It only takes a short jaunt down to the Mall to see the works of some of the most famous artists in history. Walk into any of the art museums on the Mall and you’ll run headfirst into a Pollock, a Rothko or even a few Monets. Even those who don’t love art can get lost for hours at the sprawling museums, taking in half a millennium on a short daytrip.
But for those who want to explore the art world more deeply, finding small niches instead of the broad historical pieces, Katzen Art Center is still a gallery worth checking out, especially since it’s a five-minute walk.
Here are a few exhibits currently on display:
n B.G. Muhn’s exhibit “Love Affair of the Empress” takes far-Eastern influences and conflates them with traditional western symbols, creating new means. According to the artist’s website, he is fascinated by symbols and signifiers, and this comes through in his work, combing signs from different cultures and placing them next to each other, deriving new meaning from contradicting ideas.
Muhn has a few different motifs in his work: wolves, Buddha, birds, fish. Ideas of nature are placed in this context of culture, challenging the binary we tend to fit these two terms into. The artist also seems interested in cutting down the reverence we have for the art of other cultures. He is clearly inspired by Chinese and Japanese painting styles, but she changes them in farcical ways in order to undercut its seriousness without taking away its aesthetic qualities.
-Also on display are works of Luciano Penay, a professor emeritus here at AU. Penay came to D.C. from Chile, but his art style is clearly one of American innovation. The most notable aspect of his work is its experimentation; it’s hard to directly pinpoint influences and schools of thought. His one-man show consists of his large-scale collages, featuring mixed media using anything at hand.
-Art from AU Alumni, featuring works culled from artists who have graduated from the school. The selections have been chosen by professors Tim Doud and Zoë Charlton and museum director and curator Jack Rasmussen, finding the best examples of the artistic spirit of AU’s art community. Though the work, like the artists, is eclectic, it will be interesting to draw comparisons, considering these people got similar educations in what it means to be an artist.
-Sculptures from Allen Binstock. Binstock’s work clearly draws on the natural — his website displays glass and steel sculptures that draw to mind floating jellyfish and sea creatures, creating curved lines that make the hard and cold feel organic and lifelike.
These glass sculptures play with color and light, giving their form even more substance when beheld in front of you. Light zips through them like firing synapses, combining the organic with the transcendent. His large pieces, such as the ones to be displayed in the sculpture garden, lack this energy, but make up for it with a unique form and dazzling technicality. The works take advantage of the artist’s skill with glass and transforms them into something bigger, both in size and in scope.
mrichardson@theeagleonline.com
