Exhibition

Light is ethereal; it opens and spreads. It radiates and fills spaces. It illuminates both the beautiful and tragic as well as the mundane, bringing the contents of our lives into sharper focus. In a traditional sense, light is also ephemeral—it is with us, and it wanes; humankind has celebrated its existence and return throughout the ages.

We measure time through movement of light: the arc of the sun, the length of a shadow, the fading of day into night. Light does not simply mark time; it carries it. In physics, light is also a record of the past. Starlight reaches us years or millennia after it was emitted, turning observation into an act of looking backward. Light, in this sense, is time made perceptible.

Longer Light: Selections from the Collection offers a wide-ranging exploration of how artists represented in the museum’s holdings have engaged with this universal and compelling relationship. For many, their creations preserve fleeting moments amid constant change; for others, the emphasis lies not on fixed appearances but on shifting conditions and perceptions. Still others approach light itself as a quasi-transcendent or spiritual force, evoking a sense of timelessness that can serve as a reassurance or reminder in the face of impermanence.

While the presentation will span a variety of genres and media approaches, Longer Light will give special emphasis to the museum’s growing photography collection, where the use of available light is fundamental to lens-based practices.

Organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU. Funding for this exhibition is provided by the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Endowment, the Holland Orton Endowment, and friends of the museum. Special thanks to Mary Welcome for inspiring this exhibition’s title.

Location

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU is located in the Crimson Cube (on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium/Gesa Field and the CUB) on the WSU Pullman campus.

Visit

The museum is located at the heart of campus. Visitors can park closest in the Smith Center For Undergraduate Education parking garage. Daily parking permits can be purchased the same day online at parking.wsu.edu.

Artworks

To view images of selected artworks from the exhibition, click on the arrows after each image, or click the individual work to scroll through full size images of the works.