The Grand Valley State University Art Gallery recently partnered with Avenue for the Arts, a Grand Rapids organization that supports local artists, to install artposts on the Pew campus.

Artposts are outdoor miniature art galleries that were first created by Zachary Trebellas, a local artist and curator who helps to coordinate projects with Avenue for the Arts, for an ArtPrize 2021 exhibition. 

Trebellas worked with Professor Dulcee Boehm’s ART 392 Curatorial Studio class at GVSU to curate the artwork for the two new artposts on Grand Valley State University’s Pew campus that were installed in November, as well as other artposts throughout downtown Grand Rapids.

ART 392 is an upper-level studio art course in the Visual and Media Arts Department at GVSU, and includes a culminating exhibition practicum. This year, the exhibition lies in the artposts. 

Titled “Flux,” the exhibition was curated by the students to explore life, death, and the cyclical nature of change that takes place in society. 

“Flux” includes artwork ranging from smaller scale examinations of the relationship between science, nature, and vitality as well as pieces made to comment on gender roles, environmentalism, and traditionalism. 

The artwork in the artposts comes from a combination of GVSU student artists as well as local artists. Those whose work is featured include Katherine Brewer, Gabrielle Schaub, Marika Christofides, Sarah Hearn, and Kel Mur. 

Gabrielle Schaub, a senior majoring in studio art with a painting emphasis, said she began her project over the summer and submitted it to the ART 392 class because over time it evolved to fit the theme of “Flux.”

Schaub’s work consists of an abstract drawing of her garden bed and is a mixed media piece on cardboard which was then glued to a piece of wood. She said she wanted the artwork to resemble the idea of change included in “Flux.”

“Deterioration and evolution and growth and fluctuation are all a part of the subject matter and they’re a part of the materials, and the way that I represent the garden,” Schaub said. “The piece of wood is an old, sort of rotting piece of wood and then the cardboard is specifically non-archival so that will also start to deteriorate soon.”

Amanda Rainey, the GVSU Art Gallery user experience and learning manager, said she loves that the artposts help to bring the artwork to the eyes of the community in a new way. 

“My favorite thing about the artposts is that they bring artwork out of the traditional gallery space and right into people’s everyday activities,” Rainey said. “ I hope they make people stop, look, and think about art in untraditional spaces.”

Schaub said she feels the same way, and thinks that the artposts can help to make viewing the artwork a more comfortable experience. 

“I think it’s really an exciting opportunity because it allows people to engage with art in a more casual sort of way, like it’s on the street, it’s public,” Schaub said. “I feel like oftentimes museums are kind of sterile and intimidating places so it’s exciting to see artwork integrated into an everyday sort of occasion.”

The “Flux” exhibition will be featured in the artposts until Dec. 5, and a “Closing Walk” to visit the artposts will take place on Dec. 3 from 4-5 p.m. The walk will begin at the west side of the Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids. 

The artposts on GVSU’s Pew campus can be found outside the Richard M. DeVos Center and the L. William Seidman Center. They will remain on Pew campus through Nov. 2022 and feature new artwork every few months.