Instead of a flurry of finals and papers, graduating art students rush into the New Wight Gallery in the Broad Art Center one day near the end of the quarter, wielding blue masking tape. They race to claim the perfect spot on the gallery wall, where they will soon display the piece of work that best represents their artistic growth at UCLA.
Those works go on display this evening, as the UCLA Department of Art opens “From the Window to the Wall,” an exhibition of the artwork of graduating students, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will be open to the public through June 12.
The students played a large role in putting together an exhibit that best represents their time at UCLA, from picking their own pieces to choosing the title of the exhibition.
“The title for each senior show is traditionally chosen by a vote of the seniors. This year, somebody nominated this title, and it got more votes than anything else. I understand that it derives from a hip-hop song lyric, “˜to the window, to the wall,’ by Lil’ Jon & the East Side Boyz, and that most of the other lyrics from the song are unprintable in the Daily Bruin,” said Don Suggs, professor of art and the faculty advisor for the senior show.
The exhibit features an eclectic mix of painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and ceramics. While the students have the same academic background, they each approach their work in a unique way.
Yasmin Santis, a fourth-year art student, was inspired by one of her first UCLA classes.
“Freshman year, I took the cluster “˜Sex: From Biology to Gendered Society.’ It was here that I came across female hysteria, which inspired the work that I will be displaying. Female hysteria was a “˜medical’ condition of the Victorian age in which the symptoms were listed in a 75-page manual,” Santis said.
This resulted in her piece “Paroxysm,” which comments on the oppression of female sexuality through a sculpture made up of velvet, wallpaper and a turquoise model of a Victorian home made up of a jumble of the first vibrators. To top it off, the piece actually vibrates.