Contemporary Arts Purchasing Program
- Contemporary Art Purchasing Program Selections 2010-2011
Luke Jerram, HIV, 2010, Glass. Courtesy of Heller Gallery
- Courtesy of Heller Gallery
Exhibition from August 29, 2011 through October 15, 2011
Opening Reception September 8, 2011 5:00-8:00 PM
We here at the Stamp Gallery are getting really excited for our upcoming exhibition, opening in just a few short weeks. This exhibition will be to showcase the selections of the 2010-2011 Contemporary Art Purchasing Program committee. Seven engaging, beautiful, thought provoking, perspective changing works have just been added to the Stamp’s growing art collection. These works represent the hard work of the student committee and the awesome dedication of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union-Center for Campus Life to the project of “educating and inspiring by exposing the campus community to challenging art created by contemporary artists.” (From CAPP’s mission statement). We hope you’ll join us on September 8th from 5:00-8:00pm for an opening reception.
Here’s what the five 2010-2011 student committee members have to say about the year and their selections:
“During the 2010-2011 academic year, we embarked on an invigorating journey of discovering contemporary art and its place within the university community. The program involved weekly meetings to discuss researched artists and galleries, a contemporary art markets and collecting theory course which served to inform our opinions about art and presentations to an advisory board of professionals involved in various art related careers. Slowly our individual inquiries and interests evolved into a more interactive and cohesive group. Our identity as a committee representing the student body became our focus and after a semester of intensive research and discussions we were prepared for the next phase of the program: assembling a collection. In what proved to be an exciting and eye opening experience, the committee contacted galleries in Washington DC and New York and scheduled various gallery visits and three artist studio visits to see the work in person. These visits provided clarity and helped us to make informed decisions about which pieces would fit within the campus community.
The result of this combined effort is a cohesive collection we feel confident will engage a wide array of academic areas of the university community both visually and intellectually. While subject matter and style varies, collectively these pieces explore new territories and unveil layers of meaning for the viewer to be able to have an interactive experience with the work individually and perhaps spark collective discussions. Discovery, perceptions, identity formation, the visibility of the invisible, dimensionality and process these are themes and ideas that encompass this collection and that we believe are greatly relevant to the University of Maryland community. We hope you enjoy the presence of these works on our campus as much as we enjoyed picking them out!”
–Michele Briley ’11, Mara Duvra ’11, Erin Kim ’11, David Phelps ’13, and Eldis Sula ’11
