Art fans young and old sauntered into the Rose Art Museum,alongside students clad in Urban Outfitters tank tops on Friday night for the opening of this year’s Fall Exhibitions. The show was new Rose curator Kim Conaty’s first fall opening, and it was a resounding success.

The Rose showcased five different contemporary artists this fall with a common theme in mind. “Every single exhibit relates in some sense to an aspect of making, of putting the artist’s materials on display,” said Caitlin Rubin, the assistant curator of the Rose.

Just beyond the Light of Reason, the museum opens into the well-lit Fineberg Gallery, where David Reed’s “Painting Paintings” is on display.

The exhibit features a small group of Reed’s paintings that have not been seen all together since 1975. Reed’s work is “more about the materiality of the paint itself and showing what paint can do on a canvas,” Gallery Attendant Olivia Joy ’18 explains. “It’s less about hiding the material in order for it to look like something we can identify.”

His paintings use solid-colored paints over wax. Reed called the reunion of his 1975 exhibition “moving.”

Below the Fineberg Gallery lies the Lower Rose Gallery, where David Shrigley’s “Life Model II” is on view. Chairs surround a nine-foot-tall sculpture of a nude woman who blinks every ten seconds. Some sit and sketch their interpretation of the sculpture as others float in and out of the space, admiring both the sculpture and what other visitors create in response. Shrigley’s own drawings hang on the north wall of the gallery, while at the same time visitor’s drawings are displayed on the south side.

For five weeks, Sarah Sze has been at the Rose working on-site on her sculpture “Timekeeper.” “The only light that illuminates the darkened Foster Gallery comes from within the sculpture. The sculpture contains palm leaves and digital clocks, soil and newspapers, tree bark and bar stools.

The contrast between the natural world and the world man creates is a cornerstone of Sze’s art. Sze’s related work, “Blue Wall Mounting,” takes a deeper look at the wall of the Foster Stair. It was created using a chalk snap-line technique, which architects use to detect the structural elements behind a wall. In both of Sze’s works, she deconstructs what is seen and builds on what is already there.

“Adventure: Capital,” a video by Irish artist Sean Lynch, played in the Rose’s video room. The video leads viewers on a journey through historic Britain and Ireland. Viewers see ancient stone quarries as well as art in modern airports.

Sculptural elements such as fruits and metal structures are seen in the videoline on one side of the room. Museum visitors stood captivated by the film. Each component of the exhibit added to the overarching theme of ancient objects that give value to our present-day lives.

JJ PEET’s Still Life was featured in the Mildred S. Lee Gallery. The exhibit was designed to make viewers question the role of images in the public eye.

PEET displayed images alongside the objects they represented, challenging the idea that static images in the media reflect reality.

Reed’s “Painting Paintings” focuses on the relationship between the material and the artist. David Shrigley’s “Life Model II” focuses on the relationship between art and observer. Both Sarah Sze’s “Timekeeper” and “Blue Wall Mounting” focus on the relationship between art and the space art takes up.

The connection between paint and painter, art and artist, and material and space are what made the this round of exhibits at the Rose stand out.

Each exhibit emphasizes the artist’s process and highlights their materials and methods. Donors, professors, parents, students and art professionals alike buzzed around the museum on Friday night, exploring what makes art and what art can make in a new space.

According to the museum’s website, the exhibitions will be on display until Dec. 11.