The Northern Art Museum is back with a new and interesting gallery showing off collections.

The students of Art 465, an introduction to museum studies, have coordinated two different exhibits opening this month. The University Collects is at the Northern Art Museum in Chicago and Collectible is the at the Olsen Gallery located at the Art Building.

The University Collectible has a theme of Objects and Visual Pedagogy. All of the art in the collection was chosen specifically to represent NIU. The NIU Museum Studies and the NIU Art Museum are sponsoring the exhibit.

The Chicago gallery, University Collects, contains six artists who were invited to address the nature of collecting by giving works of art that illustrate, question or reconsider the role of the collectible in contemporary art. The contributing artists include Matt Irie, Rena Leinberger, Kathleen McCarthy, Jocelyn Nevel, Jason Peot and John Sparagana.

The art includes making disposable items into decorative accessories, collections of mundane objects that are looked at in a completely new point of view and the preservation of impermanent materials in order to create archival objects.

The show runs from Jan. 13 to 31 in Chicago and NIU’s gallery will be open until March 15. The Chicago exhibit will hold a gallery talk to explain the work in more detail. The Collectible’s gallery talk will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 1.

University Collects hours

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday

Collectible hours

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday