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Nostalgia and Outrage, an exhibition of artworks by fiber artist Mary Fortuna and multi-media collagist Adrian Hatfield, opened on January 19 at Oakland University Art Gallery in spite of Michigan’s typically lousy winter weather. The paintings, textiles, toys, mobiles and dioramas on display address death, mass extinction, disaster (both personal and societal) and general apocalypse–doomsday themes that might seem gratuitously gloomy for this dark time of year. But instead, this lively–even cheerful—exhibition reminded me of the well-known aphorism: “The situation is hopeless but not serious.”

The snow, sleet and even power outages might have pushed back the opening to “Nostalgia & Outrage,” but Oakland University’s newest art exhibition was finally unveiled to the public on Jan. 20, 2024. Curated by the OU Art Gallery’s Director, Dick Goody, “Nostalgia & Outrage” features works from Michigan artists Adrian Hatfield and Mary Fortuna.

Beginning Sept. 8, the Oakland University Art Gallery will present Remains • Remnants • Reliquaries, a solo exhibition of the work Wendel A. White, a Distinguished Professor of Art and American Studies at Stockton University whose work addresses the complex historical narrative of Black life in the United States. “The Oakland University Art Gallery is honored to present the first retrospective devoted to the prolific career of Wendel A. White,” said Dr. Claude Baillargeon, a professor of art history at OU and curator of the exhibition. “Viewed as a whole, Remains • Remnants • Reliquaries attests to the artist’s long-held commitment to a rigorous, research-based practice centered on African American history and material culture.”

The promotional material for Outside Work at Oakland University Art Gallery includes an image of an organic object with a form similar to a bone or a piece of wood, lending itself to preconceptions that the exhibition would be focused on the natural outside world. Realizing upon visiting the work that this piece by David Lambert is a series of spoons carved from a native sycamore tree could pique the interest of nature lovers. The rest of the work, however, deters from this assumption that nature is the consistent focus and quickly clarifies that what we have is a group of works by the faculty of the university done outside of their work within the Department of Art and Art History. Dick Goody is the director of the gallery and a Professor of Art at Oakland University; curated into the show are fourteen of his oil paintings along with other works of art by Claude Baillargeon, Meaghan Barry, Lindsey Camelio, Dho Yee Chung, Satareh Ghoreishi, David Lambert, Colleen Ludwig, Karen McGarry, Maria Smith Bohannon, Ryan Standfest and Cody VanderKaay.

The Oakland University Art Gallery opened the fall season with Critical Voices: Selections from the Hall Collection on September 9, 2022, curated by Leo Barnes, the new OUAG Gallery Manager. This is Barnes’ curatorial debut, but he’s leveraging five years of prior experience working with the Hall Foundation and its highly respected collection of both American and German contemporary art. He says, “The artworks, collected by Andrew and Christine Hall, present a unique index of the best contemporary art of the late 20th and 21stcenturies. It provides a window onto the complementary social conditions prevailing in two distinct continental spheres: Germany and the United States.

The Oakland University Art Gallery opened a photographic exhibition on January 13, 2022, that will run through April 3, 2022. The curator of this exhibition is Dick Goody, Professor of Art in Oakland University’s Department of Art and Art History. Goody also serves as director of the Oakland University Art Gallery.

The OU Art Gallery’s newest exhibit “Image and The Photographic Allusion,” is now open through April 3. The exhibit features photographs taken by 15 different artists from around the world and prompts viewers to question the allusive qualities of photographic imagery. Dick Goody, chair of the Department of Art and Art History and director of the OU Art Gallery, said he curated this exhibit both to allow people to experience art in an in-person format, as well as to recognize the brilliance of ambiguity in the photographic allusion.

In general, collectors have little regard for investment or profit. Rather, art is important to them for other reasons. The best way to understand the underlying drive of art collecting is by describing it as a means to create and strengthen social bonds and for collectors to communicate information about themselves to the world and newly formed networks. Great collectors are often as well-known and widely respected as the art they collect.

Stapled outside of South Foundation Hall, there was an abstract sculpture — Motherwell by Joseph Wesner — that’s been moved for the first time in over thirty years. The sculpture rested on a trailer behind Oak View Hall until restoration could begin. Now its permanent home will be in front of Oak View Hall, alongside another piece by Wesner: Echo Cognitio. Refurbishing and adding to Oakland University’s art is a passion project of Dick Goody, Oakland University art gallery director. He believes access to art is especially important now.

Every fall since I can remember, the Oakland University Art Gallery, under the direction of Dick Goody, Professor of Art, Chair of the Department of Art & Art History and director of the Oakland University Art Gallery, has started off the fall season with a large curated show (supported with a four-color catalog) that would have required months in the planning and often brought in artwork from various parts of the United States and beyond. Given the current situation under Covid 19 restrictions, Goody has opted to curate a faculty show, including his own work, supported with information on the web site to provide a venue for his faculty members. I suspect he is waiting until later in 2021 to present the public with something more in keeping with his previous tradition. Nevertheless, the gallery is open to the public, with Covid 19 restrictions in place, noon – 5 pm, Tuesday through Sunday, closing November 22, 2020. It’s worth a visit.

The Oakland University Art Gallery’s newest exhibition, ‘Moving Forward,’ is up and running until Nov. 22. The exhibition features a number of works — including paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs — done by full-time faculty in the Department of Art & Art History.

Now through Nov. 22, 2020, the Oakland University Art Gallery will present “Moving Forward,” an exhibition featuring the work of the full-time faculty of the Department of Art & Art History at OU. Participating artists include: Aisha Badke, Claude Baillargeon, Bruce Charlesworth, Susan E. Evans, Setareh Ghoreishi, Dick Goody, David Lambert, Lindsey Larsen, Colleen Ludwig, Kimmie Parker, Sally Schluter Tardella, Maria Smith Bohannon, and Cody VanderKaay.

An exhibit of American paintings on display at Oakland University shows life during some of the country’s most turbulent events, but seeing evidence of that turbulence takes a discerning eye. Forty works of art from 1850 to 1940 from the Nancy and Sean Cotton collection show the lives of privileged society, often neglecting major social issues of the time, including the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. Notably absent from the works, by artists such as Seymour Joseph Guy, Carl Hirschberg, and Thomas Moran, are people of color, immigrants, and the working class. Professor of History at the University of Detroit Mercy Roy E. Finkenbine says to “look for the people in the corners, in the background, see how they’re presented.”

American Paintings from Nancy and Sean Cotton Collection is a partnership with the Detroit Institute of Arts that exhibits 40 paintings made during a period that includes the Civil War, World War I, and the outset of World War II. The collection, "drawn from a turbulent epoch, presents a fascinating historical snapshot," according to organizers. "If art is a mirror of its time, what do these 40 paintings say about the 90 years between 1850 and 1940?" Notable works include paintings by Seymour Joseph Guy, Carl Hirschberg, and Thomas Moran, among others.

The Oakland University Art Gallery is showcasing the “American Paintings” exhibition from the Nancy and Sean Cotton Collection in a partnership with the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA). According to the gallery’s website, the exhibition contains 40 paintings from 1850-1950 and allows visitors to get a “fascinating historical snapshot.”

Opening January 10th, 2020, at the Oakland University Art Gallery is a traveling exhibition from the Nancy and Sean Cotton collection of American painting that captures an impression of what kind of realism was prominent in the United States, drawn from European roots and expressed in traditional in oil painting. The exhibition is sectioned off in categories: Landscape, Seascape, Cityscape, Portraiture, Still Life and Family life. Influences such as the Hudson River school or the Ashcan school of art during the late 19th or early 20th century are apparent, while also reflect influence of some of the lesser-known artists of this period. All are beautifully executed with attention to composition, light and facility.

Oakland University Art Gallery opened its fall exhibition schedule with Your Very Own Paradise, artwork from far and wide with oil paintings, photographs, and sculptures on September 7, 2019. Based on a curatorial premise that perception is reality, Director of the OUAG Gallery, Dick Goody, brings together thirteen artists whose ‘very own paradise’ differs significantly in expansive motifs and varying types of personal identity.

Say hello to “Your Very Own Paradise,” the ongoing exhibition at the Oakland University Art Gallery. Curated by Dick Goody, “Paradise” showcases the work of 13 artists of various mediums, each piece providing a different vision into what paradise can be and reflections on the very concept of what paradise is.

Ever wonder what the idea of paradise ultimately could mean for you or someone else? Dick Goody, director of the Oakland University Art Gallery, gives people a chance to view the concept from the imaginations represented visually by a group of international artists.

The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 forced the evacuation of nearby Pripyat, home to 45,000 people. David McMillan has journeyed there 21 times since to record abandoned homes and buildings as they are reclaimed by nature.

If you are a Detroiter, it is impossible not to find an uncanny similarity between the (de)evolution of the Ukraine city of Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster there in 1986, as photographed by Scottish born, Canadian photographer David McMillan, and the photos of demolished-by-neglect Detroit over the roughly same years.