The SPAS Gallery at RIT is on the opposite side of the breezeway from the Bevier Gallery, which is the one I’ve been to. Before even getting to the gallery, I was diverted by the photos from the school’s archives that line the halls. All blown-up black and whites from back when men wore suits and the very few women wore dresses to school. Then there were the Psychotic Shootout 2008 winners (cool!), and the student advertising shots of peeps in their skivvies. After all that viewing pleasure, I found out I was on the wrong floor.

Up one floor in the gallery hung photos of people splattered with blood. More than 50 photos of people splattered with blood. The exhibit is part of Paul D Van Hoy II’s MFA thesis, the intent partially to be to explore the fact that we are calloused, numbed by violence. The thing is, you know none of them is really a bystander (which is also the name of the exhibit), a witness to some horrible crime. The looks on their faces aren’t dramatized, most of them have the same blank stare. They all look like they were standing too close to Lizzie Borden when she demonstrated her slicing and dicing skills.

Going back down to the wrong floor again, I decided to take the other way around the building. On these hallways, there were some neat last-term projects, the neatest to me being the room-sized camera obscura created by one student. The hallways are really worth strolling.

Next up: Flying Words