“Questioning Context” opens

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    By ELYSSA MADSEN

    BYU students who wondered what happened to the popular “LOVE” sculpture outside the Museum of Art can find out by attending the museum’s newest exhibit, “Questioning Context: A Spectator Sport.”

    The exhibit is sponsored by a group of Art History graduate and undergraduate students, under the direction of BYU visual arts professor and curator Martha Peacock. The exhibit opens Thursday with a 6:30 p.m. reception and runs through June 7.

    The exhibit approaches twelve different works of art from the museum’s collection — including the Love Sculpture by Robert Indiana and representations of the Academy Building — from a variety of different perspectives. Select students from the art history department were responsible for analyzing one or two works of art from four different contextual viewpoints: The Artist Context, The Artist’s Societal Context, the Continuing Historical Context and the Contemporary Context.

    Students have created text boxes explaining the different contexts to accompany the works on display. Peacock hopes that this will help viewers to appreciate the many different facets of art.

    “It is an educational experience … a very different experience than traditional museum exhibits because it doesn’t just give you one point of view,” Peacock said.

    The exhibit represents several different mediums, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and architecture. It contains works from diverse time periods, from the Renaissance period to contemporary art.

    Karen Whitney, an Art History Graduate student from Los Angeles, who contributed to the exhibit by analyzing representations of the Academy Building, feels that this experience helped open her eyes to myriad of different ways to approach art.

    “A lot of times people are only given one point of view, and that is kind of limiting. This kind of exhibit is open to different ideas. We welcome students to leave their own ideas, suggestions, and interpretations,” Whitney said.

    All are invited to attend the exhibit’s opening reception, which features a lecture by exhibit curator Martha Peacock. Following Peacock’s remarks, the students involved in creating the exhibit will serve as docents for the evening, answering questions and further explaining the works of Art.

    Peacock promises that the exhibit will be “fun, as well as educational,” encouraging students to do what the title implies and “treat (the exhibit) like a sport or a game when trying to figure out the meaning of the piece.”

    Admission for “Questioning Context” is free. The Museum of Art is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., staying open until 9 p.m. Monday and Thursday nights, and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.

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