PULLMAN, Wash. — Shelves lined with knickknacks, insects, paperweights and a one-eyed baby pig take center stage in the Washington State University Museum of Art’s new “Window Project” installation, on display now through Oct. 14.
Located in the museum’s large front windows overlooking the Fine Arts Plaza on the Pullman campus, it will be illuminated 24 hours a day and can be seen from outside the Fine Arts Center. The installation is presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition, “The Raw and the Cooked: A Cabinet of Curiosities from the Collections of Washington State University,” which runs Sept. 4 through Oct. 16.
The objects lining the window shelves include a large grouping of ornate, clear-glass paperweights from WSU’s Meyer Collection, under the care of the colleges of Sciences and Liberal Arts; an Asian teapot from the Minnie Barstow Drucker Memorial Collection of Oriental Art, administered by WSU’s Department of Apparel, Merchandising and Interior Design; a dissected earthworm from the Biology Prep lab; an oil-burning lamp reminiscent of a genie’s lamp from the Museum of Anthropology; insects from the James Entomological Collection; and a dog skeleton and dried baby pig from the Worthman Veterinary Anatomy Teaching Museum.
The “Window Project” is an ongoing exhibition series intended to attract the attention of passersby by illuminating and adding visual interest to the wall of windows in front of the museum’s section of the Fine Arts Center. Earlier installations in the series have included neon sculptures by artists Ken Yuhasz and George Wray and a “Camera Obscura,” which projected shadows from outside the windows onto paper lining a fabric box inside the museum.
The museum is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday; and 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, with extended hours for football Saturdays and some other special events. All events are free and open to the public; the gallery is wheelchair accessible.
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