UAlbany Art Museum.

As I was on my way to the UAlbany Art Museum, I could not help but think about what I was going to see. I had never been to an exhibition before and was very excited to view the different pieces the students had been working on. I was definitiely not prepared for what was to come. The artists featured in this exhibition have just completed the University at Albany Art Department’s three-year, 60 credit-hour program of intensive training and study in fine art practices. At the end of their Master of Fine Arts studies, candidates are required to exhibit a cohesive body of their work. This work forms the core of the MFA candidates’ visual thesis and demonstrates the vigor and expertise with which these emerging artists explore their respective choice of mediums. The University Art Museum provides MFA candidates with the opportunity to exhibit their work in a professional museum setting. I think it is such a great idea for the museum to offer viewers an opportunity to see how today's emerging artists addressing contemporary issues in the visual arts.

Not knowing what to expect, I walked in and one of the first pieces we saw was a set up of a bedroom with a four-post bed, a picture of a window behind it, and a night stand with a lamp and clock. The bed was on some sort of mechanical machine that made the bed rock a little. The shocking part was that there also was a recording that was playing as the bed moved which sounded like someone was groaning. Rachel and I literally stood there and just was so suprised that this was actually the first piece was saw. I honestly did not know what to think. The recording played on repeat and we established that it was a person who was making the noise in the recording. It was like one of those piece of artworks that a person could not possiby pass by and skip it but had to stay and watch it for a bit, no matter how annoying the sound got. We probably stood around that piece for about five minutes trying to comprehend what we were actually seeing, and what was waiting for us inside the rest of the museum.

After finally leaving the first piece, we walked into this wide open space with two floors. The museum had all types of artworks from tile, paintings, installations, etc. As we started to make our way around the space, the first wall of pieces we appraoched were pictures of completely naked people posing for the camera. The people in the photographs looked like normal people doing ordinary activities, except naked! It was very strange so we kind of passed by quickly. There were other interesting pieces as we made our way around on the first floor. I especially liked the section with squares of colorful paintings. The piece was simple but had so many bright colors in it that it would definitely be something I would buy. We next made our way upstairs, and found ourselves staring at little demon-like creatures displayed on the floor. They were seen spread out all over the place, even as an installation piece as one of these creatues hanging from a makeshift branch from a column. The next thing we saw was a huge display of another creature-like thing. Except this piece was big and took up most of the wall and had pieces of it going to the floor. I could not help but stand and stare at the ginormous piece. It almost made me feel like since it was so big that the creature was going to come to life.

The final pieces we saw on the second floor were both displayed as separate rooms off from the main room. The first room caught my eye because it was a bright pink room. From afar, everything in it seemed pink. But as we appraoched the room and walked in, there was a big picture of a girl with the word 'hate' written underneath it in pink. Then around that portrait were pieces of garbage that were painted in various colors; soda bottles, water bottles, bagels, cans, plates, etc. There were two TV's displayed on the walls that was showing a repeating video of a girl who was playing with food. It was kind of disturbing. Besides the first piece we saw in the beginning, this was definitely the next. The next room was sort of dark and had a video playing on a screen of an animated robot. The room had nothing else in it besides the TV and a black leather couch that viewers could come in and sit and watch the video. We stayed for about five minute because the repeating video got very annoying.

Visiting this exhibition was quite an adventure for me. I thought it was very interesting that I was able to go into this museum and actually visualize some of the piece of artworks we have been studying all semester. I would have liked to have actually met some of the student artists that created the pieces displayed and ask them questions about their work and what had inspired them to do them.

-Jessica