A Way with Art
as it appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, May 3rd, 1994
article written by Paul Gessell
Please see the easy to read text version below.
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press clipping for A Way with Art as it appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, May 3rd, 1994 article written by Paul Gessell Please see the easy to read text version below. |
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| Students hold arts protest |
| White Bitch Cosmetics Corporation
deserves an A plus. It is an intelligent, witty and very inventive work of
performance art by Andrea Jensen, a University of Ottawa visual arts
student. Jensen was performing her creation last week when she and her fellow graduates opened an end-of-term exhibition on campus at 100 Laurier St. E. Dressed like a cosmetics saleslady in a white smock, gold lamé scarf and teased blonde hair, Jensen dispensed character-building potions with names like "intelligence cleanser" and "decisive toner," all the while maintaining a clever banter that would have tired most professional auctioneers. Jensen's satirical caricature was the product of a wonderfiul young talent. But it was also the product of a university visual arts department that has a national reputation for pushing students to expand the frontiers of art. There are fears, however, that the golden era of the university's visual arts department is over. Queen's Park has imposed a $17 million funding cut on the university over the next three years. Of that figure, $3.2 million will be absorbed by the faculty of arts, including $250,000 by the visual arts department. Consequently, the department is shrinking. Everyone involved seems to have a different interpretation of what this leaner department will look like. However, it seems certain students will have fewer opportunities for honors programs or for specialized training in photography, studio arts or theory. The university maintains it is comitted to the visual arts. But students, alumni, local artists and academics from across the country fear the department will become so lean, third-rate and irrelevant that it will die. Protest on parade Those fears have generated A Way With Art, a protest exhibition that opened last week at Gallery 101 on Lisgar Street and continues until May 13, the same date the campus exhibition of the graduating students closes. Alumni and local artists were invited to submit small artworks that illustrate the effect the department has on the community and on the artists' works. The result is a show that varies from the humorous to the poignant. Darcy Leon Schmidt framed a copy of his fine arts degree from the university and stamped the words "offer expired" on it. Bill Louie sent in a photo of himself with one hand holding paint brushes and the other holding a sign saying "artist's supplies for sale." There are dozens of other works, some with more subtle messages, and some that are simply cherished paintings, photos or sculptures from student days. A wall of the gallery is papered with newspaper clippings about the artistic succeses of U of O graduates and profs, including Jennifer Dickson, Pierre Arpin and Trevor Gould. Some of those same folks also wrote angry letters lamenting the changes to the visual arts department. These letters are displayed on a wall, along with others from local politicians and from academics across the country. Typical is one from Richard Perry, a professor fromYork University who wrote that the proposed visual arts restructuring "will severely disable and eventually terminate" the department. David Staines, vice-dean of arts, says such statements are based on faulty information spread by over-reaction to change and an alarmist news media. We hope Staines is right because, if he is wrong, serious visual artists will increasingly go to other cities for university education. Neither Carleton nor the Université de Québec à Hull offer comparable courses. Consequently, we could lose people like Andrea Jensen, who can contribute so much to this community, whether as a student or as a working artist, with their marvellous insights and creativity. After all, we could all do with some "intelligence cleanser" and "decisive toner." Even the bigwigs at U of O need some from time to time. |
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