Some of the best and most recent art projects that Bowdoin students have to offer will be on display, starting next Friday, at Fort Andross in an opening of both the Advanced Studies In Visual Arts (Art 350) final projects and the senior visual arts major projects. While Art 350 is an independent course, both groups of projects will be intermixed in one show consisting of 31 total projects.
For the Art 350 students, the work that they will be displaying is the culmination of the semester: They have been working on these specific projects since January.
Rather than strict assignments with rigid parameters, their projects were very open, which gave the students a lot of control over the work in the show.
"What is going into the show is a project that they've been developing themselves with close consultation with the rest of the class," said Assistant Professor of Art Mike Kolster, who is organizing the show. "It is work that they have generated, come up with, and conceptualized themselves."
The media included in the Art 350 show will be diverse, as the course does not insist on any specific medium of art. The work that the senior majors will be adding to the Art 350 work is wide-ranging as well. It is a combination of painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video work, and even a few multimedia projects, making the full collection of work at the show a diverse conglomeration of projects.
"They [the non-350 seniors] are participating in this show with the idea that they would show their most current and strongest work," said Kolster. "Some students have been working more in the traditional, straightforward way with paint on canvas, while others have been pushing the definition of what art is," said Kolster. "However, most of the projects reside within the two."
While many advanced art shows from Bowdoin students have been exhibited in Fort Andross, the space that this show will be using is somewhat different.
Most exhibition spaces are large, bare, white rooms that house all of the projects, whereas this space, called Suite 412, is a converted office suite, meaning that instead of one or two big rooms, it is broken up into a number of smaller rooms. This creates a different environment of artwork for viewers in each room.
"It's a much different space," Kolster said. "The exhibition will be an experience of moving into some different environments. Students haven't altered the environments, but you will feel a difference in each room that you enter."
The show, consisting of the work of both senior visual arts majors and Art 350 students, opens on May 8 from 5-8 p.m., and will remain open until May 15. The show is in Suite 412 at Fort Andross.