Art can serve as an opening salvo, skewering social conventions, lambasting political decisions, fomenting dissent.
That’s not what you’ll encounter at intervene/activate, which just opened at University of Maryland/College Park’s Union Gallery.
The exhibition title’s lower-case treatment gives a clue: Rather than exhort viewers to overthrow the status quo, the works extend subtle invitations to think for oneself.
That’s the intention.
“Some art makes a point, but I’m trying to focus on more nuanced [treatments],” says Don Russell, who juried the show of sculpture and installations by nine members of the Washington Sculptors Group (don’t let the name deceive you; several hail from Baltimore). “Artists often approach an issue from their own life narrative, which can be a powerful way to engage others without hitting them over the head.”
Russell, director of Provisions Library and former executive director of the Washington Project for the Arts, has spent a quarter-century organizing art-based examinations of issues such as mass-media influence, wrongful incarceration (many will remember the Innocence Project on view last year at Provisions), government surveillance, hip-hop’s impact and AIDS.
The Union Gallery show’s artistic strategy, he says, “involves intervening, where sculpture becomes part of people’s environment versus being up on a pedestal.” The goal moves beyond observation to engagement — “to get people thinking about the state of the world and what can be done about it.”
“An object can inspire new thought in ways unlike a policy paper or piece of legislation,” notes the curator, referencing works in intervene/activate.
» Ready to take up arms? Marilee Schumann sculpted the wall-hanging weapons from cast aluminum, animal bones and other found objects. They can’t fire but still seem threatening.
» The expression “treating people like dirt,” sums up pur collective ignorance about the ground we walk on. Books such as Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” reveal soil’s true living-giving value. Here, Jessie Lehson treats dirt with dignity, collecting dirt of various types and colors from all over, sifting it by hand and shaping it into bands. Watch your step; her earthy sculpture is, appropriately, on the floor.
» “Once we accept that we project ourselves on the world, do we have a choice of what we project?’ asks Pattie Porter Firestone, referencing her captivating video projection of American mass culture icons onto a globe.
» Cruise control? You can tilt and spin a cast iron airplane with a four-foot wingspan crafted by Christian Benefiel.
» “Why Not Care?” asks Brent Crothers through his piece — tree branches turned upside down, burnt on the bottom, 10,000 copper roofing nails pounded into a spiral pattern to the top. The form draws in the viewer as it activates the space.
With his work ever turning on the topical, Russell is now organizing a New York exhibition called “Big Picture: Provisions for the Arts of Social Change.” You have a few days to catch excerpts from that show, including works by the likes of Meridel Rubenstein, at Provisions Library’s Dupont Circle location. The pieces at Provisions and Union Gallery give you plenty to talk about besides the weather.
intervene/activate
On view through Feb. 22
» Venue: The Union Gallery, Stamp Student Union, University of Maryland/College Park
» Info: 301-314-8493; www.union.umd.edu/gallery
» Special events: Artist reception 5 to 7 p.m. Jan. 30; “The Role of Non-Profits in the Arts” panel discussion 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 8
Provisions Library
» Venue: 1611 Connecticut Ave. NW
» Info: 202-299-0460; provisionslibrary.org
