The Haggerty Museum of Art has much to offer students this semester. Facilities Services completed maintenance and repair work over the summer, and two lively exhibitions are currently on display. Museum staff has also worked to reinstate student programs like Student Fridays with free drawing classes.

Lynne Shumow, the museum’s curator of education, said Student Fridays will take place over three consecutive Fridays from 1 to 3 p.m, beginning on Sept. 25. Participants don’t need drawing experience, Shumow said, as the instructor is a recent graduate of Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and can work with students of different skill levels.

“This is a good way for students to get to know the museum,” Shumow said. “We found that the hands-on projects were really exciting.”

Student Fridays will be held at the Haggerty Museum of Art on Sept. 25, Oct. 2 and Oct. 9, and is open to all Marquette students. Those interested can contact Lynne Shumow to register.

The museum is currently displaying two exhibitions that are particularly attractive to younger visitors. Jump Cut Pop features works from different artists and was inspired by the Pop Art Movement. The followers of this movement fuse and collage various images to comment on a wide variety of issues and to draw subtle comparisons.

The Haggerty’s Director, Walter Mason, said the recent repair work helped draw visitors’ attention to the artwork.

“We hope everyone is now looking at the art instead of the building, and that is what we’ve noticed so far,” Mason said.

Mason said the current exhibitions are tremendous and the video on display knocks students out.

Works in Jump Cut Pop were created from the mid-1960s to 2008, and some were drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. Shumow said a number of the works contain some potent political and social messages.

“Martha Rosler is a very big war activist, and the exhibition shows the work she started in the 1960s and completed recently,” Shumow said.

Rosler’s first work is based on the Vietnam War and the more recent work is based on the Iraq War. Rosler’s juxtaposition of the two presents some striking similarities and suggests the same things are happening over and over, Shumow said.

Jump Cut Pop also features works by Eduardo Paolozzi, Tadanori Yokoo, Jane Hammond, Cliff Evans and Nobu Fukui. The exhibition will show until October 4.

Another print-based exhibition on display is titled Whatever is There is a Truth, which is comprised of Robert Rauschenberg’s prints. Though Rauschenberg’s works display characteristics of Pop Art, he did not subscribe to any particular art movement.

“This is a series of prints we recently acquired,” Shumow said. “The bulk is based on the Stoned Moon series that he did when the Apollo Mission went to the moon.”

Shumow said there have been many positive reactions to the exhibitions, and those that spend time viewing tend to notice the political and social content of the works.

Jerry Kohn, assistant director of Facilities Services, acted as project manager for the work completed at the Haggerty this summer. He said the project was completed in one month and consisted mostly of refinishing most of the gallery floor and repainting many of the museum’s walls.

“I think the museum staff and the director were happy with the results, it helped brighten up the gallery, which had become a little dark over time,” Kohn said.

Museum staff highly encourage students to discover what the museum has to offer.

“I think if students just walk in the door they’d be surprised,” Shumow said. “We’re here for the students, it’s their museum.”