Serenity Now
Queensborough Community College Art Gallery
By Josh Parish
Getting Started
A ceremonial mask in the hands of Kondeh Bondu, one of the artists whose work is displayed at QCC Art Gallery’s current exhibit. |
The latest buzz in the swarm of Queens’ cultural institutions, the City University of New York’s Queensborough Community College Art Gallery, re-opened after major renovations a little under a year ago. Since then, the peaceful Bayside space has done its homework—and its legwork—establishing itself as a major destination for art lovers.
The entity of the QCC Art Gallery has been around since 1966, and it has occupied its current home in the old Oakland Building (formerly the club house for the Oakland Country Club) since 1981.
The gallery was designed by Marsha Narowlansky, a student at the school, after winning a drafting and design competition put on by QCC. During the recent renovation the gallery took pains to stay true to Narowlansky’s original plans, but you’ll no doubt notice the freshly raised pyramidal ceiling as you walk through the gallery’s front foyer.
To get there, find your way to the main parking lot at QCC and hike a short distance up the hill. You’ll see the white, pointed tip of the gallery’s roof between the other buildings on the campus.
Admission to the gallery is free, but as ever, donate what you can to make sure art centers like these stick around.
Digging In
Germany occupied the Cameroon grasslands in the early quarter of the 20th Century. Thus, this bronze pipe in the form of a soldier. |
The QCC Art Gallery’s prize display is its permanent collection of African art. The pieces were contributed to the museum by about 30 different donors and represent artists and styles from nearly every region on the continent.
Ceremonial costumes, royal garments and religious accoutrements comprise most the exhibit. As you move along, take a minute to stop at one of the audio/visual kiosks around the gallery—you can scroll through the program and find out information on every piece in the collection.
Information plaques abound in the QCC Art Gallery, and even if you’re just out for an artistic joyride, take the time to read them. The detailed plaques give historical perspective on what you’re looking at—not to mention a good primer on the symbolism that makes up so much of the art.
Don’t miss the Khabouris Codex, a 1,000-year-old copy of the New Testament displayed behind sealed glass in its own room within the main African exhibit. Hand-scribed in ancient Aramaic script, it comprised one of the 22 books of the Eastern Orthodox Canon (which excluded accounts like the Book of Revelation and some shorter texts). The lambskin pages were written somewhere between 1040 and 1090 A.D.
Finishing Up
A mask of Gogoli, a comic figure at village celebrations known to mock chiefs and tribal elders. |
Now through Sept. 30, the gallery is presenting another African exhibit, “Artists and Patrons in Traditional African Cultures: African Sculpture from the Gary Schulze Collection.” Schulze began collecting as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone during the 1960s. Most of the collection comes from there and other West African countries.
But the art on display spans millennia. The show’s theme brings all of it together beneath the lens of relationships between African artists and their patrons. (Most often, patrons meant royalty—tribal kings and queen7 commissioned sculptures and other work from their artists, whom they also kept fed and housed.)
On your way out of “Artists and Patrons,” sneak a look just below the stairs on the first floor. The hidden alcove has its own collection of “African” art—paper plate masks and brown bag Kente cloths made by second and third graders at P.S. 22 in Staten Island studying the culture.
Queensborough Community College Art Gallery
222-05 56th Ave., Bayside
(718) 631-6396
www.qcc.cuny.edu
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue. And Fri.,
10 a.m.-7 p.m. Wed.-Thu.,
noon-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. FREE, donations accepted.
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