VCU School of the Arts presents end-of-year student exhibitions

By Leila Ugincius

Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts will present its annual spring student exhibitions beginning March 15 at The Anderson, 907½ W. Franklin St.

The end-of-year exhibitions, taking place over eight weeks, are free and open to the public. The 2019 undergraduate juried fine arts exhibition, “Home Sweet Home,” kicks off the season with a lecture from juror Rebecca Matalon, curator of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, on Friday, March 15, at 5 p.m. An awards ceremony presented by VCUarts Dean Shawn Brixey and reception will follow. The undergraduate exhibitions run through March 28.

This annual exhibition displays the best of undergraduate creative production. The theme comes from a prompt issued by Matalon.

“This prompt creates space for a reconsideration of cultural assumptions about the home,” she wrote. “Is home a real place, a fantasy, or something in between? Is it an ideological or economic construct, or something more? Is it about safeguarding the past, sustaining the present, or shaping the future? And how might different forms and practices of art making be brought to bear on ideas of the home, or domesticity, in a broad sense?

“Although embracing ideas of the decorative, this prompt is not simply a call for the decorative arts and crafts. Rather, it contends that the idea of the home is equally architectural, conceptual, societal and mythic, and implicitly shaped by privilege and prejudice. This prompt encourages artists working across all mediums to consider and reckon with the at times conflicting, ambiguous and intimate space of the home.”

The undergraduate juried exhibition is followed by two rounds of Master of Fine Arts thesis shows, the final requirement for students in the graduate fine arts and design programs. Graduating M.F.A. students from the departments of Craft/Material Studies, Graphic Design, Interior Design, Kinetic Imaging, Painting + Printmaking, Photography and Film, and Sculpture + Extended Media will present their final pieces — culminating years of intensive studio practice and associated research — at The Anderson.

Round one of the graduate M.F.A. thesis exhibitions begins with an opening reception April 5 and runs through April 18. Round two runs April 26 through May 11, with an opening reception April 26.