Boston University Research Magazine 2007

Sights And Sounds: Explorations In The Arts

Beautifying the BU Campus: Site-Specific Art

Observant visitors to the Boston University campus will notice works of art in surprising places: a painting of a swimmer in the hallway of the Fitness and Recreation Center, pinhole photographs dotting the Photonics Center. For these unexpected touches of creativity, we can thank Hugh O'Donnell, professor of painting in the School of Visual Arts, as well as the students in his Site-Specific Art class.

O'Donnell's course introduces students to the process of conceiving, creating, and installing a commissioned work of art. During the semester, and often after its end, students work alone or in small groups to develop works of art for the BU campus, such as Ryan Kenny's painting and Gao Jin's photographs. While O'Donnell is best known for his paintings, he has created several site-specific digital works for a variety of clients, including the Army Research Laboratory and the headquarters of the Deloitte corporation. His current project is an ambitious digital print and video installation commissioned by Verizon.

In 1997, when Boston University opened its Photonics Center, a state-of-the-art facility for the study of light and energy, O'Donnell was a natural choice to help decorate the building's lobby. He worked closely with Donald Fraser, the center's first director, and other faculty and staff to design a work of art reflective of the innovative research taking place there. The result was an abstract digital print enhanced with backlighting, which amplifies the work's vibrant colors while alluding to the center's research on light particles. For the Life Science and Engineering Building, which opened in 2005, O'Donnell created a set of prints that evoke evolution and growth through a visual language of forms borrowed from the life sciences as well as from music. These works highlight a clever parallel in the work of geneticists and that of jazz musicians—they both strive to assuage our “blues,” whether physically or emotionally induced, through innovation.

Students in O'Donnell's Site-Specific Art course demonstrate a similar awareness of the spaces that their works might inhabit, as well as the people who use those spaces. After conducting research on public art, students develop their projects with the input of their community—primarily the faculty and staff in the building where the work is to be installed—and, in the final stages, University administrators. Some, though not all, projects are realized and installed on the campus.

As undergraduates, Brienne Rosner and Holland Dieringer created a work entitled Visual Entanglements for the Metcalf Science Center. Faculty and graduate researchers in the sciences helped the two students collect images related to their work on entangled photons, which the artists then used to create a series of 12 collage panels, hanging from the ceiling in two rows. Another pair of students, Rachelle Reichert and Kristie Eden O'Donnell, took their projects beyond the BU campus when they received commissions from Red Bull for the company's office in Quincy, Massachusetts.

The course allows students to experience the reality of creative production, which O'Donnell claims is becoming increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary. And when his students need guidance, they know where to go for advice. Says O'Donnell, “The same thing I teach, I do.”

For more information, see www.hughodonnell.com. To view a slideshow of site-specific art, visit www.bu.edu/alumni/buforward/archives/Apr_2007/articles/campusart.html.