A collage of ideas
Black and white photos and brightly colored magazine collages decorate the white walls of the William and Nancy’Oliver gallery this week. Costumes hang from the ceiling and magazines line the floor.
These are the components of ‘Manifesto Antropofago: Chopped and Screwed’ and ‘Kaleidoscape’ – the two new student exhibits similarly’focused on collages and the’human senses.
But each artist and piece has its own message and’inspiration.
‘Manifesto Antropofago: Chopped and Screwed’
It started with a name’slowly taking form and constantly changing from the day of conception. Now, the idea has come to life in the new student exhibit ‘Manifesto Antropofago: Chopped and Screwed.’
John Shirk, a senior’majoring in studio art, and Leif Langford, a senior majoring in fine arts with a concentration in’painting, are the fathers of this flesh-tingling exhibit.’
The name came from’Langford’s research in a humanities course on Latin America. In 1928, Brazilian poet Jose Oswald de Andrade wrote ‘Manifesto Antropofago,’ also known as ‘Cannibalist’Manifesto.’
The poem is the rejection of passive colonization by way of being consumed by others and their cultures the way humans consume food,’Langford said.’ ‘
Brazil is a country of more than 500 different’races, he said, and this Manifesto allows individuals the ability to soak up positive aspects of other cultures while purging’ negative influences. Langford likens this’to ‘feeding the senses.’
‘Like food to the body, art satisfies the senses,’ he said. ‘Since everything in the world is experienced through the senses, as artists, we are’cannibals to the world -‘gobbling up others to form a’new, fragmented and ultimately stronger perspective.’
Color and creativity embody most of Langford’s work.’Everything from cut-up pictures and cigarette butts to fruit loops is incorporated into his work.
‘Many of these collages ate each other because my tastes and techniques changed over time,’ Langford said.
Many pieces are a collage of pictures taken from books and magazines. Each of Shirk’s’pictures are chopped and changed from a stereotypical photo in a magazine to a more humanistic representation of what societal culture has’become. In one of his works, a woman’s face is masked’behind a steaming locomotive.
‘It looks like a gas mask, and I liked that about it,’ Shirk said.
Their art is made from’recycled sources and is a’constant work in progress, always subject to be ‘chopped and screwed,’ Shirk said. Each piece is a progression, changing over time as society and’demographics change.
The exhibit features another unique aspect: viewer participation. Both artists say they’re’always interested in what others think of their work. The’gallery has glue, scissors and’paper available for visitors to leave their thoughts for Shirk and’Langford.
‘Kaleidoscape’
Seniors Ryne Heslin and Isabella Samreny, both’majoring in art studio, were’sitting around ‘drinking a’bottle of vodka and trying’to think of the cleverest pun’for their (gallery) title,’Samreny said.
That’s where ‘Kaleidoscape,’ a gallery consisting of two series of photos and two costumes that make up a collage of ideas and a dazzling scene, began.’
Samreny said the gallery has taken ‘months of blood, sweat and tears’ and involves actors.
Music playing in the’background makes their art an’experience that is different for’every person.
The culmination of’pictures, lights and sounds’was inspired by ‘watching the show Jersey Shore and also taking’hypothermia-inducing swims’in my pool,’ Samreny said.’
‘I don’t want to go into too much boring detail in’describing or narrating the’work because I don’t want to mediate the experience of the person who comes to see our show,’ she said.
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Both shows will be on’display at the William and’Nancy Oliver Gallery next to the Fine Arts building until Friday. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the artists invite’students to come and indulge their senses.
The reception for the gallery is Friday at 7 p.m. and is open’to everyone.