Grading student work may not seem like the most exciting activity for a Thursday night.

But that’s what two ISU professors have in mind for this Thursday evening – except they won’t be grading Scantron sheets or essay tests. Instead, professors John Cunnally and Dennis Raverty will be performing a critique of some of the best college student artwork in Iowa.

The “Iowa College Salon XXIII” is a statewide juried art competition that is currently housed at the Brunnier Art Museum.

Cunnally and Raverty will share their opinions on the pieces as professors, art historians and, of course, critics.

The critique will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Brunnier. It is free and open to the public.

“It’s diversity in action – something for everyone,” Cunnally says.

Cunnally specializes in the art of the Renaissance. He will discuss how the works in the “Iowa College Salon” exhibit compare to pieces from the past.

Cunnally says he will be focusing on style, “because in a group show of this sort you find a great variety of stylistic approaches which reflect the major movements or `schools’ of modern and contemporary art – abstract expressionism, pop art, surrealism, minimalism, conceptual art and so forth, even traditional or classical styles.

“Jackson Pollock may have died 50 years ago, but his drips and splatters still live on in the work of some of these students,” he adds.

Dennis Raverty, assistant professor of contemporary art history, theory and criticism, will talk about the pieces from two standpoints: that of an art historian and critic.

Raverty says he has already studied the exhibit. In Thursday’s discussion, he plans to focus heavily on the scale and environment of the “Iowa College Salon” pieces, and he wants to prompt viewers to make up their own minds about each individual work.

He says he enjoys it when students think independently and challenge his views.

“Critics have historically often been wrong,” he says. “They dismissed Van Gogh. One critic called Duchamp’s `Nude Descending a Staircase’ an `explosion in a shingle factory,’ and he’s one of the most celebrated artists of the century.”

The piece that won Best of Show was “Slither Slather,” by Leo Lee, a University of Iowa graduate student. Although the idea of a black and white photo of a blurry figure in front of a wall of grafitti was good, Raverty says, the photo had the “wrong scale.”

“It’s on a jewel-like scale, but if it were the size of me, I could relate to it more viscerally,” he says.

Another piece Raverty will comment on is Michael Baggarly’s steel sculpture, titled “Shadowed.” Baggarly is also a University of Iowa graduate student. “Shadowed” represents two steel chairs, one very tall and one very small – both of proportions unsuitable for sitting. The entire installation is cordoned off with velvet roping.

“It’s as if the artist is saying `don’t touch, don’t sit.’ I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean, but I relate to it physically,” he said. “It’s a powerful piece.”

Another piece that made an impression on Raverty was “Apart” and “Together” by ISU student Courtney Steely, sophomore in art and design. The two charcoal works show an image of a woman.

The first drawing appears to be in pieces, and the second work shows the woman stitched back together.

Raverty says he could feel the pain of the piece as if he were the one with the stitches.

The idea of an art salon hearkens back to Paris in the late 19th century.

At that time, the official academic salons were quite strict and allowed only classical art styles, and left out the impressionists and other now universally recognized artworks, Raverty says.

“During the heydey of Modernism in the 1960s, only one type of art was acceptable: abstract and minimal, but now there is no longer any agreed upon criteria in postmodern art,” he says. “The `Iowa College Salon’ is very postmodern.”

He describes the postmodern situation as a “pluralistic cacophony;” that is, it has many distinct voices.

Tastes have changed, he explains, from art that was considered minimalist to pieces that can relate to the observer on a more personal physical level.