Visual Art – The Oberlin Review

New Approach to Art Rental Attracts Record Number of Students

September 20, 2019

A crowd of over 340 students lined up outside the Allen Memorial Art Museum last Saturday to participate in this semester’s Art Rental Program. For only $5, students were able to rent pieces of art from the museum’s collection, an event that College paraphernalia has boasted since 1940. However, as College fourth-year and chair of the newly-formed Art Student Committee Jacey Davidson explained, Art Rental is not always easy to navigate. “As someone who has participated in it for a long time, it’s been really hard,” David...

“E. Pluribus” Recontextualizes 9/11 in Analysis of Conflict

September 13, 2019

Walking into the Firelands Association for Visual Arts gallery for a panel focusing on the 18th anniversary of 9/11, I expected tense silence. Instead, I was met with excited conversation and laughter between an intimate audience and the panelists. The mood didn’t match the somber nature of the day, but I sensed that this would inspire the crowd to continue the conversation after the event. The panel concluded the FAVA’s “E. Pluribus” exhibition, a collection of artworks depicting war fro...

Slavery’s Modern-Day Impact Felt in “Afterlives of the Black Atlantic”

Jaimie Yue, Production Editor

September 6, 2019

“Afterlives of the Black Atlantic,” the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s latest exhibit, seeks to redefine the written history of slavery. The show commemorates the 400th anniversary of when African slaves on the English warship White Lion landed at Point Comfort in the Colony of Virginia on August 20, 1619. This date marks the 400 years since the beginning of institutional slavery. Curated by Assistant Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey and the Allen’s Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Dr. Andrea Gyorody, the exhibition will be on display at the museum until May 2020. The exhibit argues that slavery is neither geographically exclusive nor exclusive to the ...

Visiting Lecturer Manuel Parada López de Corselas Brings New Ideas to Allen Piece

April 12, 2019

Editor’s Note: This piece discusses anti-Semitism and depictions of anti-Semitism. Fulbright scholar Manuel Parada López de Corselas’ presentation on the 1432 painting “The Fountain of Life” illustrates key strengths in the way that Oberlin curricula engage with the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and introduces an essential new dimension to an important piece in the museum’s collection. Parada presented his groundbreaking research about the political ramifications of Oberlin’s copy of ...

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to Promote Marginalized Artists

March 1, 2019

Wikipedia is a source hailed for its informational scope and critiqued for its accuracy, but critics and supporters alike will both agree that it is widely used. Despite its wide reach, Wikipedia has less information on women and people of color in the arts than it should. Oberlin’s annual feminist Wikipedia edit-a-thon is designed to help bridge that gap. The Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is a national movement that started six years ago. According to the Art+Feminism website, Wikipedia is ...

Kat Burdine, Visual Artist

March 1, 2019

Artist Kat Burdine uses objects and prints to negotiate ideas about physicality and the body. A graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and currently based in Cleveland, she is the founder of Wondershop Studio and teaches at both the Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuyahoga Community College. She has collaborated with many artists on a variety of projects, including Talking Dolls in Detroit. Her recent lecture at Oberlin, “A Matter of Hapticstance — One Queer’s Feeling on Feeling(s),” di...

The Mystery of Things: Artistic Processes at Oberlin

February 22, 2019

Many Oberlin students declare two majors that cross disciplines; it’s not uncommon to find people with surprisingly disparate double majors such as Theater and Computer Science or Viola performance and Biology. But what about the students with majors in two different creative fields? How do these students connect their majors through the work they create? These questions struck me when I realized that my own majors, Dance and Creative Writing, weren’t as independent as I thought. The deeper I ...

Art Rental: A Photo Essay

Kate Fishman and Katherine MacPhail

February 22, 2019

Art Rental is a distinctive program beloved by the Oberlin community. It gives students the opportunity to hang works of art from the likes of Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali in their college rooms for a semester, for only $5 per work. Oberlin’s Art Rental program was originally founded in 1940 by art historian Ellen Johnson, OC ’33. Since then, other colleges have initiated art rental programs of their own. Harvard College started a program in 1972 which allows students to rent art for $30 an academic year, and in 2016 Kenyon College started a program allowing students to rent art for $10 a semester. Oberlin’s Art Rental program is a major draw for some prospective students who are deciding where to go...

Perspectives: Seeing Myself in a 350-Year-Old Portrait

Katie Lucey, Arts & Culture Editor

December 7, 2018

Wide eyes. An ambiguous look over her right shoulder. Slightly parted lips. A lone pearl earring. I love art, but I have a rather complicated relationship with Johannes Vermeer’s iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring. While researching 17th century Dutch art for a project back in high school, I stumbled upon a close-up image of the painting, and was intrigued by the subject’s piercing, yet seemingly apathetic gaze. Tracing the line of her cheek on my computer screen, I saw a resemblance between us. Yet, we would never be the same. Whereas she was quietly confident, I felt insecure about my future. At the time, the mere thought of college overwhelmed me; I had no idea where I would spend the next four critical years ...

Andrew V. Uroskie, Filmmaker and Professor

November 30, 2018

Andrew V. Uroskie is an associate professor of art and the director of graduate studies in Art History and Criticism at Stony Brook University in New York. Uroskie specializes in late modern and contemporary art with a focus on postwar and contemporary artists that work in durational mediums such as video, film, and sound. On Nov. 29, he presented a lecture at Oberlin titled “Beyond The Whole Earth?: David OReilly’s Everything (2017),” about how OReilly’s work traverses the traditionally se...

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...