Jennifer Ray

Christina Neilson, Assistant Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art History, has been awarded two prestigious fellowships and a grant in support of her research on the mixed media works of Andrea del Verrocchio, an artist best known as Leonardo da Vinci’s teacher.

The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has named Pipo Nguyen-duy, associate professor of art and photography at Oberlin College, a 2011 fellow in creative arts. The foundation recognized him for his body of work titled East of Eden: Vietnam, a series of staged, large-scale, color photographs that explore hope and renewal 30 years after the Vietnam War.

Oberlin College is known for creativity and artistic talent, and recently this artistry has found a home at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA). Oberlin students participated in two art competitions at MoCA, Another Vibrant “Fight,” and the Student Slideshow at MoCA, where Oberlin swept the awards.

When you and I decide to renovate our kitchens, we don’t have the luxury of putting our best appliances and nicest knife set on display over at a friend’s house while the cabinets get installed and the floors are torn up. But, when you’re a museum under renovation, that’s exactly what you do. With its space full of sawdust and plaster drippings, Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum decided to lend some of its best-known works to the Phillips Collection. The resulting show, “Side by Side: Oberlin’s Masterworks at the Phillips,” takes 25 pieces from the Allen’s collection and puts them in conversation with one 40 from the Phillips’.........

Lisa Chung, Oberlin College The Medium and the Message: Mapping Electronic Art Around the Globe Brazil, China, Japan, Germany, Netherlands A mixed culture of idealism and skepticism has long surrounded popular views of technology. Yet it is important to remember the human aspect: technology inherently contains the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of the people who created it. I intend to spend my Watson year immersed in electronic art, attempting to find out who is actively shaping technology and our experience and perception of it. I plan to find technologically-based artists, participate in sharing artistic ideas, and be an active part of a community that exists both locally and internationally. Maia Brown, Oberlin College Sumud with Tzedek: Can Ireland and South Africa Inform Palestine-Israel? Ireland, South Africa Ireland and South Africa have become iconic of “conflict resolution.” Their oft-studied political development can overshadow the underlying process of grassroots reconciliation. Inherent in that process are narratives of remembrance and profound reimagining. Working with NGOs focused on reconciliation, I hope to explore their successes and limitations; collaborating and collecting oral histories, I seek to engage with participants’ ongoing understanding of what enables an end to violence—understandings that might be applied to peace initiatives in the Middle East. http://www.watsonfellowship.org/site/fellows/10_11.html