The Haggerty Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Life Lines,” presents a different perspective on the traditional idea of a lifeline.
The exhibit displays lines in various dimensions to encourage viewers to take a new viewpoint on life. Funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc., the collection aims to combine art and religion in collaboration with Marquette’s Foundations of Theology and Contemplation and Action classes.
“Life Lines” forces viewers to push beyond the traditional idea of having “perfect” lifelines that guide one’s life in a certain direction. With pieces filled with squiggly and rearranged lines, humans can discover new parts of themselves while embracing the chaos.
Lynne Shumow, Haggerty Museum Curator for Academic Engagement, commented on how people can make different interpretations of the exhibit.
“Life lines can be these very unique lines, as every life is different,” Shumow said. “As for the abstract work, it may look like there is nothing there, but each one of these pieces has a story to tell, whether you read the labels or not.”
Each one of the pieces tells a detailed story, but the piece “MERaT” by Jill Sebastian, takes parts of old stories to create a new one.
Sebastian, a Milwaukee-based artist, created “MERaT” after her daughter was born in 1980. She took pieces of vellum paper that contained her thoughts on motherhood and artmaking, cut them into long pieces, reorganized them and arranged them on a museum board.
When first observing the piece, viewers may just see smudged ink over uneven pieces of paper. After taking in the different uneven lines, long strips of papers and various ink colors, viewers can see the outline of a newborn.
As with abstract art, the outline of the newborn cannot be seen from a quick glance at the complex piece. Viewers must have patience with their observations to see the theme underneath the seemingly random piece.
Fr. Ryan G. Duns, S.J., Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair of Marquette’s Department of Theology, aimed to intentionally curate a thought-provoking collection with Shumow for his Contemplation and Action class.
Duns’ Theology class revolves around observing a piece of art from the collection for 15 minutes every week. After spending time with the piece, each student writes an 800-word reflection on the time they spent observing it.
“The first few weeks, the students are trying to impose meaning,” Duns said. “At week eight, nine or sometimes ten, almost every student will have an epiphany. The art object will begin revealing itself on its terms, not their terms.”
Every piece in the collection tells a story between the lines that reveals a greater meaning altogether, which takes time and patience to truly see and understand. Nevertheless, the piece “Banque de L’Hourloupe cartes à jouer et à tires,” which is French for “The Bank of Hourloupe cards of playing and drawing,” by Jean DuBuffett is slightly more individualistic than the rest, as it is displayed as a deck of cards.
Each card has a respective front and back, but each back contains different abstract drawings displaying familiar nouns, including gardens, trees and beds.
As a French piece, the artwork required extensive translation so viewers could fully immerse themselves in the art. Bridget Neugent, a graduate student intern who assisted Shumow in the curation and labeling process, became the main translator for the piece.
Neugent does not speak French, but using the knowledge from her background in Italian, French dictionaries and other online websites, she was able to translate the older piece into English. As she unveiled the translations behind each card, she found the piece more fun.
“When people go to the exhibit, I would encourage them to look at the piece without looking at the piece first,” Neugent said. “Really try to see what your eyes want to see before looking at the translation of the label that I wrote.”
“Life Lines” invites visitors to take their time and observe the collection, in hopes of finding a new perspective on life.
Haggerty’s “Life Lines” exhibit will be on display until Dec. 20. More information about the exhibit can be found here.
This article was written by MaryKate Stepchuk. She can be reached at [email protected].
