Controversial gallery space to re-open

Author: Alexxa Gotthardt

2008 marked the emergence of several new art galleries at the College. The Center Gallery, the gallery at Old Stone Mill and 51 Main have joined the Johnson Gallery, the Gamut Room, and various temporary guerilla spaces in a burst that recognizes a desire for a more roomy existence for student art on campus. While most of the aforementioned spaces have turned out numerous exhibitions in recent months, the Center Gallery, a space devoted to student art produced exclusively outside the classroom, has fallen off the radar. This week, after a semester-long hiatus, the Center Gallery announced it will reopen in mid-February.

In August, the young gallery located in McCullough Student Center closed temporarily due to renovations outlined in the College's comprehensive strategic plan. The plan for the multi-use student center included the refurbishment of the reception area outside the building's Social Space that, since May 2007, has doubled as the Center Gallery. The gallery is run jointly by the Middlebury College Museum of Art (MCMA), the Center for Campus Activities and Leadership (CCAL) and a committee of selected students and faculty members.

Since its inception, the Center Gallery has faced several challenges driven in large part by its high-traffic location in McCullough. While the gallery actively sought out a centralized campus site in hopes to attract more frequent student visitation, issues of spacial distinction quickly arose. Though art decorated the walls, the space still seemed to exist as a corridor between two established College hangouts - the Grille and the Social Space. According to Curator of the Center Gallery and MCMA Graduate Intern, Elyse McNiff '08, the slated renovation came as a welcome opportunity to distinguish the gallery from its more prominent neighbors.

CCAL Director, Doug Adams, MCMA Museum Designer, Ken Pohlman, McNiff, and members of Facilities, worked together to come up with a design plan for the space that included changes in furniture, carpeting, wall space, lighting and signage. The changes, now executed, aim to at once distinguish the gallery, and render it more approachable.

"Doug, Ken, and I want to make the space more inviting and accessible - allow people to enter, stay, walk around, and engage in the artwork," said McNiff. "It is in a highly trafficked area, so we also wanted the Center Gallery to have its own identity so it is seen for what it is - a gallery - not just a walk-through space."

While the rise of Center Gallery and other new exhibition spots responds to a student demand for gallery space for art created outside the classroom, the question seems to remain whether students are in fact visiting the spaces that display their peers' work. Lack of student visitation has also been a challenge for the other arts establishments at the College, such as the Johnson Gallery and the MCMA.

According to McNiff, the Center Gallery hopes to further bolster the identity and appeal of the space with formal exhibition openings and gallery talks by exhibiting artists. Additionally, McNiff mentioned a desire for increased correspondence and collaboration between the various galleries on campus. The next exhibition at the Center Gallery, a solo show of prints by art major Sam Dakota Miller '08.5, is set to open in mid-February.

January's calendar is also rife with student art exhibitions. In the Johnson Pit, "City of Your Dreams," a collaboration between students in a January Term glassblowing class and the 2009 Cameron Visiting Artists opens Jan. 20. In Johnson Gallery, Madeleine Terry's '09 senior thesis exhibition of large-format color photography opens Jan. 23, with an opening reception at 5 p.m. An exhibition at Old Stone Mill commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. opens Jan. 16 and a group photography show at 51 Main will be up until the end of the month.