This year’s Visual and Environmental Studies faculty show presents a diverse collection of still photographs and paintings from the new professors and lecturers in the department. Upon entering the exhibit, one encounters the largest of several acrylics by visiting lecturer Thomas Eggerer, a messy vibrant drawing for his 2004 work “Privileged of the Roof.” Look towards the far left wall for the real prize in Eggerer’s collection, an evocative photo collage entitled “Terror of All Things Liquid.” After examining this work, turn around to find the Sharon Harper installation “Moon Study No. 4.” The assistant VES professor’s work, a dreamlike patchwork of the moon’s image as it traverses the sky, is largely static, but even as a still image, the atmosphere of the work (set behind dark curtains in its own chilly environment) is affecting. Another film installation at the center of the exhibit belongs to visiting professor Tishan Hsu, and depicts ocean waves and bird feathers crashing into one another and propelling off the screen. A tour of the exhibit would appropriately end with a look at Burden Visiting Professor of Photography Deborah Bright’s two “Glacial Erratic” pictures, showing the same rock photographed with the full explosion of seasonal variety around them. Visitors should also note that the exhibition space itself was designed by visiting lecturer Sergio Muñoz-Sarmiento and his CLANCCO company.
ONE TO WATCH: The first work you should see as you walk in is a small video screen. Put on the headphones and take in Ruth Lingford’s three short films: “Death and the Mother,” “Pleasures of War,” and “The Old Fools,” featuring brusque digital paint strokes alongside live images, all bleakly blending into one another and creating formlessly diabolical images of the ravages of war and aging.
—Ben B. Chung and Isabel J. Boero
Stratification: An Installation of Works Since 1960
Through February 26, 2006. The Busch-Reisinger Museum. Free.
Google the name of “Thomas Lenk” and you’ll find that he’s a 29-year-old actor who plays the geeky, James Bond-obsessed, ambiguously-gay character of Andrew Wells on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” But visit the Busch-Reisinger Museum and you’ll find that Lenk, a German sculptor born in 1933, is one of the seven artists whose work will be on display until February 26 as part of the museum’s ongoing exhibit, “Stratification: An Installation of Works Since 1960.”
A curatorial intern at the museum, M. Celka Straughn, organized the exhibit of German and Swiss painters and sculptors. Undergraduates involved in the project will be giving gallery talks. The exhibit highlights seven key pieces from the museum’s collection.
In the same year that Lenk (the sculptor, not the actor), was born, Hitler shut down the progressive Bauhaus art school, which sought to produce high-end but cheap functional architecture and consumer goods. For the next three months, the Busch-Reisinger’s collection of Bauhaus work will be featured in a special online-only display, “Extra Ordinary Every Day,” at artmuseums.harvard.edu.
—Daniel J. Hemel and Lindsey R. Canant
Art Listings
Through Oct. 30. A New Kind of Historical Evidence: Photographs from the Carpenter Center Collection. Examining more than 28,000 prints, negatives, and other related materials, this exhibit offers a unique resource for the study of fine art, professional photography, and documentary. Fogg Art Museum. Free.
Through Nov. 27. Degas at Harvard. Uniting more than 70 of Degas’ paintings, sculptures, and drawings, the exhibit explores the reception of French Impressionism in 20th-century America, while presenting some of Degas’ masterpieces in a new and innovative light. Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Free.
Through Dec. 23. The Century of Bach and Mozart: Perspectives on Historiography, Perspectives, Composition and Performance. This joint exhibition features original sheet music from the pillars of classical music, as well as an original watercolor painting by Mozart of…an ear. Houghton and Loeb Music Libraries. Free.
Through Jan 29. Silver and Shawls. This exhibit highlights shawls and silver tableware produced in India during the late colonial period, focusing on the evolution of the former towards European styles and the latter towards more traditional Indian designs. Accompanied by a series of lectures and gallery talks by curators throughout the semester. Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Free.
Dec. 17, 2005—March 12, 2006. French Drawings and Paintings from Harvard’s Dunlap Collection. This exhibition of approximately 35 works showcases some of the most celebrated French paintings and drawings of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Highlights include pieces by François Le Moyne, Charles-Joseph
Natoire, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Fogg Art Museum. Free.
—Kimberly A. Kicenuik and Ben B. Chung