MFA first-years display unconventional prowess

A multitude of motorized artistic works and a bustling audience crowded the halls of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery last Friday, April 8, for the opening of the “2011 First-Year MFA Exhibition.”

The exhibition, curated by Anna Craycroft, School of the Arts ’04, includes the work of 27 first-year Columbia Masters of Fine Arts students and will be on display through April 16.

The MFA program includes students from across the globe, pursuing drawing, painting, photography, digital media, sculpture, and other forms of visual art. The diversity of interest among this year’s first-year class is obvious from the exhibit’s myriad unique pieces that push past the boundaries of contemporary art. On opening night, the limited gallery space quickly filled with traffic as visitors gazed with intrigue at the art on display, some of which was bursting with sound and motion.

Alexandra Lerman’s “Between Frames,” positioned at the beginning of the exhibition, includes a series of postcards. Each depicts a different scene of global political violence, each with related quotes on its reverse side.

Just ahead in the gallery is Korakrit Arunanondchai’s painting of sharp geometrical shapes that radiate outward from a common center. The composition alludes to violence hidden within the subtle three-dimensional pull of the chromatic shapes. Several samurai swords pierce through the board to the backside of the painting where they engage in an even more disturbing scene visible only in the space behind the painting.

The stillness of the first few pieces on display quickly turns to brisk action with a number of works that include actual movement.

Jeremy Couillard’s painting, a futuristic scene of seemingly robotic pieces of technology pictured from varying perspectives, incorporates a layer of movement and stimulation with tiny video screens embedded into the canvas where portions have been cut out. Each screen is connected to a file server laying flat on the floor that controls the clips of computerized graphics being played. The hum of the machinery brings the painting to life—an autonomous world of technology takes over the space at the push of a button.

Behind a velvet curtain, Mira Hunter’s video, “Time Piece,” projects an explosive still-frame animation of a gas bomb as photographed by 65 different cameras.

Gallery-goers will easily have their attention distracted from these pieces, though, by the immediate thrill of Molly Lowe’s piece “Into Shape.” An incessant squeaking noise draws visitors to an amorphous object struggling to move underneath a large pink sheet of spandex. The piece’s spontaneous movements are quite hypnotizing, but within a few moments it becomes clear that the concealed gadget is actually a human being on a piece of exercise equipment. The once supernatural movement slowly becomes a more familiar and yet abnormal form of human activity.

Lea Cetera’s sculpture of a wooden cube, which stands on a tilted axis and features video clips of kittens projected on each of the six sides, has a similarly hypnotizing effect. The six sides, six kittens, and the persistent sounds of meowing and licking leave the viewer in a trance of sorts, lost in the provocation of the scene.

As a whole, the exhibit presents a mix of beautifully traditional forms of painting and photography, as well as a refreshing collection of less familiar forms of sculpture, collage, and performance. The unconventional design styles create a setting where one can muster no will to make sense of what is on display, but only a desire to absorb every ounce of visual stimulus available.