Mississippi State University currently boasts the works of seven nationally achieved artists in its Visual Arts Center Gallery. According to a news release from MSU’s Department of Art, the works displayed in the gallery challenge the viewer to consider “not only a loss of structure, but potential new realities that such loss can generate.”
The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 19, and there will be a reception on Thursday to honor the work.
Artists Josh Azzarella, Belinda Blum, Tiffany Calvert, Julie Evanoff, Gabbe Grodin, Ronna Lebo and Carin Rodenborn have pooled their talents to create a thought-provoking event discussing the nature of art and stability.
The exhibit’s curator, Adrienne Callander, lecturer in the Department of Art, said she sought to feature artists that are also teachers due to their investment in not just their own work but art as a whole.
“They care as much about the conversation of art as they do about their own personal practice,” she said.
The artists comprising “Collapse” either teach currently or have taught in schools in Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey or New York. Students can catch a glimpse of the artists’ academic backgrounds during the artists’ talk on Wednesday, at 4:30 p.m. in the Giles Auditorium.
The discussion will provide students with insight from the artists on their work and process. Callander said while the artists will discuss work related to “Collapse,” both the talk and exhibit will comment on the state of art as a whole.
“I hope that students take from the exhibition an understanding of the philosophical backbone that supports contemporary art practice and the range of media that working artists engage,” Callander said.
In her gallery guide for the exhibit, Callander described the purpose of the works, noting the art in the exhibit provides no easy answers but instead exists in places of juxtaposition between warring factions.
“In temporal, physical, linguistic, formal, cultural or political terms, the imagery and objects presented here articulate the tension between opposing forces,” she said. “The forces might be as epic (or as simple) as the past and the future, as concrete as stretcher bars, as ephemeral as history.”
This varied range of culturally conscious subject matter corresponds directly to the broad spectrum of mediums used to express and explore the exhibit’s overarching theme — the idea of loss of structure. The exhibit’s works also requires various ways of interacting with the art, from paintings and photography to cinematography.
“Collapse” is both challenging and intriguing. The exhibit encourages students to discover the thread in the works for themselves. “Collapse” not only delves into the ways a “loss of structure” functions as a work of art, but also digs up unexpected and beautiful new realities that can arise from such chaos.
