DRL is a visual desert (literally: my eyes burn), but the math department art collection displayed on the top two floors is an aesthetic oasis.
The collection is primarily abstract. The math department corridors of whitewashed cinderblock are lined with frames of geometric patterns, crosshatchings, letters and symbols. The abstract art on the walls reflects the abstract thought within them; these works are not an imitation of reality but an interpretation of it. In the creation of both abstract art and mathematical identities, elements observed in the physical world are conceptualised beyond recognition.
There is a distinct lack of people and faces represented on the walls. The absence of figurative work is representative of no math celebrities existing ever. But it also suggests the universal rather than personal endeavour of mathematics; even if you can’t do it without 20 office hours with your TA, the logic of binomial expansion is true to every mind.
The secret art collection in DRL unites objective with subjective thought, thinking with feeling. It serves as a reminder, if ever you need one at Penn, of the many lenses under which any discipline can be observed. The “left side”-“right side” division of the brain never made crystal clear sense to me. I know for a biological fact that most conscious people are walking around with both halves of their brain. To polarise word and image and equation is to categorise the human mind and impose a structure on that which is amorphous. The art gallery in DRL is a testament to the fact that thinking caps come in many different styles.
