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Brandeis University's Community Newspaper — Waltham, Mass.

Breaking the mold with Dimension 3

Published: March 2, 2007
Section: Arts, Etc.


Did you know that you can check out your fellow Brandeis students artwork right here on campus without snooping suspiciously around the art building or waiting until the Festival of the Arts? Its true.

Meet the Dreitzer Gallery. Never heard of it? Located in Spingold, you literally cannot miss it once you enter the building. After stepping inside the main theater entrance, you can literally see the windows looking down into Dreitzer. Make either a left or a right and theres a door and a staircase ready to lead you down into the cozy gallery.

This past Wednesday at 6 pm marked the opening of Dimension 3, a show of work in traditional sculpture as well as new media. The pieces come from students enrolled in art classes like Three-Dimensional Design, Implicating the Body in Sculpture, and the exciting-sounding Sculpture in the Age of New Media.

The best part is that some of the pieces are from students who arent majors, but who are just taking a random art class;

maybe they just love art, maybe they wanted to try something new, or yes, maybe theyre just fulfilling the Creative Arts requirement. Any way you cut it, however, its still exciting that the show is open to any student in an art class who wants the opportunity to see their own work up on display in a show. Some of these people may never have the opportunity again after Brandeis as their career goals lead them into different fields. For others, its just the beginning of a life in art. Either way, it's awesome to see what emerges.

For instance, students from the Three-Dimensional Design class are currently exhibiting works in cardboard. Seeing the different ideas that emerge when someone is given a stack of cardboard is amazing. A carefully wrought and detailed tower emerges in one instance, in another, a whimsical giant pineapple is created. Its people literally breaking out of the box in this instance, but not only in this instance, figuratively speaking. Work in wire also adorns the walls in the shape of faces and shoes, to name a few. And over in the far right corner, a piece adorns the wall from Blurring the Boundaries, a class that works and plays in that gray area between painting and sculpture. The colorful not-quite-a-painting of a human face, composed of small colored dots made from some unobvious (at least to me) substance, is captivating to look at. And just over to the left, an impressive metal framework of a crouching figure poses on the nearby floor space. If you dont mind getting your knees a little dirty you can actually sit on the floor and see most of the show through the metalwork of the sculpture, which is a fun vantage point through which to take everything in.

But thats just one way of seeing the show. Go and check it out for yourself, in your own way. You can stare into the eyes of a wire sculpture heads, see what else emerges from cardboard, and get a look at some of the other beautiful and wild pieces that I left unmentioned to leave an element of surprise. Dimension 3 runs until March 14 and is open from 9 until 5 Monday through Friday. Take a friend and go see what you think. A friendly hint: be sure to poke around the corners, as there are often unexpected surprises waiting just around the bend.