Photos by Jessica Tabak

Spotlighting Student Art

Since the 1950s, AU’s Department of Art has held a spring student art show. “Student shows foster peer recognition and peer dialogue,” says Luis Silva, chair of the department. “They allow student work to go out into the world, to be discussed, and to raise important issues.”

This year’s AU Art Department Student Art Exhibitions will take place April 1–May 18 in the American University Museum. From April 1–6, undergraduate studio art and graphic design work will be on display, followed by first-year MFA student work from April 10–15 and graduating MFA student thesis projects from April 18–May 18. An artists’ reception for graduating MFA students will take place in the Katzen Arts Center on April 18 from 6 to 9 p.m.; during the reception, student studios will also be open to the public.

Since the fall 2005 opening of the Katzen, the show’s scope has widened. With considerably more space than the Watkins Gallery, AU’s former exhibition venue, the museum “allows us to really showcase the program more fully,” says Silva. “A lot more space means being able to share more of what is going on in our classrooms.”

In addition, students have benefited from the museum’s high profile within the local art community. “The more critical the venue, the more their work goes into the public eye,” says Silva. “Graduate students who have exhibited in these Katzen shows have gone on to get picked up by the Arlington Art Center, the Option Show, and other local art venues. It really has improved the ability of a lot of these students to get their art out to other venues.”

AU’s Center for Israel Studies “is always seeking ways to reach out to the university and greater community,” says Russell Stone, sociology professor and the center’s director. “Being able to mount a show at the American University Museum gives us a great opportunity to do that.”

Personal Landscapes: Contemporary Art from Israel will be on display at the museum from April 1–May 18 as the result of a generous gift from the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation. Part of the center’s yearlong celebration of Israel’s 60th birthday, the exhibit features the work of 15 young Israeli artists working in a wide variety of visual media. “It’s a way of looking at the 60th anniversary of Israel through the lens of its artists,” says Jack Rasmussen, the show’s curator and director of the museum. “It will be an interesting show for Israel to see.”

The show also presents a unique opportunity for the D.C. community. “These are artists who have won awards and exhibited in some of the best museums and galleries in Israel,” says Tamar Mayer, director of cultural affairs at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. “It’s a very strong, diverse, and accomplished group, and it’s very exciting to have them here in D.C.”

The show’s pieces are tied together by the literal and figurative idea of landscapes, both physical and ideological. “A lot of the work takes symbols of Israel—the olive tree, bomb shelters, pre-fab government buildings in Gaza, backyards and alleys of Tel Aviv—and looks beyond their surface at what’s behind these images,” Rasmussen explains. “These artists are taking a hard, critical look at their world from an individual, human point of view.”

Last December, Stone and Rasmussen traveled to Israel in search of the pieces that would become Personal Landscapes. Led by Dalia Levin, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Herzliya, Israel, the pair visited dozens of private galleries, museums, and governmentsubsidized artists’ studios in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa to find the approximately 50 pieces that will compose the exhibit.

Since its founding in 1998, the Center for Israel Studies has been committed to presenting the multifaceted contributions Israel has made to the world at large. “Most people know Israel based on war and conflict, but it’s a full-fledged society making strides in science, business, and art,” explains Adina Kanefield, the center’s deputy director. “The center looks to introduce the university community to the many facets of Israel studies—it’s about broadening horizons.”