For its 100 year anniversary, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is displaying the Master of Fine Arts program graduate exhibit. In the exhibit, five selected graduates showcase their final works of art before graduation. From 1995 until its renovation in 2002, JSMA annually hosted the MFA graduate exhibit. This year, the exhibit returns for the first time in over 20 years.
“The MFA show has always been a favorite of mine,” Kurt Neugebauer, the Art Associate Director of Administration and Exhibitions at JSMA, said. “It’s not like most other exhibitions we put on at the JSMA, mostly because we’re working directly with the students. We don’t have a collection of works of art sitting and waiting to be displayed, so the artists are creating as we’re going through this process.”
Each year, through a lengthy application process, the MFA program chooses five artists to show their work at an exhibition. With the MFA program being interdisciplinary, this year a large portion of the artists are displaying multimedia works with elements of video, animation, sculpture and painting. Since JSMA stopped hosting in 2002, the exhibit has been held at galleries in Portland. And for some, the transition from a gallery space to a museum was a surprise.
“I do wonder if my work belongs in a museum space because I like to do more installations and experiential work, and so I feel like it works best in my mind in a more DIY space,” Lily Brennan, one of the MFA artists, said. “But it was a good opportunity, and it was kind of fun to problem solve how to rework my concept for my thesis.”
For David Peña, an artist who works in multiple mediums, showing his art in a museum is also a different experience. Peña is a community organizer and believes in making art accessible to all people by displaying it in communal spaces. Although museums don’t necessarily fit Peña’s definition of a communal space, the JSMA makes itself an accessible resource by being free to students, which Peña said, “is a big thing, and I appreciate it.”
Anastasiya Gutnik, who has previously shown her work in galleries, said it has been really exciting to show her art at a major museum amongst many well-known artists such as Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh.
“There’s a lot of work at JSMA that I really admire, and it’s really exciting to be in conversation with and in a space with those people,” Gutnik said.
Gutnik’s piece is a multimedia display that conveys the relationship between humans and nature through a three-channel video of scenes from Dexter Reservoir, a lake about 20 minutes southeast from Eugene, and a steel and wood structure. Gutnik focuses on environmental issues often in her work and focuses on the idea of relationships to place. Gutnik is originally from Russia and said she felt a connection to Dexter Reservoir as it represents a place she grew up visiting in Russia.
Brennan’s work also uses multimedia displays to convey stories and deeper messages about personal experiences. The piece she is showing at JSMA is about an experience she had with a stalker. Brennan focuses on issues of violence towards women and female-presenting people with specific representation of BIPOC. As an Asian American, Brennan said she feels honored to be a part of JSMA, a historically Asian art museum.
“I think it is really important to get my voice out to be relatable for people who have similar experiences to mine,” Brennan said. “Eugene is a very predominantly white space, I think it’s really important to have more BIPOC voices being seen and heard.”
Peña, who is a Mexican American and has worked within his community in Mexico, also spoke on the importance of representation in museums. Peña’s piece was inspired by a photograph of a fence his grandfather welded in front of his grandparent’s house in Mexico. Peña said the photo was sitting in his mind for a long time, and as he reflected on his family’s history, Peña decided he wanted to convey his Grandfather’s trade of welding as an art form. Peña began to learn welding at the beginning of the spring term of 2023 to show his piece, a distorted interpretation of a classic wrought iron fence, at the JSMA at the end of the term.
“I think it’s really important to see art and see yourself in artistic spaces,” Peña said. “Having access to those spaces is vitally important because you can see your history archived. I think it’s important that the public see themselves represented, and I see a lot of that within the JSMA, which is exciting.”
The MFA exhibit is currently open to the public and will be taken down after June 20th. Students at UO and Lane County can see the exhibit for free, and the general public will be charged a $5 entry fee. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday 11-5 and until 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Additionally, JSMA will be open on graduation day, June 20th, for the final day of the MFA exhibit.
