Sunday, June 29, 2008
Surreal and abstract contemporary artwork have come together this month to create the new exhibit, “Dreams and Portals,” at the Spencer Museum of Art.
The exhibit features selections from the museum’s permanent collection and one original work by KU art professor Carol Ann Carter. The organizers of the exhibit, Kris Ercums and Susan Earle, wanted the collection to display artwork that evoked dreams and blurred the concept of space.
“For the summertime we wanted something slower-paced and relaxed,” said Earle, who is curator of European and American art. “We conceived groups of artwork together to have a common view into the same mysterious place: the idea of collapsing space to create dreams.”
Earle said that a painting could be a portal into a new way of looking at things. Looking at a painting, she said, invited the viewer to see in one space a mix of what is there and what isn’t there, allowing the imagination to run.
Although most of the paintings in the exhibit have been displayed in the museum before, this is the first time the paintings have been grouped together. Earle said the museum wanted to show paintings that hadn’t been seen in a while. She said part of what was exciting about working with collections was that she got to shape how the paintings were seen.
Kaitlyn McGill, Omaha, Neb., senior, said that although she had seen some of the art already, the new exhibit allowed for a new way of taking it all in.
“It’s an interesting assemblage of paintings,” McGill said. “I’ve seen a lot of the works already, but they were in different exhibits. This collection connects the paintings to the theme of dreams and portals, causing you to think about things in a different way.”
Earle said she hoped the exhibit would inspire people to have discussion on dreams, both their own and in the paintings. She said she wanted to choose things that allowed free play of the imagination for students and visitors.
Melissa Rogers, Lawrence senior, said the exhibit let her imagination run wild.
“It’s evoking all kinds of different emotions for me,” Rogers said. “It’s a colorful display of people’s strange minds and fantasies. It almost causes you to drift off into your own dream, creating your own story.”
According to Jerrye Van Leer, visitor service coordinator, viewers had enjoyed the specific selection of works and their relationship to each other. She said that when visitors first came in, she asked them to stop and look at the paintings, then look deeper. Finally, she asked them to look at the label with the title of the art, giving viewers a deeper understanding into the artist’s meaning. Van Leer emphasized this was an exhibit that people of all ages could enjoy.
“I think it’s more inquiring into your own thoughts and giving your own opinions,” Van Leer said. “We try to do a lot of that at the museum, try to encourage the viewer to draw her own conclusions about a piece. I think Dreams and Portals really exemplifies that.”
Curator Susan Earle said some of the works in the exhibit were more complicated to understand while others were merely pleasurable, but they came together for the overall Dreams and Portals theme. The exhibit will be on display in the museum’s central court through September 7.
— Edited by Jesse Temple
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