Each spring, current studio arts students at LMU are invited to enter the Laband Art Gallery’s annual juried student show, Young Contemporaries. This exhibition provides an excellent first professional experience for students and celebrates the students’ boundless creativity and the mentorship provided by LMU’s studio arts faculty.
The entered works are judged by two professionals from Los Angeles’s art world. This year the judges were two studio arts alumni – award-winning Los Angeles-based artist, curator, illustrator and entrepreneur Alejandro Poli, Jr. ‘93 and curator, writer, artist and art historian Evan Senn ‘06.
“The assortment of art in this year’s exhibition represents the passion and drive of the student body, and the promising future of the art world” said Poli and Senn in their judges’ statement. “With the additional unprecedented situation that we are living through with COVID-19, [the students] have made a truly special effort to participate in this year’s exhibition.”
The show features art from all the disciplines taught in LMU’s art program including drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, painting, ceramics, graphic design, and new media, and received over 160 submissions. Fifty-nine student pieces were selected to be part of the exhibition. Typically presented as an exhibition in the Laband gallery space, the closure of LMU’s campus due to health concerns surrounding the coronavirus necessitated a move to a virtual format.
“Despite all the stark realities of this pandemic, it is exciting to live in a time during which new solutions are being created,” said Karen Rapp, director and curator of the Laband Art Gallery. “This is the first virtual show I have mounted, and I’ve been so please by the positive reactions and appreciation of the medium on its own terms. Without the need to be physically present, viewers can spend as much time with the work as they like, and whenever they like.”
View the entire online exhibition and see the full list of winners here.
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Generous support for the exhibition is provided by The Friedman Family in memory of Andrea Kingaard Friedman ’66.
