The Beaucoup section went to the Hilliard Art Museum. The museum included a variety of exhibits: “Southern Prize and State Fellowship,” “Solastalgia,” “Each Tolling Sun,” “Sketch Yourself” and “Image.. Black Flesh?” Here are the writers’ thoughts.
Marie Ducote
Allons writer
I grew up going to the Hilliard with my dad on a semi-regular basis. He would take me during breaks from school and we would spend the day looking at all the artwork. I have seen the museum change a lot through the years and as a student, I now have free entry to the Hilliard with my ID and that is probably one of my favorite things about being a college student.
What can I say, I am very passionate about museums. The Hilliard is just so peaceful and this latest visit to the museum I took with my fellow coworkers/friends was no different.
The gift shop, like always, had an excellent collection of art that visitors can buy. The art ranged from handmade jewelry to stickers and enamel pins. The store also had a large collection of books about art and South Louisiana.
Across the four exhibits that make up the museum my favorite was “Sam Reveles: Solastagia.” This collection were abstract landscapes and Reveles used color pencils and paint as his medium for most of the drawings. I liked how the colors complimented each other with my favorite piece being “Gullfloss.’’The Hilliard puts an emphasis on art education and this can be seen throughout the museum. With a highlight being for me many of the exhibits information being in French and English. A visit to the Hilliard was just the destresser I needed before the stress of finals kicks in.
Nyria Mustiful
Allons writer
Our visit to the Hilliard Art Museum was truly unforgettable. My favorite piece was “DNKMBF12” by Antonio Darden in the “Southern Prize and State Fellows” exhibit. After glancing at the title and piece, I knew what it was depicting.
The piece is a depiction of a car accident in front of a home, involving a black and a white vehicle. The license plate of the black vehicle reads “DNKMBF12”. There’s a body on the ground, covered by a sheet, and a white male standing on the side of the home, spectating at the scene.
The piece is a bird’s-eye view of a crime scene, involving the murder of a African-American person by a white police officer. This piece is my favorite because it says so much with so little. Being an African-American young woman in today’s society, the fear, anxiety, anger, confusion and frustration that I feel was emitted from the piece resonated with me very deeply.
Emotionally, I was honestly a wreck but in a good way. I had never been to an art museum before this visit, so I wasn’t really prepared to be moved the way that I was. I’m a writer through and through so most of my creative, mental and emotional expression is done through words. Witnessing and observing how so many talented individuals express those things and more through art was truly a touching and memorable experience.
Landon Fruge
Allons writer
This has been my third time visiting the Hilliard Art Museum, and each and every time I have gone, I have enjoyed it. Out of all the exhibits in it though, my favorite has always been “Each Tolling Sun” by Kei Ito. The whole art piece itself though wasn’t just one thing but rather a collection of everything in the room it is displayed in.
Walking into the room I saw it was covered in several pictures of thermal energy of a circular piece of steel that has been hit with a sledgehammer 108 times. Each picture showing the change after every hit. I saw the very same steel circle in the pictures lying on a pedestal in the middle of the room as well as the sledgehammer hanging on the wall next to the last picture.
Lastly on the wall I saw a video playing showing the artist hitting the steel plate in reverse, marking each hit on the wall in red. Although I do love everything about the whole room and everything in it, I feel what draws it to me the most is the story. The exhibit is meant to be a call for action against nuclear war as the artist’s grandfather was a Hiroshima survivor.
I highly suggest going to see this exhibit as well as all the many other exhibits over at the Hilliard Art Museum if given the chance. It is totally worth it. I very much enjoyed it and definitely plan to go back again in the future when I have the free time and not drawing or doing homework.
Kay Padilla
Allons editor
After a long week of hard school work, it was nice to wind down and look at art. The museum was quiet and very spacious. There was extravagant and beautiful art but the atmosphere was not overwhelming. In the exhibits, I noticed that the walls were very high, but the art was mostly all at eye level. It really gave the sense that the art was meant for you to see. You don’t have to look up or go out of your way to experience the pieces fully.
In Sam Reveles’ “Solastalgia”, the artwork consisted of lines that converged to a singular point in the canvas. I kept getting the feeling that I was in “Interstellar,” specifically the part where Cooper enters the 5th-dimensional Tesseract cube. Some of the artworks were tiny dots that made up a larger picture. That also gave me some serious vertigo, but it was fun to experience.
The last exhibit that caught my eye was the “Image..Black Flesh?” It made me look at different mediums of art. I was looking at a piece that was made from a carpet-like material and it had rips in it. The rips made a larger picture and that really interested me. It made me see that art really does come from various places, and is not always a traditional canvas and paint.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn’t gone yet. Overall, the museum was a great experience and I enjoyed spending time with co-workers.
