HUB-Robeson Galleries now open for in-person art viewing

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The HUB-Robeson Galleries, located within the HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State's University Park campus, are now open for in-person viewings, along with opportunities to observe art in several locations throughout the building. Gallery patrons are required to wear a mask at all times, and practice proper social distancing. Gallery capacity will be limited to a maximum of five guests at a time. The HUB Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and admission is free. Plans for virtual exhibitions and tours will be announced soon. 

The following art exhibitions are currently available for in-person viewing:

"CARE. not convenience" | Jae Won Lee and Kelly Salchow MacArthur

HUB Gallery

Aug. 24 - Nov. 20

Plastic. It is convenient and pervasive, lifesaving and the root of suffering. It is so ingrained in our lives it is hard to imagine a world without it. This imagining lies at the heart of the exhibition "CARE. not convenience." Created entirely with salvaged plastic, this collaboration between an artist, designer, and an environmental sciences researcher aspired to shed light on society’s dependence on, careless overuse, and thoughtless disposal of plastic. The primary material used for work creation was found and collected plastic bags. The extensive exploration of this petroleum-based material has led to methods of fusing sheets of plastic with heat, and making art forms with functional design capabilities — such as wearable art and hanging space dividers — and attention to minimizing waste in processes of production. Text written and selected by Lissy Goralnik; works by Jae Won Lee and Kelly Salchow MacArthur. This exhibition was selected by a jury of Penn State faculty, staff and students.

"Hostile Terrain 94" | Undocumented Migration Project

Art Alley

Aug. 24 - Nov. 20

A global call to action hosted by the Undocumented Migration Project and the HUB-Robeson Galleries, "Hostile Terrain 94" is a participatory art exhibition occurring in nearly 150 cities around the globe. Aiming to bear witness to and memorialize the thousands of lives claimed by the U.S./Mexico border since the 1990s, the exhibition invites collaborators, citizens and community members alike to write the identifying information known about these migrants and map where their lives were lost. "Hostile Terrain 94" raises awareness about the human consequences of policies such as “Prevention Through Deterrence.” The Undocumented Migration Project (UMP) is an arts-education-research collective aiming to humanize the migrant experience between Latin America and the United  States. UMP projects are collaborative public endeavors meant to inspire and engage participants to work toward positive social change.

Virtual Workshops every Thursday, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Register for "Hostile Terrain 94" and join a workshop by filling out this form.

"Human Expectations" | Natalia Arbelaez, Micaela Amateau Amato, Soojin Choi and Malcolm Mobutu Smith 

Display Cases

Aug. 24, 2020 - Jan. 31, 2021

"Human Expectations" is an exhibition of four artists, Natalia Arbelaez, Micaela Amateau Amato, Soojin Choi and Malcolm Mobutu Smith, working throughout the U.S. in ceramic, neon and glass. Each artist approaches the form of the human head as a map or apparition — expressing systems of knowing, disruption and social difference. Weighty, incisive and unflinching, these works connect deeply to the worlds of emotions, feelings and embodied knowledge. Working from their interests, stories and origins, these artists consider the limitations and possibilities of human expectations — their ignorance, perceptual limitations, and, potentially, their magic. On view throughout the exhibition cases in the HUB-Robeson Center.

"Border Exchange" | Carlos Rosales-Silva

Display Cases

Aug. 24, 2020 - Jan. 31, 2021

An installation in the HUB-Robeson Center wall case, Rosales-Silva's exhibition "Border Exchange" pairs two of the artist’s paintings with a site-responsive wall painting. Rosales-Silva’s work exists in the space between borders and between classification. A meditation on the ever-expanding histories of Brown peoples in the United States, his abstract works consider the vernacular cultures of the American Southwest, the western art historical canon, and the political and cultural connections and disparities between them. Spoken and written Eurocentric language, as a system of knowledge, has been historically weaponized against Brown communities. Rosales-Silva believes it is important to adapt to, invoke and reimagine the weapons of colonization, utilizing art-making to reconnect with and create innovative methods of non-western communication untethered from written or spoken language.

"Small Planet" | Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann

First floor, HUB-Robeson Center

January 2020-2022

The HUB-Robeson Center has commissioned a site-specific wall painting located in the first-floor eateries by artist Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann. Titled "Small Planet," the walls of the HUB site are taken over by lush, floating vegetation. The piece was created on location by combining pour painting on vinyl, wallpaper and Yupo paper with delicate mural painting directly on the wall. The combination of stain-like, gestural pours and controlled drawings of flora endemic to Pennsylvania create an incongruous, vibrant porthole into what appears to be another planet — but a planet created through documentation of vegetation that are often considered to be local weeds. The piece extends along corners and into adjacent walls, furthering the sense of a fantastic, immersive other-world created through accumulation of the most mundane ingredients.

For more information on these and other exhibitions, contact the HUB-Robeson Galleries, a unit of Penn State Student Affairs, at 814-865-2563, or visit studentaffairs.psu.edu/hub/art-galleries.