Get a tour of some of the world's cultures without leaving the familiarity of Rugby Road -- check out the University of Virginia Art Museum. Many students are unaware that the University even has an art museum. It, however, is a great place to take a load off -- or, let's face it, impress a girl. There are three exhibits opening that are well worth a free visit.
The first exhibit is New Dreams for Old, which opened Nov. 4. The well-organized collection is a small sampling of modern Aboriginal works of the last 35 years from the University's Kluge-Ruhe collection. Margo Smith, curator for the exhibit and director for Kluge-Ruhe, chose the oxymoronic collection title to reflect the tension that exists from living with traditional beliefs in a modern world. Smith explained that while current Aboriginal artists "are very much a part of contemporary life. ... Their paintings are from a traditional point of a view."
The pieces on display are vibrant, colorful and active. They are stories and maps of dreamings that were originally drawn in the sand for ceremonies. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's Kangaroo Dreaming includes animal tracks and important places on the landscape, showing where the kangaroo searches for water. Yam Dreaming of My Country, by well-known artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye, is a stylized, impressionistic version of the Yam dreaming that encompasses an entire wall. Worth the visit alone are the intricately painted hollow log coffins by various artists that stand in the exhibition room.
Much like the Aboriginal exhibit, the second new exhibit, Regeneration, reflects a changing world. It is a larger exhibit that highlights contemporary art from current Chinese artists that expressively manifests the tension of growing up in a restrictive society. Featuring a collection from Bucknell that has been touring the country, the exhibit opens Nov. 11 with two guest curators: Dan Mills and Xiaoze Xie.
Some of the images are a bit racy. Zhou Xiaohu's Beautiful Cloud features disturbing naked pictures of digitally drawn babies. Whether you like it or not, it provides for some interesting dinner table conversation. Others are stunningly beautiful. Cai Jin's Beauty Banana is a complex painting of plants done entirely in red. Chen Shaoxiong's Anti-terror Variety shows distorted photographs with planes flying through skyscrapers, eerily reminiscent of Sept. 11.
The third exhibit, which opened Nov. 4, is The Reflected Word, curated by Stephen Margulies. The collection examines the role of visual words in artistic pieces, with works from Andy Warhol, Herman Muller, Don Freeman and a plethora of other artists.
So put on your beret and go check out the exhibits. The University of Virginia Art Museum is small and manageable, and is a great stop for breaks between classes, or heck, that surprising date. The three exhibits are well worth a visit and will provoke some thoughts and perhaps a desire to become an art buff.
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