Exhibition Review: "The Look of Learning, Lewis Glucksman Gallery"

Within the context of Lewis Glucksman Gallery, a university-affiliated space, attention to the sites of learning is openly self-reflective. Eamon O’Kane’s Froebel’s Studio (2010) is a functioning play space with freestanding partition screens, colourful stools and a table, on which sit several early learning games summoning the spirit of both the 19th-century educational theorist to whom the title refers and the pedagogical toys which preoccupied him. In contrast, a designated ‘learning’ area in a far corner is easily distinguishable, especially given the latter’s uninviting use of battered school furniture from the university’s ‘collection’. Christian Philipp Müller’s ‘Universities with Exhibition Galleries’ (1998) comprises ten silkscreen prints, each showing plans for Lüneburg University Gallery, which are superimposed in red onto the grey plan of ten international counterparts with a brief text outlining their differing origins and ambitions. Bridging the gap between political study and collectible art work, the silkscreens are equally reflective of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, an object repository and space for pedagogy.