Ohio State is bursting at the seams with creative juice
Artistic expression
Objects of Wonder
Both the Columbus Museum of Art and The Ohio State University were founded in the 1870s, and from the start, the two have shared a passion for both knowledge and collecting. That’s a big reason it’s fitting for CMA to host “Objects of Wonder from The Ohio State University.” The exhibit runs Sept. 26 through Jan. 11 at the museum, 480 E. Broad St., and displays an astonishing range of objects, from the scientific to the artistic. The exhibit brings to light the surprising treasures held in the university’s vast collections, from matchboxes to Marilyn Monroe, pigeons to paintings, and cartoons to costumes. Every artifact in the show tells a unique story. Experienced together, these objects inspire unexpected connections.
With more than 1,700 undergraduate students, 500 graduate students and 160 faculty members in the College of the Arts, Ohio State produces a vast amount of creative works. It also boasts a renowned center for the arts with the chutzpah to bring in internationally acclaimed exhibitions. Here’s a brief rundown of some of the big artistic events going on this fall.
Warhol’s world
When Wexner Center for the Arts director Sherri Geldin was in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, last year, she visited an exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum that astonished her with its ingenuity and freshness. Geldin made it her mission to bring Andy Warhol’s exhibit, “Other Voices, Other Rooms” to the Wexner Center. The exhibit, which will be an exclusive U.S. presentation of more than 700 films, videos, paintings and prints by the pop artist, will fill all four galleries at the Wexner Center from Sept. 13 through Feb. 15. It opens in Columbus just after what would have been the late artist’s 80th birthday. “It explores afresh the remarkable legacy of an artist who utterly transformed the cultural landscape of his own time, but also foretold with uncanny prescience today’s media-obsessed society,” Geldin said. “Given Warhol’s masterful manipulation of virtually every artistic medium, what better place than the multidisciplinary Wexner Center to present this exhibition?”
Objects of Wonder
The College of the Arts has a problem with its new 10,000-square-foot space downtown: There are so many good ideas floating around about what to do with it that the staff can barely keep up with them. But it’s a good problem to have, says Kelly Stevelt Kaser, manager of the OSU Urban Arts Space at 50 W. Town St. It shows that a lot of people are invested in promoting the college to the community and want to see the new space succeed, she said. “We want to blur the lines between students and professional alumni,” Stevelt Kaser said. With an increase in exhibition space, the college will significantly increase the room it has to display faculty and student works. Most exhibitions have been shown in the college’s Hopkins Hall + Corridor Gallery, which encompasses about 1,500 square feet. Now, more students can exhibit at the same time, in one location and for longer periods.
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