Art Museum Opens Spring Exhibition

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By Caitlin Van Mol, RedHawk Report

The Miami University Art Museum has opened its spring exhibition called "Luxury, Consumption and Excess." The museum devoted three of its five galleries to show glass, jewelry and porcelain objects.

"Part of it is to just show how people have collected, have a mania if you will for collecting. In other instances, it's a matter of how in previous eras there was a sense that you had to go over the top in order to be a part of the society in which you lived," said museum director Bob Wicks.

Many of the items in gallery one are paperweights donated by Miami University alumnus Dr. Carmen Bahr. "She bequested her collection of almost 600 glass paperweights to the Miami University art museum. These date from the mid 19th century all the way up to 2005 and 2006. She was collecting up to the last month or so before she died," Wicks said.

It took Wicks almost a year to catalogue Dr. Bahr's collection. Gallary two consists of jewelry by 21 featured artists. But these aren't your normal gold necklaces and diamond rings.

"The most unusual are those that you wouldn't normally expect to find in jewelry materials such as shredded dollar bills as well as reused metallic containers for cookies and other foodstuffs and so forth," Wicks said.

Gallery three, called 'Consuming Clay', is comprised of porcelain wares from the 18th and 19th centuries.

"Porcelain is intended to again look at the idea of excess. Where shortly after independence in the late 18th century, Americans began trading directly with China to be on par with their European neighbors," Wicks explained.

All of the galleries run through July 10. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 5pm and Saturday from 12pm to 5pm.

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