For the last day, the propped-open double doors of the Dittmar Memorial Gallery invited students to visit the unassuming display of history and culture tucked behind the Starbucks in Norris University Center.
Dittmar’s “Beethoven, Bach and the Composers Sleeping in the Coffin” exhibit, created by Holocaust survivor Luke Tauber, closed Monday after a monthlong showcase.
At the gallery entrance, classical music replaced the commotion of the Starbucks blender and mellow indie-pop playing nearby. This stark contrast drastically changed the mood of a visitor’s experience.
The culmination of music, sculptures, paintings, drawings and digital media intrigued the visitor, imploring a continued journey through the gallery.
Each of these art forms worked in tandem to emanate the themes of morbidity and music.Lying on the floor of the gallery’s entrance, the “Beethoven Skeleton,” for example, came complete with two color-coded anatomical charts of the food in his stomach and liquid in his bladder.
“We’ve received a lot of reactions from people about the exhibit,” said Debora Blade, Assistant Director for Norris. “A lot of times people are a little put off by the coffins because death is one of those topics that still makes some people uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable or not, many visitors found the exhibit thought-provoking.
“Fascinating!” one wrote in the exhibit’s reaction book, located near the gallery’s entrance.”It’s an eclectic, novel way at looking at something ancient!” wrote another.
Inside the exhibit, watercolor portraits of classical composers lined the walls, with comedic titles such as “A Fred Chopin.” Progressing through the gallery ultimately left the attendee at the center of the exhibit: a cemetery of composers. From coffins to tombs, 12 handmade “corpses” lay on the floor. The papier-mâché figures ranged from Michael Jackson to Bach. Tauber reconstructed the mausoleums of composers as well as the grave of his parents.
Tauber was born in a concentration camp of post-World War II Germany. The 62-year-old artist was also born with mental retardation. According to the Little City Foundation, the arts center where Tauber works on his projects, Tauber’s mother was a pianist and his father an engineer and painter.
“His background has influenced his art,” said Frank Tumino, the studio art manager at Little City. “His parents instilled music in him, and he has always had a sense of morbidity stemming from his family’s background.”
For his next exhibition, Tauber is taking the classical composer theme in a different direction.
“(He’s) working on a media project incorporating his three favorite things,” Tumino said. “Classical composers, women wrestlers and cheese.”
Starting Friday, Dittmar will host AfriCOBRA and the Chicago Black Arts Movement.[email protected]
