University of Illinois art and design students are challenging convention – and having a bit of fun at the same time – in an exhibition on view Nov. 10 through Dec. 7 at the UI’s Krannert Art
Museum and Kinkead Pavilion. The exhibition, called “Amuse,” represents the culmination of their participation in “Art in Context,” an interdisciplinary course team-taught by art and design professors Sarah Krepp and Barbara Kendrick. Half of the student-artists are graduate students; half, undergraduates. ornate copper boxTogether, they represent a variety of disciplines within the UI’s School of Art and Design: painting, photography, sculpture, glass and ceramics.
“The artists in the ‘Amuse’ exhibition were challenged to regard the museum and its contents as both subject and site,” Krepp and Kendrick wrote in the catalog that accompanies the show. The students’ own art responds to the museum’s collection of 20th century art. “
The 17 artists in ‘Amuse’ restore to art of the past century a sense of immediacy,” Krepp and Kendrick noted. “Their urgentmerchandizing display of Roundup vegetation killer messages say, ‘look again’ at both the art and its container, the museum. Some of their work is witty and irreverent, some deadly serious. All of it reinvigorates the 20th century collection of the Krannert museum, causing us to muse or be amused.” The students’ proposal models for the show will be on view through Nov. 16 in the Link gallery that connects the art museum to the Art and Design Building. Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion is located at 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays; and 2 to 5 p.m. Sundays.
