Dazzling depths at Lehman Gallery

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Everything is just slightly different from what it seems in “Bedazzled,” an ongoing exhibition at the Lehman College Art Gallery.

Inspired by the term coined in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” to represent the way that things seen by “bedazzled” eyes can actually have a different meaning, the art gallery’s new director, Bartholomew Bland, and his team gathered 43 artists to display dazzling images with layers of deeper meaning. 

“When you ask people what they think of bedazzled they say glitter,” Laura De Riggi, the gallery’s curatorial assistant, said. “They don’t think of anything else, they don’t think of the other aspect of being bedazzled, which is kind of confused, or being tricked by the light.” 

The 43 artists celebrated in the exhibition — a mix of Bronx artists, New Yorkers and a few others from across the country and from overseas — each have their own interpretation of what can be bedazzling. The display has been spread across two major rooms of the gallery. 

One artist used 15,000 silver bobby pins in a piece that sets the tone for the exhibit when a visitor walks in. Another artist created a glittery swing to make a statement about childhood following the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy who was shot by police in 2014. Yet another created images of a bombing and a volcanic eruption that look like photographs, but are actually acrylic paintings with 16,000 subtle rhinestones. 

The dramatic themes, a stark contrast from the glitz and glitter the term “bedazzled” may seem to suggest, appears a result of another idea that inspired the exhibition: the the glamorization of military fashion in the 1970s. 

Since the show’s premiere in September, the gallery has received positive feedback, and plenty of it, especially since admission is free and open to the public. But the groups likely to benefit the most have been the students and professors on Lehman’s campus. 

According to De Riggi, “Bedazzled” has an interdisciplinary appeal that has brought students from various majors to the exhibition’s doors. She said she and others at the gallery have given tours to faculty members and multiple classes.

“We want them to come here,” she said. “The support of the teachers on campus has been great. They’re giving up their class time to come here.” 

De Riggi, who graduated from Lehman last year, said she is happy to see Lehman Art Gallery stand out from other institutions that only expose students to the work of their peers.

“We also not only want to bring the Bronx and elevate the artists in the Bronx, but we want to elevate the school and the people who attend this school,” she said, “because if you only show them what they have here and the student’s work here, how far do they go? You want to broaden their mind too.” 

With the success of “Bedazzled,” which runs through Jan. 14, De Riggi hopes that the gallery’s exhibitions will continue to appeal to the Lehman community as well as to the Bronx in general. 

“We want the Bronx to be as much of a hub for art as, let’s say, Brooklyn or Manhattan,” she said. 

In the future, she said, she wants the gallery to have a lasting impact on people outside of the borough, by not only exposing them to national and foreign artists, but also bringing attention to those who live in the Bronx. 

“We are a Bronx-based institution, so we try and pull there’s so much talent here, so much like untapped talent that goes forgotten, that we’re trying to really bring out,” she said.  “There’s a straightforward kind of unapologetic behavior about the Bronx and you can see it in the artwork. There’s an independence there.”

Lehman College Art Gallery, Bedazzled, Laura De Riggi, Bartholomew Bland, Tiffany Moustakas

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