Toward the end of every academic year, the University Art Museum holds Insights, an exhibition dedicated to showcasing Cal State Long Beach students’ artworks, but according to the students who organized their own event, Outsights, Insights isn’t necessarily inclusive.
Last semester, the Photo Collective — a club for fine arts photography majors — started the event Outsights, an alternative to the UAM event that some members consider pompous.
“A lot of students have to submit to [Insights] and there is a jury and a lot of people get rejected. So, [Outsights] was kind of like a guerrilla art event that we started to sort of fight back against that elitist institution,” said senior fine arts photography major and Photo Collective Vice President Tanya Flores.
The group questioned whether they should host the outdoor event again, and decided to not only do it at the end of each year, but once during each semester.
Fall 2016 Outsights took place yesterday on the Speaker’s Platform outside the bookstore from noon to 4 p.m. The event displayed around 11 students work, from photographs to paintings, drawings and even some sculptures.
“You don’t have to go through as many rules and regulations compared to the UAM. This is the free speech area, so all we had to do was pay for our tables and we just sent out a message: ‘If you want to put your art up, just come by,’” said senior studio arts major Dalia Banuelos. “We wanted all the arts [students] to come by and show their work”
Students showing their work hung out outside by the display to talk to passersby while projecting music and taking pictures in a Halloween-themed photo booth, though the event itself was not intentionally held to match the holiday.
“We’re still all students and we have a bunch of work to do and it just randomly fell on [Halloween] day,” Banuelos said.
The Photo Collective will open a group exhibit in the student galleries next week, which was their main motivation for choosing the date. With Outsights happening in such a high-traffic location, students that wouldn’t normally be exposed to art on campus get a chance to see it on their way to class or lunch.
“It was originally a response against museums [and] institutions,” Flores said. “But we want to be involved in the arts community and bring everyone together — not just students of the arts, but also CSULB students that might not know that we have galleries or who might not go to the museum all the time. We kind of just wanted to have it out so people can look at art as they walk by.”
Outsights serves to both expose students to art by fellow classmates and give exposure to the artists.
“If you’re not set up to a high standard than your art just doesn’t get seen except for your peers,” Banuelos said. “So this is an open format for all of us to get together — if you want to get together — and just show off any type of work.”
The artists at Outsights were palling around enjoying the fresh air and music dressed in their Halloween costumes, a stark contrast to what one might expect to experience at a museum.
“Museums can be quite exclusive to which people actually visit, it’s basically for the elite,” said Photo Collective President Daniel Bonilla Vera. “What we’re trying to do with this is basically make a community art space.”
And, though the art wasn’t displayed in an exhibit, doesn’t mean it is of lesser quality than art in galleries.
“As image makers we have a responsibility to show current stuff and not just fluff,” Vera said. “Hopefully we can achieve that with spaces like this.”
Outsights is finished for this semester, but it is likely to become an outstanding tradition.