Jonathan Frey’s Art in Olin Engages the W&J Community

Written by: T Kinkley, Red & Black Arts and Culture Writer

Photo Courtesy: Regan Carlson

Olin Fine Arts Center hosted Jonathan Frey’s art gallery from Sept. 9 to Oct. 14 on the second floor. His exhibit featured around ten art pieces, all crafted with different materials. Each of Jonathan Frey’s pieces represent an important idea. These ideas range from racial injustice to fun board games to entertainment, media, and social media. Many of his art pieces touched on sociocultural interactions and politics.

Jonathan Frey is an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He has three different degrees: a Bachelor of Fine Arts for Visual Communication Design from the University of Daytona, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) for Studio Art from the University of Florida, and a second MFA for Visual Communication Design from the Pratt Institute.

Jonathan Frey conveys various aspects of cultural and national identities through the structure of both language and board games in his art gallery in the Olin Fine Arts Center. (Photo Courtesy Regan Carlson)

A political part of the exhibit is an interactive piece titled Trump Mad Libs. Created in 2018, this piece uses tweets from the United States' 45th president, Donald Trump, as a game of Mad Libs. This art piece consists of whiteboards with vinyl lettering pasted on that spell out some of Trump’s tweets. Similar to the game of Mad Libs, some words are taken out and a category of words is listed instead; anyone who views the exhibit can fill in the blank.

One example read: ‘@RealDonaldTrump – 7:49 am 2 Jan 2018: North Korea Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “[adjective] [noun] is on his [noun] at all times.” Will someone from his [adjective] and [noun] [adjective] regime please inform him that I, too, have a [adjective] [noun], but it is much bigger & more powerful than his, and my [noun] works!’ An unknown viewer filled in the blanks to make it read: ‘North Korea Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “[mock] [an*s] is on his [nerves] at all times.” Will someone from his [lengthy] and [iguana] [true] regime please inform him that I, too, have a [taxing] [life], but it is much bigger & more powerful than his, and my [elbow] works!” In actuality, Trump’s tweet read as follows: “North Korea Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I, too, have a Nuclear Button, but it is much bigger & more powerful than his, and my Button works!” This exhibit is a way for the students on campus to interact with Frey’s art, and let other students see how they change and edit it to read.

" This exhibit is a way for the students on campus to interact with Frey’s art, and let other students see how they change and edit it to read."

As you can see, many viewers enjoyed interacting with the Mad Libs in Frey’s exhibit. If you missed the exhibit, don’t worry! A new exhibit will be put up for the W&J community to explore.