About
What happens in a moment where the in-person temptation that leads to Don’t touch the art, has shifted to a reality of Can’t touch the art (even if we wanted to)? How do we have a relationship with artworks designed to be experienced in person–where we as artists and viewers expect to appreciate the texture of the oil paint or the layers of a print, see the glisten of the gallery light off the glaze of ceramics, surround ourselves by the objects of an installation, and feel the wind of your own movement reflected in the vibration of a draped fabric?
Exceptional times call for looking beyond the status quo, and considering ways of rethinking how we adapt to new constraints. Globally, museums, galleries, and arts institutions have admirably and ambitiously worked to envision collections and exhibitions online. From making previously guarded digital artifacts public, to increasing social media engagement, to featuring some of their most renowned works in the world of Animal Crossing.
This Spring, the Department of Art and Art History and the Doris Ulmann Galleries invite you to the first ever digital exhibition featuring the work of our thirteen accomplished graduating Studio Art majors. As the majority of Berea’s students moved off-campus in the beginning of March as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with their suitcases, our majors traveled with in-progress works, boxes of supplies, and the task of completing and adapting projects in rooms repurposed as studios. And, here we are proud to present the culmination of their diligent work and creativity to family, friends, and the general public.
We invite you to bring the same excitement, but, perhaps, a different imagination to the viewing of their work than we typically might in our Rogers-Traylor Art Building–– considering the texture of an artwork as your fingers press down on your keyboard; looking with great detail as we use the digital magnifying glass to make a print no bigger than your computer monitor suddenly the scale of a tapestry; and brightening or dimming your screen as though you were changing the very lighting cast upon the artworks.
We ask what can we see in these works digitally that we otherwise might not have? Furthermore, what does it mean, in this year of 2020 and amidst a globally defining moment, to experience the senior exhibition differently than anyone has ever before in the college’s history?
And, so, we welcome you to engage, by pixel, by browser window, by two-finger scroll, and by click, with the Berea College 2020 Senior Studio Art Exhibition, and join us in congratulating our seniors for all they have accomplished, not only through this challenging semester, but their entire careers at Berea.
With care,
The Berea College Department of Art and Art History