(Water)Exhibition

Nether the feeling nor the idea of water escape you at any point throughout the exhibition. The Zimmerli Art Museum’s “Water” exhibition organized by Donna Gustafson, looks amazing and enticing; with an excellent layout the works complement one another splendidly and their placement allows you to flow from one piece to another with ease. Along with an array of aqua blue and sky blue walls engulfing you in a feeling of water, this show is an eye pleaser for any patron of the arts.

And that’s as far as this eye pleaser of a show goes. Without much meat to the enticing visual allure of this show, the works seem to be ripped from their contents and juxtaposed against one another for a visually satisfying yet, intellectually lacking experience. The works themselves appear to be forced with a new meaning and without any consideration for their original content. However, at least one of the pieces within the exhibition did relate to the theme of water and engaged it, that was the piece by contemporary artist Ross Cisneros. The installation screamed water and seemed to engage the questioning of that commodity, yet upon reading some of the questions this piece was meant to explore: “Is water a luxury item or a human right, and to whom does earth’s water belong?” The idea behind this piece gave the impression of being only an excuse for the installation itself rather then a questioning of human dependence on water.

“Water” does not explore your “relationship to earth’s most precious resource(water)” nor does it provoke “a reassessment of your relationship to water” or “a renewed appreciation for our blue planet.” But, much rather presents you with many different works of art and artistic contents that have water as an element within them and most of the time not with an intended purpose in mind. Rather, this exhibition only seems to be another chance for the University of Rutgers to show the public that its an environmentally friendly and aware University. As well as a way for the Zimerli Art Museum to showcase its vast collection and impress its array of sponsors with a visually tasteful exhibition. One would expect an exhibition from a University Museum such as the Zimmerli to be of much more intellectual caliber, unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired.

The four images below complement one another splendidly, with subtle tones of gray and high contrasts of black and white; a new arrangement of these images will leave the eyes visually nourished. As well as create a much more fluent visual coherence to the works themselves. A new arrangement would allow the viewer to draw upon new meaning within the yet unexplored images.