If you are interested in art and looking for something a bit different to do on campus, check out the University Museum of Contemporary Art. Located on the north side of the UMass Fine Arts Center, the entrance to the museum overlooks the beautiful campus pond and lawn. The University Museum of Contemporary Art is a multidisciplinary, international laboratory for exploring and advancing contemporary art here at UMass. The museum holds exhibitions, permanent collections, and educational programs throughout the year. Currently, the museum is open for guests and offers free entrance (donations are accepted). If you do not feel comfortable visiting the museum in person, all exhibits are available virtually. This virtual experience is designed to make you feel like you are walking through the exhibits yourself. A curated video and webpage take you through the exhibitions, narrating each piece to create the complete museum experience. 

During the 2021–22 academic year, the University Museum of Contemporary art is showcasing the French-American artist Nicole Eisenman. The Sideshow exhibition was curated by UMass Art History Associate Professor Karen Kurczynski and Graduate Assistant Abigail Clark and most of the works in the  exhibition are on loan from The Mead Art Museum and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. Eisenman combines prints and sketching of emotionally resonant, cartoonish figures formed out of bold lines, and intense colors. Eisenman explores the human condition through satire and dark humor, creating imagined characters based on critical observations of everyday life and culture. They combine representation and abstraction, caricature and the grotesque, and gender instability of the real world. As well as personal works of art, the show includes works that inspired Eisenman works, as they relate to the observation of urban life and social gatherings. The artworks range from drawings by Pablo Picasso in the 1960s, and German impressionists that Eisenman took a particular liking to: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Max Beckmann. 

Now, I am not an art expert, and many times I am confused by what a piece of artwork is meant to mean. But, I love art museums. I found my trip to the UMass Museum of Contemporary Art to be a relaxing escape from the busyness of campus. I enjoyed peacefully walking around each exhibit, taking in the lighting, architecture, and, of course, the art and their stories. 

Here are some of my favorite pieces by Nicole Eisenman herself and others included in  Sideshow: Nicole Eisenman’s Modernist Inspirations.