The UM Museum opens the puzzle piece exhibit “Love=Love” beginning May 23. Submitted Photo
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Museum latest exhibit, “Love=Love,” features a series of collages created from jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Artist and photographer Kent Rogowski, of Brooklyn, New York, uses more than 60 store-bought puzzles, using just the sky and flower pieces, to create new compositions of each puzzle.
Rogowski drew the inspiration for his pieces after having the thought that puzzle manufacturers likely cut all puzzles the same way to cut costs.
“We think of a puzzle piece as something unique and individual that has a specific place,” Rogowski said. “The thought that it might fit somewhere else and form something new and unexpected interested me.”
He said it was a challenge to put the images together in a new way.
“With ‘Love=Love,’ I think there is some surprise that all the puzzles fit together, but then another level of taking the bland imagery and creating something with an enormous amount of energy and movement,” he said. “I think I was surprised at how certain parts of images could fit together and would make something visually coherent.
“I was thinking about two things coming together and creating something new and unique. Kind of like a relationship, where two people connect and form a unique bond. I thought about puzzle pieces and how you think they are unique and assumed that this probably wasn’t actually true.”
Rogowski received the Center Award from the Center of Photographic Art and in the early 2000s was recognized twice as an emerging artist. His creativity extends to documentary film, where one of his films premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
A former instructor at the Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York, Rogowski received a Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is a senior critic.
“By mixing and matching puzzle pieces, Kent Rogowski offers bright, cheerful collages with an alternative outcome,” said Debbie Nelson, membership, events and communications coordinator for the University Museum. “(They are) interesting and fun for everyone to view and perhaps even try at home.”
The museum, at Fifth Street and University Avenue, is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free. For more information, visit http://museum.olemiss.edu/.