Category: Photography Page 1 of 21

Shouldn’t You Be Working? @ MSU Broad Museum

On September 11, 2023

In Assemblage / Collage, Design, Installation, Photography, Video

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

In 1896, Michigan State University opened the doors to its School of Home Economics, one of the first in the nation. The school even contained a fully functional practice home where the students cooked, cleaned, and hosted events. The home was demolished in 2008, and the Broad Art Museum was erected in its place. Taking its former school of home economics as its reference point, through December 27, the Broad presents Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working From Home. Curated by Teresa Fankhänel, the exhibit features photography, digital media, and installation, and it explores the intersection of work and home life, focusing on how technology and artificial intelligence are shaping the future of both.

This exhibition pairs ten contemporary artists and architects with a selection of photography and ephemera, including archival photographs from the university’s former School of Home Economics. These are paired alongside iconic photographs of workers in their homes, taken by the likes of Walker Evans and Marion Post Wolcott, who, on behalf of the Farm Security Administration, famously documented the lives of the rural workers and sharecroppers who struggled to maintain their livelihoods during the Great Depression.

Records of the MSU School of Home Economics. Courtesy Michigan State University Archives & Historical Collections.

Marion Post Wolcott, A member of the Fred Wilkins family making biscuits for dinner on cornhusking day, Tallyho, near Stem, N.C., 1939. Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, purchase, funded by the Emma Grace Holmes Endowment, 2006.33.1

The visual epicenter of the exhibition space is a partial recreation (at a 1 to 1 ratio) of the Paolucci Building, the former home economics practice house that once occupied this site. This interactive structure serves to frame a selection of photography, digital art, and an installation, which explore contemporary intersections of work and home life. Inside, there’s a mock-up of a home office replete with all the trappings of a television studio; a sight which will resonate with any of us who have been on a Zoom call. It also recalls the home studios of the social media “influencers” who ironically manage to create lucrative public careers from the privacy of their homes. This office installation, Cream Screen, by Marisa Olson, also serves to confront and dismantle the assumption that the technology to work or study remotely is accessible to everyone.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

Also inside this recreation of the Paolucci Building is a selection of photography by Korean artist Won Kim. His series Living Small shows the cramped living quarters of Tokyo’s pod hotels. Unlike the city’s chic capsule hotels (more refined, but still not for the claustrophobic), these pods are little more than plywood boxes; there’s not even a door or windows. These spaces offer very low-income housing for individuals in between jobs, and are the ultimate expression of minimalist living. These images call to mind the famous photograph Five Cents a Spot taken by Jacob Riis, which shows the crammed tenement housing of some of New York City’s poorest residents.

Won Kim, Enclosed: Living Small, 2014. Photo print © Won Kim

Several monitors screen short video works that specifically address how technology shapes our work/home balance. Theo Triantafyllidis’ Ork Haus applies a sort of dark, absurdist humor in his digital portrayal of a dysfunctional family of orks (yes, orks) at home during lockdown. All are hopelessly addicted to their screens (VR headsets, TVs, and phones). The papa ork dabbles in cryptocurrency, and his little orkling learns to code; meanwhile, the family is oblivious to real-world catastrophes that surround them, such as the out-of-control fire in their kitchen.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Ork House, 2022. Live simulation video © Theo Triantafyllidis

Merger, a video by Keiichi Matsuda, presents us with a dystopian future in which artificial intelligence has taken over all corporations. The film’s unnamed protagonist has resigned to this digital takeover, acknowledging her status as a human is obsolete, and ultimately makes the decision to transition into a digital entity.

Keiichi Matsuda, Merger, 2018. Video © Keiichi Matsuda

For better or for worse, the boundaries between work and home are shifting. And COVID certainly accelerated the process, turning our homes into workspaces, at least for those of us who were fortunate to have the means to work remotely. This exhibition doesn’t necessarily criticize the advent of new technologies in the home, though it does invite us to pause for a moment and consider what this brave new world will look like.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? is on view at the MSU Broad Art Museum through December 17, 2023.

James Barnor @ DIA

By Ashley Cook

On July 25, 2023

In Photography

James Barnor: Accra/London – A Retrospective at The Detroit Institute of Arts

Ever Young Studio, Jamestown, Accra. 1953 (printed 2010-20) Gelatin silver print. Autograph, London. All photos images: Ashley Cook

On May 28, The Detroit Institute of Arts celebrated the opening of Accra/London, a comprehensive retrospective of photographs by African photojournalist James Barnor. This exhibition illustrates his dynamic career as a photographer whose work documented the everyday life of Africans in Ghana and the diaspora as well as major turning points in the socio-political landscapes of Accra and London between 1950-1980. Born in 1929, Barnor was a first-hand witness to life under British rule on the Gold Coast. The influence of this experience on his view of the world undeniably guided his choice of subject and composition, and his perspective as a person of African descent led to particularly careful considerations of lighting, framing, and the use of tone and color. As the largest exhibition of his work to date, with over 170 photographs spanning three decades, visitors can now learn not only about James Barnor as an artist, but about the history and evolution of photojournalism as well as the impact that the medium of photography has had on social and political change on race relations between Africa and Great Britain.

Selina Opong, Policewoman No. 10, Ever Young Studio, Jamestown, Accra. 1954 (printed 2010-20) Gelatin silver print. Autograph, London.

The short film presented at the exhibition’s entrance introduces us to the artist as a 91-year-old man keenly recalling details of his life and career. He recounts his youthful experience learning how to use a camera to photograph his friends, family, politicians, and professional athletes. He reflects on his role in documenting the history of Ghana from colonial to post-colonial life, his involvement with DRUM Magazine, and the expansion of his practice from Accra to London. Barnor’s light-hearted disposition in the film helps us understand how he could easily access people of various backgrounds, a trait that has proven to be critical to his professional success over time. Joy is the most consistent emotion detected in his photographs, despite their being taken in a world troubled with political unrest and racial discrimination.

DRUM Magazine, Nigerian Edition, December 1967.

The story told through this retrospective begins with Barnor’s entrance into the professional world of photography. He started to work with the Daily Graphic newspaper in 1950 and established the Ever Young Graphic Studio in 1953 as an open-air studio on the streets of Accra. Eventually, Ever Young moved to a permanent location, and Barnor used his autonomy as the business owner to explore and develop his approach to taking portraits. He depicted African life on the coast of the Atlantic and its backdrop of colonial oversight. Indigenous fishing boats share a frame with James Fort, Barnor’s friends drive a car with an iconic lighthouse in the background; elsewhere, men and women are photographed in the studio dressed in their professional uniforms. His portraits of men, women, youth and children portray the successes of local people who he recounted in interviews as having been motivated by the excitement for liberation that was on their minds and in their hearts at that time.

Muhammad Ali preparing for his fight against Brian London, 1966 (printed 2010-20) Gelatin silver print. Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière , Paris.

Enlarged wall images, detailed placards, vintage cameras and copies of magazines are on view throughout the space to further support the storytelling efforts of the curators. Accra/London initially debuted at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2021. Organized by Chief Curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas in collaboration with Awa Konaté, the Assistant Curator of the Culture Art Society, Clémentine de la Féronnière, Sophie Culière of the James Barnor Archives and Isabella Senuita. The exhibition was presented at MASI in Lugano, Switzerland in 2022 before coming to Detroit. The Detroit Institute of Arts recently acquired 22 of Barnor’s photographs (now included in the Detroit-based installation of Accra/London) in an effort to diversify the museum’s world-renowned collection and to enhance its holdings of works by living African artists. Nii Quarcoopome, the DIA’s Curator of African Art, and Nancy Barr, the James Pearson Duffy Curator of Photography, worked together to bring this exhibition to a Midwest audience as part of the Detroit Institute of Art’s ongoing effort to promote its representation of people of color.

Ring Road, Accra, 1974 (printed 2010-20) Chromogenic print. Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris.

Despite the collection on view being only a small sampling of Barnor’s entire archive of more than 32,000 images spanning six decades, it acts as a marker of the global growth in representation between 1950-1980 of people of color. In Accra, the photographer witnessed Ghanian boxer Ginger Nyarku publicly defeat his British opponent which challenged contemporary ideas of European superiority. He witnessed nurses, accountants, teachers and lawyers on the Gold Coast working together to weaken Britain’s control from within their government positions. He witnessed the transition of power from Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain to Kwame Nkruma of Ghana. He witnessed a growing presence of African models on the covers of magazines in London and Barnor participated in all of this by presenting opportunities for them to be seen. His sitters were these mothers with their children, these models, these athletes, these politicians. They were carefully photographed with lighting that complimented their skin tone, and angles that framed their traditional hairstyles. They were positioned in ways that displayed the traditional patterns on their clothing. They were all shown to be confident and proud.

A woman holding a baby after the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Sackey, Balham, London, about 1966 (printed 2010-20) Gelatin Silver print. Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris.

Although Barnor found racism embedded throughout the United Kingdom and its colonies from the time he arrived in London until he left, the discriminatory laws and customs were not strong enough to prevent a growing appreciation for Black culture. People of both African and European descent crossed strict boundaries and protested discrimination by actively celebrating the intermingling of cultures and the exchange of knowledge it allowed. Because of this, white subjects became increasingly prevalent in Barnor’s work. Joyful dissent was recorded in everyday-life moments of interracial couples and multi-racial friend groups while a growing number of Black figures began to appear in roles they previously were not allowed to have and in places that they were previously not permitted to be.

Installation, James Barnor: Accra/London – A Retrospective at The Detroit Institute of Arts. Image courtesy of DAR

James Barnor: Accra/London – A Retrospective is on view at The Detroit Institute of Arts until Closing October 15, 2023

Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco @ MSU Broad

By Jonathan Rinck

On June 11, 2023

In Assemblage / Collage, Installation, Photography

Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) Stephanie Syjuco, Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019. Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chroma key fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, artificial plants, mixed media. Overall 20 x 17 x 8 feet. Photo: Dusty Kessler. Courtesy of the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

While I chatted with Rachel Winter (assistant curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum) about the artistic practice of Stephanie Syjuco, Winter described her as a “force of nature,” and given her many accomplishments, it’s easy to see why. Syjuco’s work has been displayed at the MoMA, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Recently, she was featured on the PBS series Art21. Born in the Philippines, Syjuco has spent most of her life in the United States, and currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Using America’s colonization of the Philippines as a frequent reference point, her archival and research-based artistic practice addresses the ways photographs and objects can be used to construct skewed narratives.

Through July 23, the Broad presents the exhibition Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco, a collection of Syjuco’s work which traverses across photography, sculpture, craft-based media, and installation. This is a diverse body of work with a focused intent, addressing the ways individuals from the Philippines were represented in America during the years of American occupation (1898-1946). America’s history in the region is not given much attention in our history books, and is a “blind spot” for many of us. But these works also speak to colonialism and representation in a broader, more generalized sense.

Syjuco frequently uses chromakey green in her works, a reference to the green-screen used in digital video post-production. And the grey and white checkered pattern she often uses is a reference to the transparency background in Photoshop which fills the negative space in an image after something has been deleted. These allow for both superimposition and erasure, and their prevalence in her work speaks to the omnipresence (particularly in the internet age) of manipulated images and narratives.

The exhibition’s namesake, Blind Spot, is an evocative digital reconstruction of photographs taken during the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. In addition to showcasing new technologies and scientific innovations, the fair also Included what was described at the time as a “human zoo,” featuring more than 1,100 individuals who were trafficked from the Philippines and who, for the duration of the fair, inhabited a Disneyland-style mockup of a village. It was conceived as an educational display, but the exhibit also served to propagate notions about racial inferiority. Photographs of these individuals, taken as they posed in front of backdrops and dioramas suggestive of the South Pacific, helped disseminate these problematic ideas. Blind Spot is a digital intervention for which Syjuco manipulated these images in Photoshop, removing the people and leaving in their trace ghostlike, blurry apparitions. In the 40 images that comprise Blind Spot, all we see are the backgrounds that these individuals were posed in front of, and in removing the people from the photos, Syjuco symbolically liberates them from the ethnographic gaze. Begun in 2019 during a Smithsonian research fellowship, Syjuco completed the project specifically for this exhibition, and afterward it will enter the Broad’s permanent collection.

Blind Spot Stephanie Syjuco, Blind Spot, 2023. Pigmented inkjet prints mounted on aluminum. Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, purchase, funded by the Nellie M. Loomis Endowment in memory of Martha Jane Loomis, 2022.33

Although the installation Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) is sculptural, like Blind Spot it also directly addresses photography and representation. The title references the photographic darkroom technique of lightening or darkening certain parts of the image, though Dodge and Burn can certainly be read in more literal ways. The ensemble presents a large stage crammed with images and objects associated with the Philippines. Many of these are cut-outs of stock images (watermarks clearly visible) that are displayed as prop-like objects. The centerpiece of the ensemble are sculptural representations of two women from the late 19^th Century, one in traditional Filipinx dress, and one dressed in more Western fashion. It’s an intentionally busy sculptural collage which the artist likens to having too many tabs open on a computer. While the work reminds us of America’s colonial history, contemporary references in the ensemble (emojis, photographic color calibration charts, and MAGA hats) encourage us to think about the extent to which America is still a colonial power (Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories, after all, an enduring legacy of the 1898 Treaty of Paris). Subtitled “Visible Storage,” the work serves as a critique of how objects in museums have often been used to construct problematic narratives.

While several bodies of work in this exhibit specifically address Filipinx representation, Syjuco’s work also addresses representation and constructed narratives in more generalized ways. One work in the show features 20 digitally printed flags suspended from the ceiling; their presence evokes the United Nations, and initially they seem to be an expression of unity. But these flags come from fictional rogue/enemy states portrayed in American and European movies; none of these states existed in reality. Most of these are from films produced during the cold war, and are stylized to evoke certain parts of the world; together they speak to a generalized fear of a foreign enemy.

Syjuco’s work is heavily based on archival research, and it raises questions about how archival holdings are acquired, interpreted, and displayed. In support of this exhibit, the accompanying booklet includes brief essays by the directors and registrars of Michigan State University’s varied collections across the arts and sciences (such as the herbarium and the university archives). They discuss their holdings while acknowledging the “blind spots” that exist within these collections, underscoring the cross disciplinary relevance of Syjuco’s artistic practice.

The show takes full advantage of the Broad’s Zaha Hadid designed exhibition space. It’s both conceptually powerful and visually rich. And while the colonization of the Philippines occurred on the other side of the world, Syjuco, particularly with her Blind Spot project, reminds us of some of the ways that the enduring impact of America’s colonial legacy comes close to home.

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum

Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco is on view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum through July 23, 2023

Ricky Weaver @ David Klein Gallery and University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery

By K.A. Letts

On April 9, 2023

In Installation, Photography

Installation, “Crucify my Flesh,” front gallery at David Klein, 2023, Detroit, MI, photo: P.D. Rearick

Spring, 2023 has been an eventful season for Detroit artist and photographer Ricky Weaver. Two exhibitions, one at David Klein’s downtown gallery entitled “Crucify My Flesh” began a survey of the artist’s recent work in March and is now followed by a companion show “Way Outta No Way“ at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery in Ann Arbor.

The series of seven large photographs in the main gallery at David Klein, Untitled, On the Mainline (Anthem), introduce Weaver’s highly charged subject: the vexed relationship between the Black female body and contemporary culture. The artist prefers to call the pictures “image-based objects trafficking in the grammar of black feminist futurity” rather than self-portraits. This strikes me as an evasion typical of her art practice, which simultaneously conceals and reveals. With this recent work, Weaver sets up a dynamic of approach/avoidance that persists throughout both exhibitions, at once attracting us while simultaneously holding us off.

Ricky Weaver, Untitled, On the Mainline, (Anthem) #9037, 2023, archival pigment print, 45” x 30,” ed. of 5 + 2 AP, photo: P.D. Rearick

Ricky Weaver, Untitled, On the Mainline (Anthem) #9084, 2023, archival pigment print, 45” x 30,” ed. Of 5 + 2 AP, photo: P.D. Rearick

Ricky Weaver, Untitled, On the Mainline (Anthem) #9084, 2023, archival pigment print, 45” x 30,” ed. Of 5 + 2 AP, photo: P.D. Rearick

The handsome images in Untitled, On the Mainline, (Anthem)are larger than life size and–oddly–cut off the subject from the neck up. The subdued color of the pictures emphasizes the velvety texture of the sitter’s skin, contrasted with the shiny lacquer of her nails. A delicate necklace helpfully names the subject as “Ricky” and Weaver pointedly focuses our attention on her elaborately manicured, gesturing hands, even as her body is swathed in liturgical black. The nails, beringed and extravagantly appliqued with Christian symbols, are talon-like. They signify both beauty and danger as they hint at meaning in some unknown sign language. Because the images are ranged around the gallery in a row, the impulse to read them as a coded narrative is almost irresistible. So we follow them around the room as the hands point to something outside the picture frame, as they clutch the fabric of her robe closed or hold it open, as a nail digs into her own breast. Without engaging in verbal exposition, Weaver suggests suffering, negation, devotion, refusal. The photographs in this series are an exercise in revealing and concealing, drawing in and pushing away. The religious imagery and text suggest a spiritual struggle inherent in her negotiation of race and gender in a surrounding society that both sexualizes and demeans. Weaver’s refusal to reveal herself is hence her declaration of autonomy.

Installation, “Crucify My Flesh,” back gallery at David Klein, 2023, Detroit, MI, photo: P.D. Rearick

In the second room at David Klein, Weaver positions herself squarely within a matriarchal family structure bounded at one end by her recently deceased grandmother and at the other by tender photographs of her daughters in private moments of caregiving. A series of five images, Untitled, I Sound Like Momma’N’Em (Care and Council), shows Weaver’s daughters in an intimate setting and positioned to suggest vulnerability. Once again, the hands are the point of focus, as they delicately braid and dress hair or merely lie quietly on bare skin. Faces are obscured either by the camera angle or –as in the case of image #9997–purposely obscured by a hat.

Ricky Weaver, Untitled, I Sound Like Momma N’Em (Care and Council), #9997, 2023, archival pigment print, 30” x 20,” ed. of 7 + 2 AP, photo: P.D. Rearick

The recent death of Weaver’s grandmother, a central figure in her upbringing, has engendered an installation that examines universal themes of death, Black historicity and the connection of the living to the departed. The center of the gallery is devoted to an obsidian-black glass circle on the floor which suggests an open grave. It is ringed by loose soil, with ritual lavender and prayer candles. The skyring portal, though, also serves as a looking glass for the living, reflecting quotidian corporeality in the face of nothingness. Two black mirrored images, Lay My Burdens Down 1 and 2, echo the dynamic of the floor installation and suggest death’s welcome escape from the burden of physical existence.

Installation, “Way Outta No Way,” 2023, University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI, photo: K.A. Letts

Moving on to the second exhibition, “Way Outta No Way” at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery, the black reflective image surrounded by soil reappears, now much larger and positioned in the center of the gallery, signifying secret knowledge and resistance. Weaver has moved from the intimate focus of “Crucify My Flesh” to the broader significance of the fugitive image in resisting historic oppression of Black people. The elements of a ritual that can only be guessed at by the uninitiated govern the placement of the objects in the gallery. Domestic furniture, flowers, dirt and water imply some cryptic, encoded body of knowledge. Or as Weaver says, “Ways to freedom were not always seen but they have always been and are known…This body of work honors the way-making and the way-makers in a prayer of deep gratitude for a way outta no way.”

Installation, “Way Outta No Way,” at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI, photo: K.A. Letts

“Way Outta No Way” will be on view at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities Gallery in Ann Arbor until May 5. For more information on images from “Crucify my Flesh” go to https://www.dkgallery.com/exhibitions/91-ricky-weaver-crucify-my-flesh-detroit/

Outside Work: Faculty Exhibition @ OUAG

By Ashley Cook

On February 27, 2023

In Design, Paintings, Photography, Sculpture

Outside Work: Faculty Exhibition at Oakland University Department of Art and Art History

Installation view of Outside Work featuring Black Marquee, The Wild Bunch by Ryan Stanfest, and Getting Golder by Lindsey Camelio. All images courtesy of Ashley Cook

The promotional material for Outside Work at Oakland University Art Gallery includes an image of an organic object with a form similar to a bone or a piece of wood, lending itself to preconceptions that the exhibition would be focused on the natural outside world. Realizing upon visiting the work that this piece by David Lambert is a series of spoons carved from a native sycamore tree could pique the interest of nature lovers. The rest of the work, however, undermines from this assumption that nature is the consistent focus and quickly clarifies that what we have is a group of works by the faculty of the university done outside of their work within the Department of Art and Art History. Dick Goody is the director of the gallery and a Professor of Art at Oakland University; curated into the show are fourteen of his oil paintings along with other works of art by Claude Baillargeon, Meaghan Barry, Lindsey Camelio, Dho Yee Chung, Satareh Ghoreishi, David Lambert, Colleen Ludwig, Karen McGarry, Maria Smith Bohannon, Ryan Standfest and Cody VanderKaay.

Maria Smith Brohannon, Emily uses Dashes, Glichee on canvas, 2022.

Visitors are first welcomed with a poster by Maria Smith Bohannon, who is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design. This poster Emily uses Dashes places a strong focus on the poetic punctuation practices of Emily Dickinson in order to soften the heavy statistics of climate change that are peppered around the poetry. Eight conceptual maps by Karen McGarry are presented along the adjacent wall and then a second piece by Bohannon, Emily is Hopeful. The maps entitled These Places Thus Far by McGarry, who is a Lecturer in Art, utilize collage as the primary technique to touch on her experiences living in different places throughout her life as a student and arts educator, including Detroit, Chicago, New York, Oxford, Singapore, Dublin, Cincinnati and Los Angeles.

Dho Yee Chung, The Room Series, mixed digital media, 2022.

Works by Assistant Professors of Graphic Design Dho Yee Chung and Lindsey Camelio differ from each other despite both using digital media as their means of production. Dho Yee Chung’s triptych The Room Series uses surrealist compositions, missing ceilings and floors, animated walls, and translucent floating forms to depict the control of human labor within a digital workspace. Camelio embraces elements of surrealism too, but with the objective of exploring a realm between luxury and everyday life through odd combinations of subject, pattern, color, and form. A strong focus on color and form is also at play in the work across the room by Cody VenderKaay who is an Associate Professor of Art, the Director of the Studio Art Program, and a sculptor. These abstract red and blue towers are in fact made of pine despite them looking like plastic. This carries over as well to the gray wall works they frame, which are shaped and primed birch.

Cody VanderKaay, Lodestone (Roulette) and Lodestone (High Dive) made of shaped and painted pine, Untitled (Subliminal Landscape) made of shaped and primed birch, 2022.

Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Satareh Ghoreishi and Assistant Professor of Art Ryan Standfest encourage us to consider the impacts of Covid-19 on consumerism around the world. The two works by Ghoreishi focus on the massive influx of online shopping that took place during the onset of the pandemic through her sculptural assemblages that combine contemporary shipping boxes and fashion items with personal items from years ago. The 3D collages by Standfest highlight the unfortunate impact that the pandemic has had on our ability to gather together in physical spaces. He touches on this through the display of two abandoned movie theater facades and a watercolor painting of a rundown marquee. Sharing the same space is Associate Professor of Art Colleen Ludwig’s crocheted fiber and mushroom root sculptures Saccu 1 and Saccu 2. They use the superorganism mycelium to test its ability to merge with fiber with the aim of discovering the potential for new habitat designs to house small creatures within the natural world. This work has a very particular concentration that combines biology with creative production similar to Untitled (Spoons) by Lecturer in Art David Lambert, who uses the tradition of spoon making from his Scots/Irish ancestry to produce these seven forms that teeter on the line between concept and function.

David Lambert, Untitled (Spoons), sycamore, 2020.

The long-standing painting practice of Dick Goody holds a place in this show alongside Professor of Art History Claude Baillargeon’s ink-jet prints entitled Memorial Monuments of Racial Terror, The Equal Justice Initiative (EIJ) Community Remembrance Project, and A Knight of Columbus Facing Justice. These photographs represent the Equal Justice Institute and its work in confronting the history of racism in the United States as a way of healing and achieving justice. And finally, the Department of Art and Art History Chair Meaghan Berry introduces her graphic design firm Unsold Studio through the presentation of six posters that were commissioned by the Michigan Opera Theatre’s 2021-2022 season In MOTion. These promotional designs were made for each performance in the season and visually communicated a freshness through the sense of motion with the goal of not only continuing to attract long-time attendees but new audiences as well.

Meaghan Barry, In MOTion: A visual identity system for Michigan Opera Theatre’s 2021-2022 Season, 2021.

The professional and personal concerns of the artists are represented through the work they chose to include in this group exhibition. Outside Work successfully highlights the dynamics at play within the Department of Art and Art History and makes it clear that each of these artists sustains a studio practice and active professional career in the world of art and design in addition to their position as an educator, which is an essential trait to the faculty of any distinguished university.

Outside Work at Oakland University Art Gallery opened on January 12 and is on view until April 2, 2023. You can learn more at https://www.ouartgallery.org/exhibitions/outside-work/