Novel Objects: Connecting Art and Language
May 3 - August 21, 2025
Barbara and Lee Maimon Teaching Gallery, Level 2
Looking at art can feel a lot like reading a good book. Words on a page conjure vivid images in our minds, while works of art reveal compelling stories and narratives upon close observation. This exhibition brings together a selection of objects in various media to promote visual literacy and explore connections between text and image.
Four thematic panels in the gallery propose different strategies for analyzing the ways text and image combine to produce meaning. Some objects convey a narrative in pictures or illustrate a poem. Others integrate text as a graphic element within an image to emphasize an idea or influence an audience.
By engaging with visual rhetoric to analyze form, the exhibition will support first-year students in understanding how visual elements communicate ideas in art. Ultimately, students can apply the transferable skills in observation and analysis that are learned in the museum to their own fields of study, as well as their interactions with visual and textual media in our everyday world.
Novel Objects: Connecting Art and Language was curated by Brandi Breslin, Director of Education, and Keri Mongelluzzo, Educator for Academic Engagement and Access, with research and interpretation contributions by Marie Huard, graduate assistant and doctoral candidate in art education.
Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art.
