Visual Art – The Oberlin Review

Multimedia Professor’s Work Explores Sending Art Into Space

November 16, 2018

Parents and students filed into Finney Chapel for a lecture by Associate Professor of Integrated Media Julia Christensen this past Friday. In addition to discussing her artwork, which is focused on the intersection of art, science, and technology, Christensen spoke about her consulting work with NASA, focusing on developing a plan to bring art to an upcoming voyage to Proxima B, an exoplanet 4.2 light years away. “My work is highly interdisciplinary,” Christensen said, “and Oberlin’s art...

Art Exhibition “Counternarratives” Sparks Conversation on Campus

November 2, 2018

Students walking past Mudd library or the Allen Memorial Art Museum this week may have noticed enlarged markups of The New York Times front pages posted on the buildings’ facades. These works, installed this week by Brooklyn-based artist Alexandra Bell, are meant to showcase the consequences of how news is portrayed by major news and media outlets. “I first encountered Alexandra Bell’s work on Instagram over a year ago, as I was starting my position at Oberlin,” said Allen Memorial Art...

Editorial: Museum Symposium Presents Opportunity to Evaluate Western Canon at Oberlin, Broader Academia

November 2, 2018

A popular misconception in the art world is the belief that classical Greek and Roman sculptures in museums across the world look the way they’re supposed to. Unpainted, bare, and unmistakably white, these sculptures propagate the false notion that ancient artists meant to showcase the ideal human form in swaths of pale marble. However, classical sculptures that are white today were originally meant to be seen in color — scientific evidence suggests they were once painted in bright, blazing...

Ohio Citizens for the Arts Emphasize Student Role in Supporting the Arts

Imani Badillo

November 2, 2018

Filed under ARTS, Arts, Visual Art

Effective arts advocacy is essential to enriching Ohio’s artistic and cultural landscape. According to a recent on-campus discussion facilitated by Ohio Citizens for the Arts, Oberlin students have a role to play in speaking up for increased state and federal funding. Last Tuesday, Bill Behrendt, the executive director of Ohio Citizens for the Arts, gave a talk titled “Arts Advocacy: How Does It Work and What Can I Do?” in which he discussed the function of his organization, the importance of public arts funding, and actions that anyone can take to support the arts. Ohio Citizens for the Arts works “to increase funding and public support for the arts through advocacy, education, and engagement.” The organization...

Pottery Co-Op Provides Welcoming Space to New Members

October 12, 2018

Watching potters work with clay is an almost hypnotic experience. They make the form look so easy, yet, they are creating a physical artifact that will exist in the world to be touched and used. Although clay seems to move effortlessly beneath expert fingers, for a novice, a piece can collapse into nothing but wet lumps. Learning to work with ceramics can be intimidating. The skill is both artful and quite complicated, with different pottery styles and techniques requiring many unfamiliar tools...

Studio Art Majors Receive Career Advice with Pathways

October 12, 2018

Majors in any artistic field are conditioned to defend their academic path to friends, relatives, and new acquaintances alike. Many are used to deflecting inevitable pointed questions such as, “Oh, so you’re an art major? What are you going to do with that?” Pathways, a speaker series hosted by the Art department, challenges the antiquated trope of the “starving artist.” By bringing together current art students and alumni in conversation, the series looks to showcase how an Oberlin...

Unused Room 1 Showcases Student Artwork in New Biweekly House Show

October 5, 2018

College seniors Alexander Freundlich and Zaid Milefchik stand in their exhibition Unused Room, a space in their home that they will be using to showcase contemporary student art. Their first show this past Wednesday, Oct. 3 included art made from mixed greens, a diffuser, and tape, among other avant-garde materials. From Oct. 31 onward, their shows will be running bi-weekly. “We consider art to be a substrate out of which new ideas and understandings can emerge,” they said in a statement to the...

Dr. Ridha Moumni Speaks on Tunisian Art, History

Imani Badillo

October 5, 2018

Filed under ARTS, Visual Art

The Art History department hosted Dr. Ridha Moumni in Hallock Auditorium Tuesday, Oct. 2 for his presentation, “Art, Life, and Politics in Post-War and Postcolonial Tunisia.” Moumni’s presentation discussed how the aesthetic of Tunisian art was influenced over time by political actions in and around the country. Located in North Africa and bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia gained its independence in 1956. Although the French never officially colonized Tunisia like they did neighboring Algeria, they established a protectorate in 1881. Although the governmental structure was preserved, Tunisian ministers were still appointed, and the bey remained the official monarch, supreme authority was passed to the...

Art Rental Sets New Record, Sells Out by 10 a.m.

September 21, 2018

Many students were discouraged from participating in the annual Art Rental at the Allen Memorial Art Museum last Saturday when the sign-up list was posted several days earlier than usual. “I think it was annoying that it was put up so early, but the conventions around the whole system are so fuzzy. Since it’s so casually student-run, itdoesn’t surprise me that someone did this,” College junior Della Copes-Finke said. She and her roommate decided not to attend Art Rental this year after...

“FRONT International” Brings Site-Specific Art Exhibitions to Oberlin

September 14, 2018

FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art presented its first group of internationally acclaimed artists and their equally diverse art earlier this summer. From July 14 to Sept. 30, over 100 chosen artists will display their works at selected locations around Cleveland. Exhibition venues are not confined to spaces dedicated to the presentation of art alone, but rather transcend the traditional walls of galleries and museums into the streets of Cleveland and beyond. For instan...

Black Community Reclaims Its Fly at Sankofa Remix’d

March 9, 2018

Black History Month came to a beautiful end with the “Sankofa Remix’d: Reclaiming My Fly” fashion show last Saturday. The show featured Black models, designers, singers, rappers, and dancers from both Oberlin College and The Djapo Cultural Arts Institute in Cleveland. College senior Kiela Nelson, the creative director of the show, attributed her vision for the cultural showcase to her semester abroad in Senegal. “We came up with this title ‘Reclaiming My Fly,’ because sankofa means go...

MRC Speaker Series Features “dapperQ” Founder

Julia Peterson, Arts & Culture Editor

February 23, 2018

Filed under ARTS, Recent Stories, Visual Art

Anita Dolce Vita, who has produced some of the largest queer fashion shows in the United States and is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of leading online queer style magazine dapperQ, came to Oberlin to give a talk on queer style as visual activism Saturday afternoon. Dolce Vita has produced shows at the Brooklyn Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, and SxSW, and her work has been featured by The New York Times, HBO, OUT Magazine, and many other prominent outlets. Her talk was organized as part of the Multicultural Resource Center’s My Name Is My Own speaker series, which centers the experiences of queer and trans people of color. dapperQ, which Dolce Vita describes as “one of the world’s most widely...