gallery

Inflatable mattresses, water from the Milwaukee River, and sand from the Pacific Ocean are just some of the materials that visual artists innovatively integrated into the artwork of Columbia’s newest exhibit. A year after Columbia postponed the First Year MFA show, second-year Master’s of Fine Arts students returned to display their pieces in their long-awaited Columbia debut. Despite facing cutbacks on studio space and collaborative group work, artists have come together for a final showing of their work.

The punchy drumming from Leikeli47′s “Tic Boom” music video echoes in the gallery, as an  audience lingers in front of Lindsey Brittain Collins’s painting of a Black baby doll sitting against a background of concrete. At the other end of the gallery, colorful suspended quilts covered with patterns inspired by the designer’s Native American heritage, quietly recount a history of grief and betrayal.

With Black History Month in full swing, many galleries showcasing Black art and culture are just steps away from Columbia’s campus. Harlem galleries that have reopened for in-person visitors are featuring pieces that tell stories often underrepresented in the art world. Many of the galleries that remain closed have expanded their online presence or transitioned to outdoor art exhibits and installations.

As the spring term begins, thousands of Columbia students have returned to campus. Despite facing economic challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, many local galleries and art-related businesses continue to offer a diverse array of artistic experiences for Columbia students, ranging from exhibitions confronting the pressing issues of race and gender inequalities to craft and pottery workshops that provide an opportunity to step away from the screen and into the studio.

In a time of social distancing and widespread museum closures, the Wallach Art Gallery, located at 129th Street in the heart of Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, has taken advantage of digital mediums to preserve aspects of an in-person gallery setting by embracing the challenges of creating an engaging online experience.

“Sometimes in social gatherings I forget myself and become another person, a comic; forcefully awkward, strange. Some people laugh and find their inner awkwardness. Some people stop and never come back. Watching comic face makes us forget we are watching comic face.”

The “Red Summer” of 1919 was marked by extreme racial violence, where white supremacists murdered and terrorized hundreds of black individuals across the United States. The Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery’s current exhibition, “1919: Black Water,” homes in on one of these homicides with paintings and sculptures by artist Torkwase Dyson.

“He doesn’t know where he’s going with it, but it’s through the process of making that he finds something,” independent curator Josephine Rodgers said of printmaker Gordon House.