New campus gallery showcases undergraduate artists

What have you been up to lately? Ann Borchlewicz, a senior majoring in art, will be able to offer a decisive answer to that evergreen inquiry, thanks in part to a new art gallery in the Red Gym.

The Class of 1973 Gallery on the newly remodeled building‘s second floor will show the work of primarily undergraduates. Opened in November, the new space is a welcome addition to campus exhibition space available to students.

“I wouldn’t have been able to display the whole progression of my work if the new gallery hadn’t opened,” Borchlewicz says. “If I’d shown on the seventh floor of the Humanities Building” — where undergraduate shows usually have been displayed — “I would have had to share the space with four or five other people,” thus limiting the exhibition area any single artist could claim, she says.

Borchlewicz’s as-yet-untitled show will deal with women’s issues. It will include two or three large installations, up to four big photographs and a few small paintings. Borchlewicz’s exhibition will be up from Thursday, Dec. 10 until Dec. 17.

“This exhibition really will be the culmination of my undergraduate career,” Borchlewicz says.

This semester, the Class of 1973 Gallery provided exhibition space for four UW–Madison student exhibitions. After Borchlewicz’s display concludes, Jose Rodriguez’s oil paintings will be on display Dec. 18-Jan. 15.

The new gallery provides real-world experience not only for artists but managers: Hellbound Pineapple, a student organization consisting of about a dozen undergraduates, manages the new facility.

Hellbound member Julie Ganser says the group exists to serve art students on campus: “In addition to coordinating the Red Gym gallery, we arranged for a lecture series this semester in which artists discussed how they’ve been able to make a living with their art degrees,” Ganser says.

Ganser, a senior majoring in art who will graduate in 2000, says pursuing her own degree fulfills a long-held dream. A returning adult student with three children, Ganser just closed her own show, which dealt with domestic matters. Hellbound Pineapple members will choose next semester’s exhibitors in February.

“We pay particular attention to professionalism and organization — once artists are chosen, they’re on their own in terms of getting the show off the ground, providing publicity for it and so on,” she says.