Saturday night, I went to Finney Chapel to hear Beethoven’s first two symphonies. It was exhilarating — hearing fresh, committed performances of revolutionary music. The student performers were on the same wavelength with each other and with our wonderful conductor, Professor of Conducting Raphael Jiménez. The audience was listening in rapt attention, cheering at the end of each revelatory piece. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, this is old music, part of the “hegemonic institution of the canon,” written by a dead white male, Eurocentric, a remnant of pernicious 19th-century patriarchy, an oppressive… okay, stop (“Beethoven’s Dead — Can We Move on Now?” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 28, 2020)...

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...

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...

A spectacular selection of Rembrandt’s work stars at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings. The new exhibition, which opened Tuesday, was curated in collaboration with Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, which hosted it last semester. Along with displaying examples of Rembrandt’s innovative printmaking, the selection also explores Oberlin’s personal history with these works, current digital projects, and innovations that are facilitating access to the works. Immediately upon walking into the AMAM, visitors are greeted by a video that introduces various 17th-century processes for papermaking, etching, watermarking, and printing that Rembrandt used to cr...