The ambitious slogan “Be The Art You Want To See In The World” and the signature colorful portrait of Yayoi Kusama, the hottest Japanese artist worldwide nowadays, made the exhibition’s artwork submission poster last semester hard to miss. Looking forward to seeing this annual student-curated exhibition since seeing the poster, I attended the exhibition’s opening last Thursday, February 21 with great anticipation.
“Be The Art” is committed to celebrating and raising awareness for artists of color at the University. This was its seventh year at Wesleyan, and it was on display in Zilkha South from Feb. 21 to March 3.
The marketing for the event cited common themes of cultural identity and self-expression among the presented works, and many of the pieces seemed to touch upon these ideas. Mariama Eversley ’14 presented photographs of street scenes as a depiction of Parisian bohemian tradition from an “American gaze,” while senior Heran Tsedeke Abate’s photos of Ethiopian everyday life suggested an alternate reality of “self-proclaimed happiness.”
Other works were less explicitly focused on identity, such as senior Sydney Lowe’s photographs of African immigrants in Bologna, senior Adam Forbes’s pure, exotic landscape photographs taken in Manila, Philippines, and senior Marina Reza’s pictures shot in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
On the other hand, some pieces that seemed to have few cultural connotations at first were ultimately very much related to self-identity and expression. For example, the descriptions accompanying senior Ariana Todd’s nude self portrait “But my body is beautiful, too” and sophomore Taylor A. Dauphin’s abstract geometric painting contained explicit claims of self-affirmation, even as the works themselves often left meaning open to interpretation.
When asked about one of her artworks, which featured a huge, open mouth filled with sensual, expressive, organic cylinders, Mao Misaki ’15 talked about what personal expression through art means to her.
“I think it’s about the expression of the expression,” she said. “You know, I grew up in a culture that is kind of man-dominated and conservative…I really want to express myself through art.”
Lowe, who was also a curator, specified in an email to The Argus that the exhibition aimed to create a space in which to showcase the work of artists who are often underrepresented at Wesleyan and in the art world at large.
The exhibition was as much a celebration of artistic amateurism at Wesleyan as it was a celebration of artists of color, but “amateur,” in this case, does not mean “unprofessional.” Rather, “Be The Art” embraced innovation and inclusiveness on campus by showcasing the work of students who wouldn’t consider themselves artists.
“There are people who don’t even want to claim [to be] artists…They said they were only dabbling,” Lowe said.
Yatta Zoker ’14, another student curator, confirmed Lowe’s assessment.
“There are people from biology and computer science majors…and this is why this show is very special,” Zoker said.
Not everyone who draws or paints will become a professional artist, but “Be the Art” shows that expressing and affirming oneself while understanding one another through art is itself a goal worth striving for. In this way, the exhibition’s influence is not limited to students of color.
“Someone told me they didn’t know their housemate was doing art, [and that he kind of also wants to do it because of] the show,” said student curator Olivia Grant ’14.