UIC Students Act Like Vaudeville Audiences

By Scott Smith in News on Oct 3, 2006 2:40PM

College is a time of experimentation. You take some classes that have no discernible real-world applications and listen to bands that smell like patchouli. Maybe you cozy up to someone you wouldn’t otherwise get to know. Or maybe you cover yourself in tomatoes and call it art.

On Sunday, ten people at UIC took part in a performance art piece that involved throwing 3000 pounds of stewed tomatoes at each other. It was part of Gallery 400’s "At the Edge" series and was staged by Jeanne Dunning, a professor of art theory and practice at Northwestern University. An exhibition of the photos of the splatterfest will be on display at Gallery 400 through November 4. The fight was inspired, in part, by “La Tomatina,” a festival in Bunol, Spain.

We’re having trouble figuring out where the art was exactly, but that’s probably because we’re Philistines, in addition to being libertines. Frankly, we don’t think there’s anything wrong with staging a tomato fight if for no other reason but to get saucy with your fellow undergrads. It’d be a helluva lot better way to get to know people than the lame-ass “mixers” we went to freshman year.

The Trib has photos of the event here, including the post-fight hosing off of the combatants.

Image: Gallery 400