene, 2017

Another piece from the Mapping Above series that interests me is Mapping Above 14. This one stands out to me because it reminds me of a globe for some reason. Though they are all in the shape of a circle, none of them actually remind me of a planet, but Mapping Above 14 does. I think the main reason for this is because it has colored shapes along the border that run off the canvas making it appear as if this canvas could be a sphere, and the shapes don’t just end at the edge but wrap around this ball.

These circles are all similarly titled: beginning with Mapping Above and ending with a number. Before reading the artist statement the choice of titles could seem insignificant, as if that was just the number in the series and the artist only chose her favorite ones to display. However after reading the artist statement, the viewer is given a key that unlocks a new understanding. Palmer has lost her mother to cancer and this exhibition is a response of her grief. As for the circle pieces, each title represents a date. On the far wall, the one parallel to the entrance, signify the date of her mother’s birth date: Mapping Above 8, 4, 19, and 49. Put together that is August 4, 1949. Then across the gallery marks the date of her death: Mapping Above 9, 26, 20, and 14. This exhibition has a lot of hidden meanings that the viewer might just overlook without reading or talking to the artist herself, but when they are recognized they open a new appreciation.  

One of the most intriguing factors of this body of Palmer’s work is the many dots hidden and flowing throughout each piece. There are hundreds on each piece following the flow of the paint splatters and smears. They are almost nonexistent as they blend in with the chaos of the colors and shapes, yet that is what makes them so captivating. After reading the artist statement and especially hearing from the artist herself, the dots take on a whole new meaning. Every time that Palmer thought about her mother after her passing, she recorded it with a dot on each piece. Once that knowledge is brought to the attention of the viewer, the dots become overwhelming. Thinking that there are around twenty large scale pieces, ranging from two foot diameter circle canvases to 24x36 inches sheets of paper, and countless small scale pieces, which are around the size of 4x3 inches. Each having hundreds of dots. This shows how big of an impact Palmer’s mother has had on her life that she thinks about her mother so frequently.

In conclusion, all the pieces in this installation represent the way that Palmer is finding her way through her grief, explaining the title Mapping Loss. I believe this exhibition is successful because it is pleasing to look at but also has a deep meaning. Though it is abstract, it has a message that is being communicated to the viewer. However, by reading the artist statement alone the viewer does not get informed about a lot of the hidden messages such as what the dots represent or what the numbers mean. I feel that if the artist wanted this to be an important factor in the viewing of her work she would have included it. The artist statement does tell the viewer about her loss as well as hints at the zen found in chaos. This alone is enough for the viewer to put the pieces together to understand that this is the artist’s response of her struggle through grief. The structured dots are strategically placed within a chaotic swirl of colors, representing the peace she finds even through her pain.

Barr Gallery Exhibition: Mapping Loss

Ashley Hunt

FINA-A457

B.Kutis

October 2017

Mapping Loss

Upon walking into the Indiana University Southeast’s Barr Gallery, there is something rather peaceful and quite beautiful about Jennifer Palmer’s exhibition of Mapping Loss. I honestly could not tell you how long I spent in the gallery the first day it opened. Even after seeing it a few times, I still go back and I am mesmerized by her pieces. It is so easy and calming to get lost in her pieces. Just like the piece below Mapping Above 8, mixed media on polyethylene, 2017.

Jennifer Palmer, Mapping Above 8, 2017.

This exhibition is quite successful in communicating a deep loss found within the artist. Palmer’s quality of work is high in the attention to detail, textures, and different uses of media.  A large portion of the works displayed are mixed media. She works with acrylic paints, many different types of inks, ink and gel pens, graphite, charcoal, coffee and wine stains, and much more. She works on paper, poplar and polyethylene. Her change in scale is noticeable. It ranges from 3”x 3” to her biggest piece 59”x 42”.  Palmer creates smaller pieces to captivate the viewer, to show the intimacy of the time and thought in each piece.

            Palmer’s pieces display a creatively thoughtful and emotional abstracted map. She provides some information that leads you to think more on this exhibition. From Palmer’s artist statement, “The artworks feature a variety of media that explore the meditative process of repetitive mark-making juxtaposed against colorful moments of unrestrained shapes...These pieces are about exploring the emotional process of grieving by creating artworks that are personal maps of this journey. The artwork in the mapping series is bringing me closer to finding structure in the chaos of loss.”

Jennifer Palmer, 2017.

            Above shows 3 walls of the Barr Gallery showcasing Palmer’s work. One of my favorite pieces, Mapping Above 8, mixed media on polyethylene, 2017, is full of color, texture, and stippling. The large chunks of mixed media (acrylic paint) and various heights and shapes of a thick texture that is displayed across the polyethylene. The contrasting colors lead the viewer’s eye around the circle and the dots tell another story. Most of the pieces have this form of stippling. These series of dots have a grand connection to the artist. A significance not known to many.  Each dot represents a tear shed for the loss of her Mother and every thought she has had of her mother.

Palmer’s creation of abstracted shapes help calm her in the chaos of the death of her mother. Albeit she spent many nights in her studio creating each dot, she has found a peace at times. There are many hidden bits of information in the titles and number of pieces in Palmer’s exhibition. Mapping Above 65, mixed media on poplar, 2017. These 65 pieces represent the age her mother passed. Her exhibition definitely showed a deep wound. In the glass case, there is a plethora of rocks. Above those rocks, there lies a smaller pile with feathers and a bird’s nest. The symbolism here is heartbreaking. The larger pile of rocks is how much her mother weighed before her death to liver cancer. The smaller pile is her weight in ashes after cremation.

Jennifer Palmer’s exhibition of Mapping Loss tells a difficult, sad story of loss and trying to find peace. This storm of chaos is calmed by her beautiful, emotional artistic expression.

Mapping Loss, an Exhibition by Jennifer Palmer

Carly Jarboe
A457
Professor Kutis
24 September 2017

Mapping Loss: An Exhibition Review

Entering through the doors of the Barr Gallery the viewer first encounters, Between the Clouds.  The next pieces within the gallery space are filled with bright colors, such as red and blue, on black background filled with golden dots that appear as stars. The colors create so much chaos in the galaxy but there are specific areas, such as the bright heavily saturated spots of color that allow the viewer to focus. After seeing a series of small 4”x 3” mounted paper on blocks, whose amount represents how old the artist’s mother was when she passed, the next piece to confront is a large non-figurative representation of a map, A Story beyond Me. This map allows one to figure out the rest of the journey from this point onward. This piece is based off of handwritten notes and highlighted routes of travel from maps of trips with her father. The final few pieces are again galaxy-like and represent the date of her mother’s death. Finally, the last piece is a single feather on a black chalky background. The pieces throughout the entire show act cohesively to tell one story, “…finding Zen in the chaos of loss…”

Jennifer Palmer, Mapping Above 20, 2017

The round mixed media on polyethylene pieces within the show are present at the beginning and the end as the viewer journeys through the chaos of the artist’s loss of a loved one. Both sets of the four round pieces have splotches of reds, blues, mixed colors, and dots that allow the colorful pieces to relate to the other more neutral and earth toned works in the rest of the show. In the beginning four round panels titled, Mapping Above, followed by a series of numbers that represent the artist’s mother’s birth date, bright colors such as red and yellow flow loosely and freely around the circle.

 There are very small gold dots that float around the freely flowing colors. These dots reference the other pieces but also draw attention to, A Story beyond Me, amidst all the chaos as if they are her father’s hand written notes from the journeys in which he mapped out the path of travel. Throughout Mapping Above, the artist draws your eye to other pieces around the room to connect the dots and lines just as we do in life. All of the connections made in life create so many lines and dots to piece together that they can easily be tangled. The loss of losing one of these lines can complicate life even further and creating these pieces allowed the artist to show the viewer how the act of creating and showing the loss of her mother allowed her to find peace in the chaos of life.

Jennifer Palmer, Mapping the Void II, 2017

This brings the journey to the final piece titled, Mapping the Void II. In this piece, there is one feather amidst a dark charcoal background full of wispy lines that show the artist’s hand. This single feather within the void of darkness creates a final sense of peace and tranquility after all the chaos. This is the only piece within the show that has one subject of interest to focus on. The single feather shows not only the calmness now felt after the chaos of losing someone, but also the emptiness that the artist may feel. The works as a whole create a journey through life and digs into what someone may feel when losing someone. It not only allows people to find their own Zen in the chaos, but also allows them to experience the artist’s own journey through grief. As a whole the show communicates this message perfectly and allows the viewer to connect not only with the works, but with the artist herself.

KMAC Museum: Victory Over The Sun, Eclipse Art

Katherine McCadden

Contemporary Art-18728

Exhibition Review KMAC Museum

Barbara Kutis

9/23/17

Olafur Eliasson, Your Folded Sunset Behind a Black Hole (in corner), 2017

Victory Over The Sun, The Poetics and Politics of Eclipse

Victory Over The Sun, The Poetics and Politics of Eclipse was an upstairs large room gallery showcasing the magnificent eclipse that shadowed over a large part of Kentucky and a good part of Southern Indiana. Of this August 21, 2017 phenomenon this gallery showcased the awe of witnessing an eclipse in our generation's lifetime.

Every artists has their own way of depicting natural phenomenons of the Earth. One artists that work was viewed right as you enter the room was Lita Albuquerque’s own rendition of the eclipse. Named Fibonacci Lunar Activation, a series of numbers is used as a background ranging from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. Viewing this work I didn’t quite understand the significance of the number system at first look but as I read and looked more the number system used is seen in geometry but not only in mathematics but also in architecture as “nature’s number system”. Displayed over these numbers is the eclipse at full peak, the moon covering the sun completely with a halo of light still showing through. Unifying nature, mathematics and the powerful depiction of what the cosmos are capable of.

The next installment directly across Fibonacci Lunar Activation is Your Folded Sunset Behind A Black Hole. This a personal favorite of mine, it caught my eye as I first walked into the gallery. Created by Olafur Eliasson, three pieces of glass are displayed in a corner of the gallery, an obsidian large oval is placed over a large horizontal piece of glass that has the texture of wood but is glossy and smooth, and lastly a large half moon mirror is wedged beside that smooth wood like textured glass. Made of blown glass, mirror and metal your reflection is seen from all angles conveying a depiction of a total solar eclipse.

Another artist displaying their work in this gallery is Barbara Takenga. Wine Dark With Stars is a traditional painting of the cosmos in a kaleidoscope view of swirling lines and shapes. This work is psychedelic to look at but in a beautiful way of showing the depth of the galaxy.

And lastly, Letitia Quesnberry’s work, Hyperspace no. 21 incorporates technology and how the way light, shadow and movement can affect a person, convey emotion. A minimalist and abstract piece shades of red green and blue are respectively placed in these light boxes as they slowly fade in and out, becoming brighter and darker as the minutes go by. It was as if the viewer was watching the eclipse all over again or watching the changing tones of the sky going from dusk to dawn. Just how the eclipse affected the people Kentucky and also people who were nowhere near the eclipse. The effects of the eclipse seen in person and on tv effected the entire nation as they watched this beautiful event happen in their lifetime.

These works of art are of the “now” era, 2017 of how powerful the Earth and galaxy are. The effects and renowned awe will last forever in our memory of the event. All the work showcased in this museum was all high quality, beautiful work exemplifying the Earth at it’s most amazing moment.

The Day the Sun High-fives the Moon

KMAC Museum is a contemporary art museum located in downtown Louisville (715 West Main Street). Their admission is free, making it completely easy to go and enjoy art when they are open to the public: Tuesday through Saturday 10AM to 6PM and Sunday 10AM to 5PM. The KMAC Museum’s current exhibition is Victory Over the Sun: The Poetics and Politics of Eclipse on the second floor gallery. The exhibition opened on August 19 and will close on December 3, 2017. There are 19 artist whose work are in the exhibition: Lita Albuquerque, Sanford Biggers, Bigert & Bergström, Mel Bochner, Bethany Collins, Nick Doyle, Olafur Eliasson, Stephen Irwin, Titus Kaphar, Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, Matthew Porter, Letitia Quesenberry, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Barbara Takenaga, Jan Tichy, Marijke Van Warmerdam and Brenna Youngblood. The work in the exhibition by these 19 artists revolve around the theme of the solar eclipse that took place on August 21, 2017.

There was some work in Victory Over the Sun: The Poetics and Politics of Eclipse that just seemed to connect with the theme of the eclipse on the basic level, such as Olafur Eliasson’s piece Your Folded Sunset Behind a Black Hole. Eliasson’s piece is a great piece; looking at it immediately one’s mind goes to an eclipse. After looking more in depth at Eliasson’s work and other artist’s work in this exhibition that connect with the theme on the surface level or reading the artist statement the viewer then gets a sense of a different meaning from what their artist statement gives the viewer.  However, there were a great handful of pieces that did seem to connect on a deeper level with the theme in mind. The two works of art that most connected with the theme more than just surface were works by Marijke Van Warmerdam and Lita Albuquerque.

Marijke Van Warmerdam’s piece is a film called Light; it has the duration of 1 minute and 30 seconds long. It is a film that is silent and displays blinds with the sun shining through. Warmerdam’s hand is manipulating the blinds to let in more/less light, thus replicating the movement of the Moon covering the Sun. By using no sound she is capturing the essence of an eclipse that occurs without the presence of sound. There is no music to help set the mood of an eclipse. The mood is set by the Earth taking on its natural beauty. It is that single moment where the Sun and the Moon meet, Warmerdam’s film shows that with the blinds covering the sunlight beaming through. This film is quite a short; however, if it was longer or shorter the film would lose its meaning and purpose.

Lita Albuquerque’s piece, Fibonacci Lunar Activation, is a mixed media painting composed of a concaved pitch black sphere outlined in illuminated white. The background consists of a raised Fibonacci number sequence. The Fibonacci sequence is a number sequence that occurs naturally in nature; Humans, snails, and leaves all contain Fibonacci sequences. The concaved sphere references the sun behind the moon while an eclipse is happening along with the white outlining the concaved sphere. The number sequence is referencing the connection Earth, Space, and math. The entire piece represents an eclipse by tying together two bodies in space, Earth, and the math that helps predict these events. This is conveyed remarkably with making a two dimensional piece have a feel of three dimensional (math being two dimensional on paper and the eclipse being three dimensional). 

Both pieces do a good job of representing the eclipse in a very different ways. Albuquerque’s piece depicts the event in a grand scale by bringing together space, the Earth, and mathematics.  On the other hand, Warmerdam’s video depicts the simplicity of the eclipse by comparing it to the simple action of blocking the sun with common blinds. All of the work chosen fits with the theme of the 2017 eclipse nicely. Overall this exhibition is well worth going to and spending one’s time appreciating art.

Leia Roberts