This fall, The Gund opens its gallery doors to students and faculty and invites visitors to experience an elaborate array of works, from experimental and interactive pieces to classical paintings infused with detail and color. At the opening reception on Aug. 28, excited associates from the Visitor Experiences team greeted attendees with anecdotes about their favorite pieces on display before taking groups on detailed tours through the new exhibits.

Tuning to the Sounds of the Skies by Marie Watt opens this semester’s Gund experience and welcomes visitors to run their fingers through hanging clusters of tin jingles (pre-rolled cones made of tobacco lids that were often sewn onto Ojibwe dresses to create music while dancing) strewn throughout the open space. For this eye-catching piece, Watt drew inspiration from a story from the Upper Skagit tribe that describes when the sky pressed down on the world, and how the chaos of separation could only be dissipated by breath and shared rhythm. Watt desired to create a participatory piece made of jingles influenced by Indigenous handiwork — a place where visitors could breathe their wishes and hopes into the air that clinks between the tin. “[Tuning to the Sounds of the Skies] really helped the first years,” Orientation Leader and Gund Associate Anna Matu ’28 said of her experience leading incoming first years through The Gund. “The fact that they were allowed to touch it left them so mystified by it.” 

Many pieces in the following room are gifts sourced from the Horvitz-Bishop Good Family Collection, encouraging visitors to consider how the pieces fit together thematically. One gifted work is Lisa Anne Auerbach’s Crafts and Astrology, a knitted quilt decorated with feline silhouettes stretched over famous books like Lord of the Flies and Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. Another interactive piece can also be found in the room: The Time is Near (Middle) by Naudline Pierre is a steel chair — that viewers can sit in — with flames climbing up the back. In The Gund’s adjacent darkroom, visitors can peer into miniature 3D models of houses in Beverly Buchanan’s Untitled, and can pore over Pierre’s extravagant painting Suspended in Tempo.

Milton and Anne Rogovin: A Labor of Love features raw photography from Milton Rogovin’s photography series Working People, Appalachia and Family of Miners. Next door, guests can rest their legs while watching Christine Sun Kim’s Classified Digits, a short film in which the artist interprets awkward situations such as “One person avoiding another person they know.” In the video, Kim’s scene partner uses two fingers to act as the individuals in the scenario while she represents their facial expressions. The final loop around The Gund presents visitors with a life-sized work of fiber art from Lenore Tawney’s Holding us in wonder, a collection of crocheted and quilted pieces that look to bridge the gap between modern textile art and 20th century conceptual art. Finally, Claudia Alarcón and the Silät collective’s hand-spun works detail themes of ancestral knowledge and cultural origins, before dropping visitors off at a cornerpiece of 100 intricate yicas (woven crossbody bags traditionally used by the Wichí people) aptly named Un coro de yicas [A chorus of yicas].

From carefully crafted Indigenous handiwork to powerful photography of Appalachian society, a stroll through The Gund from now to Dec. 20 offers a chance for visitors to appreciate a clear throughline of artistic culture from all reaches of the world. As students and staff dive back into the academic year, The Gund remains a hub for artistic inspiration and a beautiful centerpiece for the fine arts on campus. 

Arts assistant Toms Russ ’28 is a Gund Associate.