COLLEGEVILLE PA – Three current exhibits in Collegeville offer perspectives of science as art, explore music composition and the making of an album, and provide several artists’ views of Haiti’s political landscape. All are on display through Nov. 24 (2026; Tuesday) at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art on the campus of Ursinus College, 601 E. Main St.
Top photo by Travels With The Post
Photo below provided by the Berman Museum of Art
Universal Nature
“Universal Nature” is considered “a mid-career survey of Philadelphia artist Rebecca Rutstein,” which the museum says “presents new and recent work across painting, sculpture, textile, and video.” Her “practice brings together art and science” to reveal dynamic systems that shape the world.
Rutstein’s works drawn on both first-hand expeditions, and collaborations with researchers, to translate phenomena such as ocean circulation, microbial life, and elemental cycles “into immersive visual forms.”
It also “invites a deeper understanding of our interconnected planet and humanity’s place within it,” the Berman suggests.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication that highlights the last 10-15 years of Rustein’s career. It features a newly commissioned essay by art historian Laura Turner Igoe, chief curator at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown PA. Also included are an interview with Philadelphia gallerist Bridgette Mayer, and an introduction by National Magazine Award-winning journalist Susan Casey.
Fever
“Fever” is a new multi-media installation by Interdisciplinary Visiting Artist in Residence Emily Wells. It explores music composition, role play, time travel (spanning 1981-1991), performance, expanded cinema, and the painterly, enduring experience of making an album,” according to the museum.
Created with the assistance of Ursinus students, “the installation unfolds through assemblage, photography, tape machines, video, and performance.” It intends to invite visitors into the artist’s daily practice, and the layered, interdisciplinary research that shapes her work.
The exhibition “reflects a dynamic exchange across media, memory, and artistic process,” the museum adds. It is said to be inspired, in part, by photographer and writer Allen Frame’s photo book, titled “Fever.”
Between Archive and Afterlife
“Between Archive and Afterlife: Haitian Painting and Politics after the Dictatorship,” brings together works by artists Maxan Jean-Louis, Garry Dorsainvil, and Gelin Buteau from the Berman Museum’s permanent collection. It examines “the enduring impact of political upheaval and cultural resilience in Haiti.”
The exhibition “explores themes of surveillance, occupation, and spiritual practice across the 20th century and beyond,” the museum notes. It was curated in collaboration with C.C. McKee, assistant professor of history of art at Bryn Mawr College, and its students.
The selected paintings are said to move between realism and abstraction. They “juxtapose scenes of public life and political tension with richly symbolic imagery drawn from Vodou traditions. Recurring motifs—watchful eyes, crowded landscapes, and ritual iconography evoke both the pressures of authoritarian control, and the persistence of cultural identity.”
The exhibition intends to reveal “how Haitian artists have transformed histories of oppression into powerful visual languages of resistance, memory, and collective afterlife.”
Free and Open to the Public
Exhibitions and programs at the Berman Museum are free. Any contributions to support its activities are welcomed. The museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., but is closed during college holidays.
All of the Berman’s public galleries are accessible to wheelchair users, and other visitors who cannot use stairs. A folding wheelchair is available for visitor use.
Free parking is available in the visitor lot across from the museum. Parking also is available in visitor spaces that line Main Campus Drive in front of the museum.
Our entertainment reporting covers the arts and culture, shows, exhibits, performances, festivals, and community-related activities within, or that affect residents of, Montgomery, Berks, and Chester PA counties. Find more entertainment articles here. Also, see and join the Pottstown Arts and Cultural Alliance group on Facebook.
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