WIGA 2010
Is art just a pretty picture or can it change the world? Should it make you think? Should it make you act?
Team Kenan invited Duke students to submit original artwork that demands change, makes viewers laugh, squirm, grimace, cry, or wonder – and ultimately want to live better.
The winners of the inaugural What is Good Art? Competition were unveiled at the exhibit opening on April 5.
Top prizes went to:
Michael McCreary, “Tension in Yellow” (1st place)
Stephanie Vara, “The Dinner” (2nd place)
Colin Heasley, “Stop Signage” (3rd place)
Kirstie Jeffrey, “Love, Love, Love” (Honorable Mention)
Marissa Bergmann, “Veins and Brains” (Honorable Mention)
Zach Blas, “Queer Technologies” (Gallery Choice)
A prestigious panel of experts judged competition submissions on their ability to fuse ethical and aesthetic dimensions into one statement. The scope of work solicited for the competition was intentionally broad: students were free to interpret the ethics-art link in many different ways.
Panel of Judges:
William Fick, Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts
Margaret Mertz, Executive Director, Thomas S Kenan Institute for the Arts
Louise Meintjes, Associate Professor of Music
Noah Pickus, Director, Kenan Institute for Ethics
Thomas S. Rankin, Director, Duke Center for Documentary Studies
Kimerly Rorschach, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum
Suzanne Shanahan, Associate Director, Kenan Institute for Ethics
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics
Read the full 2010 statement for What Is Good Art? below:
See the rest of the 2010 What Is Good Art? Exhibition below.
Jessica So and Tiffany Pao, Have You Stepped Outside Your Box?
Through this project, we ask students to reflect on their place within the Duke community and encourage them to leave the comfort zone of their niche; we want to challenge students to “step outside their box.” With this in mind, we created a three-dimensional interactive art piece that incorporates photographs, newspaper clippings, printed quotations, and a mirror. The panels of the box represent different communities within the “Duke community,” revealing stereotypes in the culture that sometimes exist. By highlighting several individuals who have stepped outside their metaphorical “box” at Duke, we challenge viewers to confront these stereotypes in an effort to bring our community together. Our hope is that viewers of this art piece, surrounded by visual representations of the different parts of cultural communities at Duke, would gaze into the mirror and ask themselves the ultimate question: How have I—how can I—step outside my box?