Senior Eva Lube Curates “Lines” for Marxhausen Gallery of Art Exhibit

Concordia art students created the piece “One Mile” for the exhibit “Lines.” Photo by Jordyn Sturms,

by Emily Sievert

Concordia’s Marxhausen Gallery of Art recently concluded a month-long exhibit entitled “Lines,” which was curated by senior graphic design major Eva Lube and featured a combination of items selected from student work and from the over 450 in the gallery’s permanent collection.

“The items on display were connected by a linear theme,” Director of Marxhausen Gallery of Art Jim Bockelman said. “Each piece could be applied to the idea of ‘Lines’ in formal or even political ways.”

Though the gallery is often curated by artists from outside Concordia, Lube had the opportunity to take the lead in designing the show.

“When (curating) a show, you have to look at all the different pieces and see how they fit together,” Lube said. “Even the pacing matters, which is something you don’t necessarily think about until you are putting it together yourself.”

Some of her selections included pairing political images on either side of an abstract work and the presence of a sketch by Paul Cezanne. Lube expressed interest in working with art in a different way and said her goal was to create a show sensitive to the audience and also intentional in its interaction both with the other works and with the viewers.

Concordia art students contributed to one of the most notable works in the exhibit, entitled “One Mile” roughly a mile of string angled and arranged into a lattice.

Bockelman enjoyed seeing students take creative ownership of the art.

“They gave attention to the process, taking care to look at the position and height of each angle,” Bockelman said. “It was a beautiful thing to see.”

The Marxhausen Gallery has been a part of Concordia since the 1960s and moved to its current location in Jesse Hall in the 1990s. The gallery incorporates a wide range of works, including selections from the permanent collection, student contributions, faculty art, regional artwork, historical pieces and contemporary art.

“The (gallery) gives students a chance to study hands-on, not just secondary information,” Bockelman said. “They can see work that is really living…and insert themselves into art history.”

The current exhibit is entitled “Lingua Franca” and will run through Dec. 14. Visitors can enjoy navigating a wall of braille paired with its musical notation, art that displays culture, and deconstructive works that play with the idea of finding common ground.