Exhibition featuring 49 national and international artists opens Jan. 13 at Gardiner Gallery

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Media Contact: Elizabeth Gosney | CAS Marketing and Communications Manager | 405-744-7497 | egosney@okstate.edu

On Monday, Jan. 13, “24 Hours of Wonder” — an exhibition of works by 49 artists — will open at Oklahoma State University’s Gardiner Gallery of Art.

The traveling show centers on poetry, music and 2D, 3D and digital art that depicts what contributing artists consider moments of wonder. The project began in 2022 when founders Leticia Bajuyo and Sabine Senft sent chain letter-like invitations to artists worldwide. The result was an initial 24 artworks, one for each hour of the day.

“As this archive has grown, the range of diversity of types of art, of approaches to response, and of backgrounds of the artists has also expanded,” said Bajuyo, a University of Oklahoma faculty member and organizer of the upcoming Gardiner Gallery exhibition. “This can be appreciated as one visually explores the installation, as well as by reading ... each artist’s bio and artist statements.”

With each new showing, the project continues to grow in half-day increments — or 12 artists; before coming to Stillwater, “24 Hours of Wonder” was shown at Arkansas Tech University in 2023 and in Berlin in 2022.

OSU Department of Art, Graphic Design and Art History teaching assistant professor Robin Baker was tapped to contribute to the second iteration of “24 Hours of Wonder.” His piece, like all the others in the exhibition, is in a 12-inch circular format, or about the size of a vinyl record.

“I think the simplicity and universality of the theme of the archive allows people to connect to the work in a personal way,” Baker said. “With all the different approaches represented in the archive people might be inspired to visually explore their own sense of, or a moment of, wonder.  

“I am proud and a bit humbled to have a piece alongside the other artists in this collection. This is the first exhibition we have had since I joined the archive, and so it was the first time I was able to participate in the process of nominating artists to join. Being able to offer opportunities to artists I respect a great deal is really gratifying.”

Bajuyo explained that visitors to this third showing of “24 Hours of Wonder” will see 49 completed pieces on the walls and suspended in the center of the gallery.  

“I hope viewers would leave imagining how they would approach the project if they were invited to add a piece to the show,” Bajuyo said. “What would be the record of wonder that they would want to add? How would they go about making it? How would they want to be installed?”

In addition to exhibiting the pieces, Bajuyo and her co-founder Senft are maintaining an online archive of “24 Hours of Wonder.” It serves as a connection point for contributing artists and the public “across cultures and time zones, across generations and moments of wonder in time,” Bajuyo and Senft wrote.

“I hope people are curious about what all these different artists found wonderous,” Baker said. “There is a vulnerability to sharing your experience of wonder to strangers. I hope that vulnerability allows visitors to connect with the artists, their experience or their own sense of humanity.”

The Gardiner Gallery of Art, housed in the Bartlett Center on OSU’s Stillwater campus, is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. “24 Hours of Wonder” will run through Feb. 20, with a closing reception scheduled for 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20.