Northern Illinois University
Art Museum
College of Visual and Performing Arts

Fall 2019

Exploring Aspects of War In and Through the Visual Arts
August 27 – extended through November 13, 2019

Exploring Aspects of War tackles the complex relationship of art in the depiction of war. The visual arts have served in all cultures and periods to document, motivate, memorialize, facilitate healing, critique and protest military action. Exploring Aspects of War in and Through the Visual Arts considers views on war and military conflict from the perspective of the homefront, the battlefield and back home again.

Works on view in the exhibition range from contemporary installation sculptures, documentary photographs, to historic seventeenth century prints and cover a wide scope of perspectives including veteran self-expression, art therapy, patriotism, protest, and shifting social and political views.

Guided by input from the Exhibition Advisory Committee, Art Museum staff curated this exhibition from artwork entered in a public call for entry, invited artists, works borrowed from other institutions and private collections, as well as the NIU Art Museum collection. The exhibition represents artists: Kamal A. M. Al Mansour, Hannah Smith Allen, Michael Amato, Jerry Bleem, Zachary Burgart, Jose deVera, Sally Edelstein, Eric J. Garcia, Nathan Heilman, Lynn Johnson, George Klauba, Steve Kost, Darryl Lauster, Jacob Lee, John S. Linquist, Robert Patrick, C. Harold Perkins, Dennis Santella, Lalage Snow and David Joel Thomas. It includes loaned work by artists Pehr Anderson, George Bellows, Iggy Bennett, Jacques Callot, Warrington Colescott, Otto Dix, Winslow Homer, and Käthe Kollwitz, and selected posters from the War is Trauma portfolio, as well as artists Edwin Brewer, John Doyle, David Driesbach, Sandro Miller, Georges Rouault, and various prints documenting the Sino and Russo Japanese Wars from the NIU Art Museum Collection.

Artwork and objects for the Aspects of War exhibition are on loan from the exhibiting artists; the DeKalb County History Center, Sycamore; Elgin Area History Museum; Rockford Art Museum; St. Charles History Museum; Midway Village Museum, Rockford; the National Veterans Art Museum, Chicago; Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston; private collectors and the NIU Art Museum Collection.

Top to bottom: Deatiled installation view of Eric J. Garcia, War Nest, 2016, mixed media installation (approximately 48 x 144 in. diameter). Lalage Snow, We Are the Not Dead, Returning by the Road We Came: Private Chris MacGregor, 24, 2010, Digital prints (25 x 17 in.) each. Nathan Heilman. Self, 2018, barbed wire, (60 x 60 x 60 in.). All courtesy the artist.

Winter 2019 - 2020

NIU School of Art and Design Faculty Biennial Exhibition
January 14 – March 18, 2020

Presented every two years, this exhibition features recent artwork and scholarship by faculty and teaching staff from all divisions of the NIU School of Art and Design and highlights the artistry, research, and world-class instruction found at NIU.

Public Reception Thursday, January 23, 5-7 p.m.

Spring 2020

"Very Well, Thank You": The Arts as a Means to Well Being
April 16 – June 5, 2020

Exhibition and accompanying programming explore the unique way the visual and performing arts assist in maintaining social, psychological and physical health and happiness.

Public Reception Thursday, April 16, 5-7 p.m.

Fall 2020

"The Art of Surviving; The Journey of the Karen Refugees in Illinois
August 25 – November 13, 2020

Exhibition organized by the Center for Burma Studies at NIU with financial support from a Luce Grant to conduct oral histories with recently resettled community members.

Refuge and Refugee
August 25 – November 13, 2020

Contemporary artists explore global humanitarian crises as displaced persons force to flee their home country attempt to find refuge elsewhere.

Public Reception Thursday, September 10, 5-7 p.m.