A photograph of a hairy butt and a decoupaged television set are currently being displayed in the DePaul University Art Museum. For the first time in five years the tables have turned. Now it is the students turn to critique their professor’s work. The artwork of faculty members at DePaul is being shown as part of the 2010 Faculty Exhibition.
“This is a rare experience,” said Mary Anne Papaneck-Miller, a contributing professor at the exhibition. Because DePaul has not hosted a Faculty Exhibition for five years, Papaneck-Miller said, “We are very lucky and grateful.”
The Exhibition openly accepted work submitted by professors from the Department of Art, Media and Design; the College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM); and the School of Education. The art reflects a broad range from oil paintings to digital cinema.
“The individual works are really strong and diverse, yet they still talk to one another,” said Louise Lincoln, director of the DePaul University Art Museum. “This is a nice metaphor in a University for how faculty and students can work together.”
This is the first time the School of CDM has been incorporated into a Faculty Exhibition.
“It is a stronger show than when we did this five years ago because we are doing it in collaboration with CDM,” said Jeff Carter, the coordinator of the Faculty Exhibition and the faculty coordinator of the Art, Media and Design Department. “CDM has hired a lot of faculty who are artists over the past five years,” said Carter, “it made a lot of sense to do a show with them.”
“There are not a lot of old-fashioned things like printmaking and oil painting,” said Lincoln. “I found it interesting that the only oil painting was submitted by someone in Digital Media.”
The exhibition displays works of sculpture, printmaking, animation and photography.
“It’s an extremely weird gamet of contemporary art,” Lincoln said.
Not only artwork, but also a secret is being revealed at the Faculty Exhibition. Mark Addison Smith, an Art Media, and Design professor, contributed a series of sketches with quotes that he heard while eavesdropping, many from his students during class.
“Each day, with a pen and a discreet notebook, I secretly observe and record dialogue I hear spoken around me,” he said. “At the end of the day, I turn my collected text into a stack of tiny sketches. I post one a day on my blog.”
“It becomes something wonderful when students are able to see the type of work their professors are doing outside of the classroom,” Lincoln said. “You never know, first, what people are going to submit, and second, how it is all going to fit together.”
The 2010 Faculty Exhibition will continue to be on display at the DePaul University Art Museum until May 14.
Because of the Museum’s busy schedule, Carter said he projects there will not be another opportunity for a Faculty Exhibition for at least four to five years.
“The point of the show is to show the diversity of the artists who teach at DePaul,” Carter said. “I hope that it reaches to a broad audience.”
The DePaul student newspaper ran this article in today’s newspaper as well as posted it on their website.
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