When some metalsmithing and jewelry graduate students received the LaVerne Krause gallery to display their work, they faced an aesthetic and artistic problem — the four artists didn’t know how they could use the spacious gallery to display their small, intricate designs.
So they decided to lock the doors.
The new exhibit is open until Friday in Lawrence Hall, but the public can’t go inside. However, the entire show can be seen through the gallery’s four sets of windows.
Based on a theme of “Closed Doors, Open Windows,” the show is called “Hermetic Insights.”
“I didn’t know what (hermetic) meant at first,” said Nick Dong, a graduate student from Taiwan. “I had to look it up in a dictionary.”
Hermetic means airtight.
Instead of visiting art in a gallery, Dong said the exhibit allows viewers to visit art through something more familiar — a window. Dong said this new perspective offers the artists different ways to present their work. They can show their work behind and through windows. Or using the concept of “window shopping,” the artists can also display their work on a pedestal. Dong added that the windows’ false perspective creates a miniature gallery for the work.
During the show’s “opening,” which was held Monday evening, the gallery’s doors remained locked and a reception was held at the front door.
“People have an excuse to stand outside and keep eating,” Dong said.
The viewers didn’t have to move far to view the exhibit. On two spotlighted pedestals behind the windows of the gallery doors stand Dong’s “Peter meter” and “Hooter meter.” The silver, life-size devices can extend to measure the size of a man’s penis or a woman’s breasts. Dong said his metal work was inspired by a taboo topic — the phenomenon of how people judge others by their bank accounts, family background, hair color, height, weight, breast size and penis size.
“I made (the pieces) after observing people’s social behavior in a culture I’m not yet familiar (with),” he said.
In order to present his art more effectively, Dong said he created a movie to demonstrate his art work as a functional object.
Dong said he hopes passersby will see his works’ reflection in the windows and try to investigate. By blocking the light with their hands, viewers can see Dong’s corresponding creation, a short video projected onto two picture frames. The video shows a man using the “Hooter meter” to measure a woman’s breasts, and a woman using the “Peter meter” to measure a man’s penis. After this measuring, the characters’ expressions change.
Dong said he hopes that after viewers laugh, they will reflect and re-examine themselves.
Metalsmithing and jewelry students Maria Almeida, Ukiko Honda, and Jennifer Dekoeyer have also displayed their work in the other windows. Almeida’s work, shown closest to the hall’s doors, presents a double temptation: she created jewelry made of sugar.
First-year graduate students Honda and Dekoeyer, who said they were most interested in perspective, used the identical far windows for a collaborative project. They created a miniature gallery that showcases their different metalsmithing techniques. Like a real gallery, their miniature works have lights, hallways and space blocked from the path of vision. They also bought figurines to appear to stroll around.
“It’s not about the individual pieces of work,” Dekoeyer said, “it’s about the entire gallery.”