“Pictures must not be too picturesque.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Illustration (left): Pablo Picasso, Grande Tete de Femme au Chapeau Orne (1962), block print. Private collection

Eye on the Future: The Pottery Wheel-of-Fortune

Click on image to enlarge

All of us at ARTES, fine arts magazine, wish you a happy and healthy New Year. There has been so much strife and discord in the world in recent years, we can only hope-against-hope that those deep political divisions, cultural and ethnic biases will ameliorate in the months to come. This is an election year in the U.S. and we can certainly count on the vitriol and accusations to be flying in every direction. One consolation is that some politicians speak for only a small minority of us when they stake out their extreme positions on various issues. With claims from the right and the left proclaiming that the country faces ruin unless they are elected, remember this: they are wrong. The solid middle ground remains the ‘high ground’ when it comes to anticipating a meaningful fix for our economy and our future as a nation. Shovel-ready, labor-based infrastructure jobs are a short-term band aid; high-tech training for another segment is useful in the long run, although it will never be a sufficient replacement for the loss of vast numbers of manufacturing jobs to foreign markets. Self-reliance and personal initiatives aimed at creating and building your own future, developing your own business, product or service—working at the edge of pure creative inspiration and self-sufficiency—has never been more crucial.

Take heart in the fact that American cultural enterprises are alive and well. Understand that the odds of ‘trickle-down’ economics affecting your future are remote to none! Wall Street is out for itself; Capitol Hill is mired in partisanship; Main Street has moved to the Big Box stores at the suburban mall. Our job is to put aside our indignation and rage and roll up our creative sleeves: paint, decoupage, design and build, spin, weave, bake something wild and delicious that everyone will want to taste. Come on…turn on your creative juices!

ARTES has noted that museums are redefining themselves in the face of a constrained economy: artists are responding to declining markets for experimental work and returning to more traditional, studio-based methods of painting; auction houses are noting that mid-range art and antiques are now more affordable than ever; Magnet schools are thriving, in part because an emphasis on reading, music and art offerings enrich their daily curriculum; New York’s Broadway is booming; art fairs are springing up all over the world and are heavily attended; high-quality artisanal crafts—from cheese to silver earrings to lighting fixtures—are finding new markets on the Internet and with recession-fatigued consumers (Web sales up 16% for Christmas `11! ).

Let’s learn from the past.  Between the two world wars, precious raw materials were in scant supply for European furniture designers and architects. From this dearth of supplies came some of the most timeless designs for chairs, tables and the spare, beautiful building designs that we now associate with the Internationalist Movement. Molded plywood, woven , spare bicycle parts and other surplus goods became the raw materials of Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair (right), Alvar Aalto’s stacking stools and curvaceous Paimo chair and Hans Coray’s bent-metal, hole-punched side chair.  As they say: “necessity is the mother…”

The cultural scene tends to thrive when times are rough and people are looking to feel better about themselves and the world. When all is said and done, we will be economically leaner and meaner and we’ll be choosing to embrace the people and things that enrich our lives spiritually and aesthetically.

So, put on your creative hat, have a seat at the ‘pottery wheel-of-fortune’ and become a part of that economic revival!

Looking Good!

Thanks to the hard work of new ARTES advocate Mark Johnson and intern, Katya Popova, our Facebook page has grown to become a state-of-art gathering place for friends from all over the world. There are lots of great reasons to check in to the site and check it out! We’re now offering special incentives if you ‘friend’ us. And there you’ll find our new QR code that lets you instantly download ARTES to your tablet or smart-phone device. ARTES is compatible with all of these tools and will continue to search out ways to improve your reading enjoyment of the regular features of the magazine.

Go to: https://www.facebook.com/ARTESmagazine

Or our Twitter site: https://twitter.com/#!/ARTESmag

Thanks for reading and again, a happy and healthy New Year,

Richard Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor

Illustration (above, left): soon-to-be-released Sky Lanterns, Art Sea Street Fair, Lincoln City, Oregon

The 'Z'-Chair, a Zaha Hadid design, on view at PMA

On view through spring, 2012, the Philadelphia Museum of Art features a unique exhibition, Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion. This show includes furniture and design objects in a space entirely transformed by the prominent female architect. The fluid, site-specific installation is the first of its kind in the United States, assembled by a team of designers from Hadid Architects. The show reflects Hadid’s seamless work methods, as well as her technological breakthroughs in architecture and design. artes fine arts magazine

Hadid's Opera House, Guangzhou, China (2010)

Born in Bagdad, Iraq, Hadid is known worldwide for her visionary architecture. She is responsible for many breakthroughs in her field, and is the first woman recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She is the founder of London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, and has numerous projects completed around the world, most recently including MAXXI: National Museum of XXI Century in Rome (2009), Guangzhaou Opera House in China (2010), and Olympic Aquatics Centre in London (2011). She is now based in London and works internationally in the fields of urbanism, architecture and design.

Mesa Tables, Design by Zaha Hadid

The museum gallery housing the exhibition, in the Perelman building, is completely transformed. The installation greets the viewer with sleek, attention-grabbing furniture and functional objects, such as the Z-Chair, Vortexx Chandeliers and the Mesa Table. To the left, there is a rippling wall—a temporary structure built on site. This undulating form also serves as a shelving unit for Hadid-designed objects, including limited-edition footwear, jewelry and silverware. The silver lines painted on the floor echo the shadows made by the furniture, creating a seamless visual composition.

Lighting plays an important role in this exhibition. The metallic chairs and tables reflect the natural light casted from the window, evolving and morphing as they are viewed from different angle. The functional objects on the shelving unit, including Flatware, Crevasse Vases and other items seem to flash from the light cast through a small opening in the shelves. The Vortexx Chandeliers, continuously changing hues with the use of high-intensity, light emitting diodes LED, cast an ephemeral glow on the surrounding objects and walls.

Flatware, by Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid makes it a goal to integrate her designs to their environment. In this exhibition silver lines painted on the floor fuse the shadows to the objects, at times creating a 3-dimensional effect. The fluidity in her work stems from her creative process. According to curator Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger, Hadid works on her designs simultaneously, having several computer screens open at a time with various objects and architectural images, resulting the work that is interrelated and flowing. Design similarities can be seen throughout both her architectural and object designs.

Most objects in the exhibition are made from steel, aluminum, and polyurethane, apart from the sofa, which is upholstered with metallic fabric. Despite the hard materials, the objects are surprisingly organic. They walk the line between fine art and product design, and are often viewed as functional sculptures. Hadid sells her objects as both art and useable products.

Hadid's Z-Car I, a Hydrogen-powered, 3-wheel prototype

Some of the highlights of this exhibition are the mini-sculptural jewelry pieces—Celeste Necklace and Cuff and Glace Collection Jewelry—which are both made with Swarowski Crystals. Like most of the objects in the show, the unusual jewelry shapes elevate them beyond mere utility, to become works of art. Another unexpected design offering by Hadid, is the hydrogen-powered, three-wheel vehicle, Z-Car I prototype. It is presented outside the immediate gallery area, gracing the hallway of the Perelman building with its aerodynamically sleek, quirky presence. As if to leave no part of our lives unattended to, the exhibit also features futuristic Hadid footwear designs, produced in conjunction with clothing brand Lacoste.

Not only does this show offer an exclusive look into the future, with spectacular Hadid designs, the museum also honored the architect with a Design of Excellence Award on November 19, 2011. Collab, a volunteer committee specializing in design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be presenting this award to Hadid, with her multi-faceted contributions in the fields of design, architecture and urbanism. The architect used the award event as an opportunity to share her views on design with the audience.

By Ekaterina Popova, Contributing Writer

Visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art at: www.philamuseum.org

See more of Zaha Hadid’s design concepts at: www.zaha-hadid.com

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (Great Salt Lake), 1970. Photo: George Steinmetz (2002)

The Utopian desire of 1970s ‘Land’ artists, who broke away from the stranglehold of the art market by producing earthworks far removed from cities, has given way to new projects that demonstrate a global ecological awareness through cross-disciplinary investigations concerning environmental sustainability. artes fine arts magazine

A move in this direction emerged in the early 1980s when Agnes Denes created, Wheatfield—A Confrontation, 1982 in Battery Park. She planted and harvested two acres of wheat on a landfill close to Manhattan as a discursive act to demonstrate that a wasteland could be made useful once again. (Below right) Agnes Denes, Wheatfield—A Confrontation  © l982. Two acre wheat field on Battery Park landfill, Manhattan. Commissioned, Public Art Fund, NYC. Photo: © John McGrail, Time/Life. [see: End Note 1]  Moreover, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, an artist in residence at the New York Sanitation Department, dealt with the problem of waste as early as 1983 and continues today. Inventively, she transformed a garbage-recycling center of the NYSD into a place where the public could come and observe how rubbish actually is disposed of in New York City. The walkway, bridge and viewing wall are made of recycled materials.

The expanding term of environmental art today encompasses a vast scope of territory and issues. Just as certain earthworks in the deserts of the American West, grew out of ideas of landscape painting, the growth of public art stimulated artists to engage the urban landscape as well as other environments as a platform to present ideas and concepts about the natural world to a diverse audience. According to John Beardsley, “Many environmental artists now desire not merely an audience for their work but a public with whom they can correspond about the meaning and purpose of their art.”[2]

In our day, certain artists persist in moving away from single-issue approaches toward a rising energetic hybridization of art, activism and engineering. The notion of sustainability has spread from the field of environmentalism to many areas of human activity, including art and culture. Some refer to this as sustainable art and this perhaps might be an alternative term to environmental or green art, in recognition of the challenges that sustainability brings to contemporary art as a whole. The co-curators stated “In fact, the closeness to sustainability of much challenging contemporary art practice owes more to the legacy of 1970s conceptualism, and even primarily the non-market East European variety of conceptual art, than for example to Land Art.”[3] Artists now have an impulse to grapple with pressing social issues as a means to enact communal change through new modalities of working that include working outside the usual art community and often collaborating with scientists.

The exhibition Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century Is Treading Water, guest curated by artist and educator Carolyn Speranza for the American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Pittsburgh, was a testimony to this emergent direction that artists are developing and their desire for social engagement. This wide-ranging show is emblematic of an upward thematic trend as evinced in numerous films, writings and exhibitions over the past decade. Once more the Fowkes stress, “There is a rising understanding that radical change is required, if we are to find a way to ‘meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[4]

Still from film, The Day after Tomorrow, Courstesy 20th Century Fox (2004)

The perils of nature and environmental consciousness have become a cultural barometer globally. Our daily engagement with recycling contributes to a sustainable environment, and progressively more households engage in this act. Artists cannot but take into account the crisis facing our planet given the escalating daily news about the dangers threatening our environment as depicted in CNN’s documentary, Planet in Peril and in such films as, The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and I Legend (2007) that address an inevitable doomsday. In recent years, the topic of environmental crisis has been explored in several notable exhibitions. Unframed Landscapes, curated by the Fowkeses in 2004, offered a reassessment of landscape in contemporary art aiming to focus on humankind’s relationship with nature across the full range of media. Other significant exhibitions include Lucy Lippard’s, Weather Report: Art And Climate Change (2007), Mass MoCA’s, Badlands: New Horizons In Landscape (2008), Stephanie Smith’s, Beyond Green (2008), EPA: Environmental Performance Actions (2008) curated by ecoartspace with Exit Art, and Criteria (2009), curated by Jimena Acosta and Emiliano Godoy, at Chicago’s Columbia College Art Gallery.[5]

The exhibition, Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century Is Treading Water reveals the increased interest of cross-disciplinary artists whose innovative work evinces the critical situation facing our planet.  Artists, scientists, writers, community leaders and others in the past decade have focused on this topic and are increasingly bringing an important message to a larger global audience. Too Shallow for Diving specifically focuses on problems surrounding water and its impact on our natural world, human health and public welfare. According to its curator, Carolyn Speranza, “…the sixteen artists aim to provide viewers with new insights and perspectives about our existing world and the enormity of the dilemma facing our water supply.” Several fuse aesthetic concepts with scientific findings as a catalyst for viewers to consider the future of water sources. However, in choosing the artists, Speranza was less concerned with aesthetics and more with concepts about acute water issues.

The investigations of the artists range from the macro to the micro and from local water topics to those in Africa. Each artist, in a unique inquiry, explores the implications of the ‘hard realities’ and ‘new materiality’ for political action, artistic theory and practice and sustainable living in the 21st century. They are working with transformative approaches and processes towards a new vision that is ecological and participates with the living cycles of nature. This work covers an array of responsiveness in which the artists tackle different topics including oceans, climate change, water quality, recycling, water purification and plants for restoration. Artists today are finding inventive ways to call attention to the problems facing our environment, as corporate greed and profit impose destruction on our planet. Each artist works very differently and explores viverse territories; yet they share an awareness about the critical loss of natural resources and a desire to save the planet from human destruction. Many of these artists have been aligned with the nonprofit organization, ecoartspace, founded in 1997 by Patricia Watts and New York City curator, Amy Lipton, who joined Watts in 1999. This was one of the first Web sites online dedicated to art and environmental issues. For over a decade they have curated exhibitions and programs, providing a platform for artists who are working with scientists to address our global environmental issues. In 2002, Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid co-curated the exhibition titled, Ecovention, for the Contemporary Art Center (CAC), in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Grant Kester, one of the leading figures in this emerging critical dialogue around “relational”[6] or “dialogical” work, has expressed that “Art takes its form not from a final object but through play forms, process and dialogue.”[7]  Many of the artists in the exhibition Too Shallow for Diving work along similar lines and incorporate sustainable thinking in their art and social change in their message. Additionally, several credit the collaborative team Newton Harrison and Helen Mayer Harrison[8], the leading pioneers of the 1970s eco-art movement, as being especially prominent to their thinking and methods.

This is primarily apparent in the projects of the team of Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, who often work with government and environmental groups on ecological restoration-based projects. Their installation is comprised of in-depth photographic documentation, booklets filled with statistical data and charts from two projects titled, Nine Mile Run Greenway Project (in collaboration with Bob Bingham and John Stephen), (1997-2000) and 3 Rivers 2nd Nature (2000-2005), left.  Through their research, Collins and Goto address the meaning, form and function of public space and nature in Allegheny County of southwestern Pennsylvania. These multi-year projects include extensive research and public educational components as well as brown-fields restoration projects, and their gallery installations highlight images and data about the cultural and ecological history of the region. They raise questions about nature and post-industrial public space; the focus of their work is always to benefit the public realm and to create outreach programs intended to enable creative public advocacy and change.

(above) Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, Documentation of the artists’ projects (detail), Nine Mile Run (with Bob Bingham and John Stephen). 3 Rivers: 2nd nature. All photos that follow, except Vanessa German, Love Song for Water Operetta, credit: Jenny Jean Crawford.

Felix Guattari in The Three Ecologies, published in 1989, anticipated many of the issues facing the globalized world of today and laid the blame squarely at the doors of what he called, “Integrated World Capitalism.” Guattari’s focus in ‘The Three Ecologies’ is his conception of ‘ecosophy’— the three related ecologies of environmental, mental and social worlds and their amalgamation into a methodological practice. His argument, and it is rather simple, is that we have an erroneous conception of ecology, of environmental struggle, and that only by broadening our views to include the three ecologies will we be able to affect any enduring changes in our social/cultural/natural environment. A number of the artists in this exhibition illustrate these concepts.

Carolyn Speranza & Frank Ferraro, with Angelo Gatto, Requiem for the Netmakers (detail), mixed media (2011)

This is especially noticeable in, Requiem for the Netmakers (2011), Carolyn Speranza’s impressive multi-screen, mixed media collaboration with sonic artist Frank Ferraro occupying two large walls (right).  Floating in front of an irregularly shaped parchment-like blue background, a transparent sheet resembling a wall hanging discloses quotes a section of President Richard M. Nixon’s State of the Union address of January 27, 1970, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended by the Clean Water Act of 1977. The president states, “With the help of people we can do anything, and without their help, we can do nothing. In this spirit, together, we can reclaim our lands for ours and generations to come.” Contrasting this idealist rhetoric, numerous monitor screens continuously display changing videos and still imagery capturing the actual realism of water today; images of catastrophic affects of oil damage to our oceans and environment, along with scenes of families struggling to make their livelihood from the fishing industry unfold. This assortment of imagery came from the artist’s online archive taken from the Associated Press Archive (media licensed for this exhibition), Library of Congress Archives, National Archives, Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica project and photographs made available through Creative-Commons licenses. Filling this space is a musical composition produced by Frank Ferraro inspired by conversations with Speranza about environmental calamity. Peculiarly this installation evokes a mode of poetic beauty spiked with an appalling realism about water and the catastrophe facing our environment today.

Prudence Gill, Wishes for Water and Memories of the Deep (detail), 2011. Thanks to Eve Dater, JCC.

Prudence Gill, too, is concerned about the fragile ecology of the Gulf of Mexico and the potentially devastating consequences of the oil industry’s negligence. In Gill’s cerebral minimalist text piece As Heard on NPR April 18, 2011, she paraphrases reporter Scott Tong’s commentary that “The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform killed 11 people. And, enough crude to fill maybe 10,000 or more average-size swimming pools gushed into the deep, dark sea.” An abridged version of this poignant message spans across the three large windows overlooking the JCC’s swimming pool. It states in blue vinyl, framed by a continuous black grid band of squares representing globs of oil, “…10,000 Swimming Pools of Oil Flowed into the Deep Dark Waters….” Incorporated within this streaming text installation is a small sign with alarming information: “1 1/2 cups of crude oil will kill all life in one swimming pool of ocean water.” Across the hall is a seemingly whimsical window box titled Wishes for Water & Memories of the Deep (2011). In this fantastical mixed media installation of suspended, floating, enigmatic star-like shapes and lights, Gill has manufactured an under-the-sea glittering world. Notwithstanding its lyrical elegance, the diffused and murky visibility of this setting devoid of any life forms suggests a haunting mystery about life in the underworld of water.

Jim Denny, Obstacle, o/c (2011)

The art of Jim Denney focuses on the natural and social history of the Pacific Northwest, especially in Oregon around the McKenzie Bridge region of the state. Frequently, the subjects of his dynamic environmentally rooted work include river dams, the distress of fire on the landscape and animals. Denney’s strong views about nature and his sensitivity about man’s destruction of the western environment stem from a deeply rooted personal connection. A native of Oregon–this is where he grew up and continues to live, however work part of the year he resides in New York City.

His large-scale, richly colorful paintings illustrate the ongoing manipulations of nature. He expressively portrays and captures the tensions existing between nature and society in the hope of sounding an alarm about the seriousness of this critical problem. In both works, Obstacle (2011) and Abandoned (2011), Denney points to a bleak future of the western landscape.

Richard Harned, This is the Tasteless Water of Souls...This is the True Sustenance (detail), mixed media (2011)

Richard Harned directs viewers to the importance of water and air on this earth in his conceptual sculptural installation, Laws of the Earth and Air (2011). His four-part construction consists of a map of the USA, a globe, a video and a silver plane resembling a 60s peace sign. The video, produced by his brother Douglas Harned, continually shows beautiful views of Yellowstone National Park; Glacier Park; and Great Falls, Virginia, while the sounds of Mocking Birds and the Ocean, recorded by another brother, Thomas Harned, fill the space. The artist calls our attention to all the available freshwater in the United States by placing red dots denoting FINE their locations throughout the wall map. The globe sits, encased in a transparent dome, and underneath it sits a tray of clear marbles intended for visitors to take away. The gem-like marbles, in scale to the globe, represents the 21-mile diameter sphere of all fresh water on the planet. Visitors are invited to take one with them as a reminder of the urgency of water issues. The blue blown-glass marble attached to the globe is made to scale with all water of any description on earth, comprising an 860-mile diameter sphere. One of the lessons to be had perhaps from this multiple part work is the importance of specificity and place and the reality of limited natural resources we easily take for granted.

Roger Laib, Glutttttttttttt-Hut mixed media (2011)

On the lawn of the JCC sits a bizarre skeletal structure titled Glut Hut (2011) that resembles a small mobile home made of found and discarded objects and equipped with the amenities of a house. Roger Laib is known as a master wood craftsman; however, in this one-of-a-kind, eccentric looking large-scale shack and transparent soft sculptural atlas, refinement is not an issue! Manufactured from diverse recycled objects, this construction is intended to catch rainwater and brim over. With sufficient rain, the water will eventually leak and spill out of the hut and onto the lawn, demonstrating to observers how water is wasted and how it could be saved and put to good alternative use, such as watering lawns. Laib highlights how environmentally friendly choices can make a difference if one bothers to pay attention and make the simple effort to recycle rainwater.

Jamie Gruzska, Notes on Water, 1940-2011 (detail) toned silver gelatin prints (2011)

Notes on Water (1940-2011), a selection of predominantly black and white a selection of photographs by Jamie Gruzska, is reminiscent of cherished snapshots found in a household album. The place, date and reference to a person are written under each of the fourteen images. The importance of water to Gruzska’s personal history is highlighted in this memory record of times shared and past. What we are witness to are uncontaminated scenes—no factories—only trees and water. These are places preserved and held in respect for enjoyment and solitude, yet one cannot assume from these bucolic images whether or not the water is contaminated.

Wendy Osher, Something in the Water, used plastic bags (2011)

Conversely, environmental activist artist Wendy Osher’s communal project, resulting in a floor sculpture titled, Something in the Water (2011), is opposite in meaning from the sublime portrayal of water depicted in Gruzska’s work. This collaborative eco-project connected women from around the globe by using plastic bags to crochet breast-like shapes. Osher joined each component to fabricate a sizable, eye-catching, colorful and organic shape intended to call attention to toxins seeping into international waters. A map of the world hangs on an adjacent wall to this arresting textural form. Framing this atlas are portraits of the women who participated in this worldwide project along with a list of names and locations of the crocheters. Dots placed on the map indicate the origin of each participant. Whereas this is an artwork in an exhibition, it is concurrently a public advocacy project intended to raise social awareness about the importance of rectifying water contamination. Jointly, the women point out how plastic bags are linked to poison that leaks into one’s bloodstream and directly affects women’s breast milk and the future of generations to come.

Ann T. Rosenthal & Steffe Domike, Watermark:Wood,Coal, Oil, Gas (detail), digital print, acrylic paint, water on canvas (2011). Thanks to Hilary Klein, graphic design

Ann T. Rosenthal and Steffi Domike have been collaborating on environmental installations for years. Rosenthal refers to herself as an eco-feminist artist and Domike is an activist artist who is inspired by real world events. Their most recent wall installation, Watermark: Wood, Coal, Oil, Gas (2011) consists of four panels that illustrate an evolutionary timeline of energy resources—wood, coal, oil and natural gas—and a delicate blue linear wall drawing depicts a local watershed. Regardless of being on canvas and hung like ancient Chinese scrolls, these color-field compositions amidst Technicolor blue, green and yellow graded tonal backgrounds, with a photomontage containing the silhouette of a bass (wood), an eagle (coal/mountaintop mining), turtles (oil) and a child (natural gas), in no way should be perceived as decorative pieces. The artists do not endorse beauty for beauty’s sake through conspicuous paintings; rather, their art is about the idea and an environment in decline. The silhouettes are life-size, and within each shape are scenes of the landscape and of water. Even though this salient metaphorical piece is perhaps the most aesthetically gratifying in the exhibition because of its rich color, facade and composition, it commands an edge that peels back the veil on mankind’s abuse of natural resources and the environment’s vulnerability. The message alludes to our culture over time and America’s conflicting use and relationship to water and land for energy.

Vanessa German, Love Poem for Water Operetta (perf. 5/14/11). Photo: Jae Roberto

Vanessa German, the youngest artist in the show, is a nationally recognized performance poet and multidisciplinary artist who, in her spoken autobiographical word poetry, bring into play the transcendent and indefatigable power of the human spirit. In her expressly orchestrated live performance operetta, Love Poem for Water [9], exclusively performed the opening night of the exhibition, she stunningly shared with her audience emotional episodes from her life and the mixed experiences she has had with water, ranging from terror, to love and respect. Her striking words, powerful gospel-like -music and projection of water textures onto a huge skirt, which takes up an entire dramatically lit stage, provides a platform for the contemplation of both destruction and hope. German’s bellowing words and bigger-than-life theatricality command attention, and this work signals its own illusion through a series of overlapping colors that unfurl as the message of her performance evolves. German’s powerfully gestural poetic essay addresses the precariousness of life and the involvement of water with all living things on earth.

Maritza Mosquera, The Conversation and Prayer, 30"x74", digital photo wallpaper prints (2011)

The celebration of water is very much present in numerous cultures manifested in diverse myths and folklore. Working in a highly personal manner, Maritza Mosquera utilizes myth and photographic documentation in the multiple-component piece Body in Water, composed of mythic text and digital prints depicting her treading water. After reading the wall allegory, it is apparent this artist comprehends the allure of water. She demonstrates that there are many connections between water and spirituality in her ritualistic performance, alluding that water is the central source of our being and it is part of every cell and fiber in us; it is our very essence. As I walked away from this piece, I asked myself, “Could water be the common denominator that weaves us all (earth, animal, human and plant) together as one? Is it the ultimate connector?

Lisa Link, Waterways Project, selected image (2011)

Lisa Link, an artist and web designer at the University of Massachusetts for the past thirteen years, has been creating artworks that address critical social issues. The focus of her work is directly political and activist rather than aesthetic. Link aims to give people voice and acts as a catalyst for conversation and connections because she understands solutions can only arise once disaster is recognized. Through her undertakings, she desires to make a positive impact that perhaps can influence public policy for the improvement of Boston Harbor and drinking water. The project, Water Ways (2010-2011) developed out of a series of conversations she had with scientists and residents throughout the Boston area, including Dr. Anamarija Frankic and Dr. Sarah Oktay of Boston’s University of Massachusetts. In this multi-component wall installation, consisting of twelve 21 x 21 inch digital photomontages and detailed text as well as an online map, the viewer becomes informed of the critical situation between water and humans. Pervading throughout the densely layered compositions is an eerie calm, perhaps because of the stylized organization resembling posters or advertisements. Nevertheless, on closer inspection, the juxtaposition of text against the visual image reveals the urgency of its message.

David Stairs,(upper) Powerful:Proposed Hydro Site at Bujagali Falls;(lower) Powerless:Lake Victoria at Source of the Nile, Jinja. large format inkjet (2011)

David Stairs is the executive director of Designers without Borders, a consortium of designers and design educators working to assist institutions in the developing world. He believes everything is connected and that we are all part of the problem and the solution. In his explorations of Africa’s water crisis through maps, photographs and statistics, he illustrates the culpability of global human behaviors. In both large inkjet images, Powerless: Lake Victoria at Source of the Nile, Jinja (2011) [10] and Powerful: Proposed Hydro Site at Bujagali Falls (2011) [11], he presents two water scenes in Uganda that have been exploited. Stairs expresses, “Water and power are inextricably linked in Uganda. Most of the nation’s electricity comes from the facility on the Nile at Jinja, and more dams are planned. Trouble is, 30 million poor people depend on this source (Lake Victoria), and it is unstable and shrinking.” His contrasting photographs, with the titles Powerless and Powerful, are most telling given the history of Uganda and the lack of consideration of both water and the people of this region!

It is overwhelming to think that during the past 85 years, human beings have imposed so much pollution on the earth’s water. As a civilized and informed society, it is now our obligation to become water’s caretaker and to cause it no further harm. On the other hand, this is a difficult task given the intertwined uses of water, issues of benefits and costs and the vested economic interests of numerous individuals and governments. Still, the real connection with our environment can only be found when individuals in unison feel their sense of true belonging. Today, we are in vital need of artists who can provoke this sense of attachment and stir up volition to act out and bring forth social, political and environmental changes. Artists are catalysts for change, and this “change” takes place when we feel deeply for a precious cause. The artists in Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century Is Treading Water without a doubt are noticeably reacting to news about the perils distressing our natural water resources. Their intersections between globalization, ecology and contemporary art tackle the shifting ecological and political dimensions of water.

Recalling Milton’s Paradise Lost, and also perhaps regained, the question for our era is: where are we now, and what is the proper balance between nature and civilization? Or, is this after all a divine comedy performed before an audience that is too afraid to laugh? The hope for those of us who see the glass as “half-full,” yet awaiting the fulfillment of the empty portion, is that when destiny closes a doorway of one view upon nature’s garden, she always opens a window of opportunity to further explore “where no one has gone before” in placing the creative machinery of the one at the service of the needs of the many. With the growing privatization of water and impending global warming crisis, it seems more reasonable than ever that artists’ voices not only are heard but also that their work is seen and experienced by diverse audiences. It takes the unusual vision of artists to inform and alert us, and most importantly, to propose innovative ideas as to how we can aesthetically reclaim, restore and co-exist within our natural environment.

By Elaine A. King, Contributing Writer © 2011

Professor, History of Art, Criticism/Theory & Museum Studies

Freelance Critic/Curator

Carnegie Mellon University

End Notes

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[1] After months of preparations, in May 1982, a 2-acre wheat field was planted and harvested on a  Battery Park landfill in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, facing the Statue of Liberty. Two hundred truckloads of dirt were brought in and 285 furrows were dug by hand, cleared of rocks and garbage. The seeds were sown by hand and the furrows covered with soil. The field was maintained for four months, cleared of wheat smut, weeded, fertilized and sprayed against mildew fungus, and an irrigation system set up. The crop was harvested on August 16 and yielded over 1000 pounds of healthy, golden wheat.
 
Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept.  It represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities. The harvested grain travelled to twenty-eight cities around the world in an exhibition called, ‘The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger,’ organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art (l987-90). The seeds were carried away by people who planted them in many parts of the globe.

[2] Beardsley, J. (1998). Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape. New York, NY: Abbeville Press.

[3] Fowkes, Maja and Reuben. The Implications of Sustainability for Contemporary Art: 27 February 2007, Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Art & Design.

[4] Fowkes, Maja and Reuben. The Implications of Sustainability for Contemporary Art: 27 February 2007, Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Art & Design. As translocal independent curators and art historians, Maja Fowkes and Dr. Reuben Fowkes organize exhibitions dealing with memory (Revolution is Not a Garden Party, 2006-7), ecology (Unframed Landscapes, 2004) and Translocal exchanges between the UK, Hungary and Croatia.

[5] Collectively, these exhibitions are about sustainability, ecology or environmentalism. The artists are concerned about our humanity and its incapability to sustain its habits and culture for future generations as well as the creatures living on this earth.

[6] Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Paris, France: Les Presses Du Reel. Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term relational art to describe arts that gain meaning through participatory engagement among the players: creators and audience. Bourriaud defined the approach simply as, “a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.”

 [7] Kester, G. H. Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework for Littoral Art. Variant, 9, www.variant.org.uk. Kester, G. H. (2004). Conversation Pieces Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. In Conversation Pieces, Kester discusses a disparate network of artists and collectives—including The Art of Change, Helen and Newton Harrison, Littoral, Suzanne Lacy, Stephen Willats, and WochenKlausur—united by a desire to create new forms of understanding through creative dialogue that crosses boundaries of race, religion, and culture. Kester traces the origins of these works in the conceptual art and feminist performance art of the 1960s and 1970s and draws from the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, Jürgen Habermas and others as he explores the ways in which these artists corroborate and challenge many of the key principles of avant-garde art and art theory.

[8] Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison (often referred to simply as “the Harrisons”) have worked for almost forty years with biologists, ecologists, architects, urban planners and other artists to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions that support biodiversity and community development. http://theharrisonstudio.net/. A key early endeavour was Portable Farm: The Flat Pastures (1971-1972).

[9] Pierre-Félix Guattari’s concept of interrelatedness of ecological and social issues and the three interacting and interdependent ecologies of mind, society, and environment stems perhaps from the outline of the three ecologies presented in Gregory Bateson’s Steps in an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, University of Chicago Press. 1972.

 [10] Scott tong, “Era of ‘tough oil’ won’t deter drillers” Marketplace, Monday, April 18, 2011.  http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/18/pm-era-of-tough-oil-wont-stop-drillers/

[11] Vanessa German performed A Love Poem for Water at the opening reception of Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century Is Treading Water on May 14, 2011, at the American Jewish Museum at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO9ogS_iueE

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Closing out the business day, the city’s workers would file out to swarm I-95, or head for the Amtrak station or DART stop, and report in again the next day. Wilmington was another city whose ebb and flow ran in twelve hour tides. Little by little, restaurants and bars have begun to reclaim the shoreline that is the downtown. And now, World Café Live has opened at the renovated Queen Theater on North Market Street, delivering world class music to these revitalized corridors.

One tip-off that Wilmington was destined to become a musical epicenter is the musicians who have lived below the radar here. Resident, David Bromberg performed resoundingly at the Light up the Queen Foundation benefit in 2010, while New Orleans native Trombone Shorty played outrageous saxophone on the roof of the nearby Shop Rite! The Peoples’ Festival held annually on the riverfront honors one time Wilmington resident Bob Marley. But nothing exactly prepares you for the full on architectural overhaul at the Queen Theater or the radiance of its performance stage. Once a repository for fetid rain water falling through its roof, and an aromatic blend of rubble, pigeon droppings and mold below, this thoughtful renovation has brilliantly revived the stylized ceiling medallions, three ten-by-ten foot frescoed murals, and ornately-gilded surrounds beside the organ pipes. The restoration process has also unearthed a fiercely burning, but dormant underground love from the Wilmington community.

Originally conceived in 1789 as the Indian Queen Hotel, and then operated as the luxurious Clayton House, the Queen Theater morphed into a movie palace in 1916. By April 1959, it shuttered its once-beloved doors, following a showing of House on Haunted Hill perhaps presciently, and remained dark for the next five decades. Enter Hal Real and his Real Entertainment Group, a dynamic consortium of music club developers who collaborated with WXPN radio station on its maiden enterprise, World Café Live, in Philadelphia. Seeing the possibilities with imperturbability required Wilmington based real estate developers Buccini/Pollin Group and city officials to join the initiative to restore the Queen Theater. With straight faces, a Spring 2011 opening date was announced in October of 2009 on the 45,000 square foot project.

The finished building comprises great paradox; predictably dramatic spaces – the proscenium stage – combined with textured balcony seating and open plan for approximately 900 persons. The acoustics, both structural and mechanically-enhanced, are precise, clear, yet luminous and effective in a variety of ranges. Witness the intense complexity of opening act, Sonny Landreth, on April 1, followed by the intimate and personal renditions of Ingrid Michaelson’s sold-out performance.

The Queen serves all.

Telescoping from the spectacular to the specific is also the hallmark of its interior configurations. Generous spaces create a sensory time sequence that satisfies both a taste for imposing public domains and an appreciation for surface detail. Many of the oldest paint layers have been conserved in their naturally eroding state and preserved into collage like patterns. The bars are eco-friendly strokes of genius. Reclaimed from other, funky locations, they highlight the knots of pine or diagonal herringbone one expects to find in a Pocono lodge, or a shack at the beach. This familiarity of time-worn material and the surprise casualness of natural wood in a beaux arts environment is a welcoming and warming touch. In this building of somewhat grand volume, one makes small discoveries; ancient movie projectors found with their film reels still in place, a whiplash of time and space.

One might desire a parallel alternative to the rich vibrancy of the stage: Upstairs Live now serves lunch, happy hour and dinner. Or, take a break to the smaller downstairs bar, pop into the palladium windowed Olympia Room – sometimes used for private parties – or the witty gift shop, and you will have changed the gestalt completely and primed yourself for the dance floor. The Queen’s relationship to the street outside is direct and harmonious, if what you crave is simply air. Another passerby may spontaneously stop in, provided the evening’s musical act has not already had its tickets swallowed up. Reservations are recommended.

Wilmington’s many banks now advertise in the sponsor pages of the Queen Theater’s program. They too understand the importance of continuity and re-invention. Projecting civic pride to the Light up the Queen Foundation – the ongoing non-profit that brings talent, illustriousness, and history to their home base – makes banks seem almost human again. A crowd gathers on the sidewalk outside the Queen’s doors at night. For Wilmington, whose motto is A Place to Be Somebody, those words may finally ring true.

By Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer

World Café Life at:

The Queen Theater

500 North Market Street

Wilmington, DE 19801

Tel: 302 994 1400

www.queen.worldcafelive.com

www.lightupthequeen.org

Behind the wall! Detail of Anne Ferrer's 'Billowing Beauty' (2010)

Anne Ferrer’s new series of colorful cloth sculptures, curated by Edward Rubin, is reminiscent of inflatable, shaped balloons that wink and bob in a kind of rhythmic modern dance. Up-down movements mingle with in-out ‘breathing’, as air slowly and randomly inflates and deflates each work. The seven pieces are composed as a tightly-clustered group. But each work is affixed with an electronic programmer that keeps its individual rhythmic movement activated. The pieces are anchored in a glass-fronted space that faces New York City’s Lexington Avenue and 47th Street, on a busy corner in the heart of mid-town. They impact their surroundings, breaking the boundary between the plate glass-walled gallery and the curious public on the street, who stop to wonder at the eye-catching array of indescribable shapes and forms, like candy confections just out of reach. Seductive and enigmatic, the works are ideal for attracting the attention of a busy crowd in motion. fine arts magazine

Street level- Anne Ferrer's Billowing Beauty (2010)

The installation is tightly composed to fit into the thirty-foot-long gallery, ballooning to fill the space from top to bottom. The works seem to jostle and sway as if in an effort to gain their own territory, as plant and sea life in the wild might—a natural dance in a struggle to survive. Beauty is rarely tame, but these works are playful rather than threatening. Their buoyant ‘attitude’ and indefinable meanings stir the imagination. They hint at circus tents, inflatable water toys, unusual animals, undersea life, gardens, French striped candy, or yummy pastries. By keeping forms fluid and definitions blurred, Ferrer encourages observers to supply their own personal interpretation. This quality of openness allows viewers to ‘play’ in the garden, as collaborators with the artist.

Ferrer is decidedly Catalan and French. At an early age, without television or much else to occupy her at home, she learned to sew, a skill that has become an intrinsic part of her life and her art. She uses a sewing machine as her brush. First she constructs patterns by cutting fabric in circular shapes, which she then pieces into larger structures that ultimately comprise the final sculptures. The stitches and seams define her forms in an organic manner; she sometimes abandons the pattern to create unexpected configurations. The artist also designs her own fashions in which the shapes from her works migrate to her personal attire.

French Sculptor, Anne Ferrer, in NYC for her recent opening at 'The Lab'. Photo: Edward Rubin

Warm colors, especially red and orange, exude a dominant aura. Known to signal danger or desire, here the colors are enveloping and welcoming. The sensuality and lushness of the satin and silk surfaces are especially alluring. They caress the eyes, hinting at satin quilts or bed-covers, whereas the rip-stop or raincoat fabric provides a more sporty or utilitarian subtext. The pieces in which white stripes alleviate the red resemble quasi-banners or flags. These items are often associated with personal, family or national identity, disclosing clues to the deeper meaning of the works. The stripes interact to make unusual patterns that stream and flicker through the seven works, uniting the entire compilation. Solid colors are interpenetrated with harmonious variations in hue, just as forms in paintings are often softened and varied. Painting plays a large role in this work; color is not often associated with sculpture as a genre. Ferrer’s pieces are the antithesis of traditional sculpture; they are light and airy, not heavy or massive. The entire show can be transported in one suitcase! This is an exceptionally ‘green’ or environmentally friendly approach to art-making.

In her semi-intuitive process, Ferrer makes patterns, but also deviates from them to construct improvised shapes that evoke unexpected emotions. The works assume a life of their own; their size alone removes them from the orbit of easy apprehension, or clear definitions. Viewers must grapple with mystery and uncertainty as they ask themselves what exactly they are seeing. Like a parade, the installation is lively, active and lush. The tone is determinedly optimistic. These soft sculptures succeed in engaging the senses and the imagination. They are not meant to be pondered but to be enjoyed, and would be huggable if they were not so airy and light. The meaning of the installation is found in its interrelationships, not in individual works. Animals, gardens, candies, tents, kites, inflatable water toys, flags and balloons all have a portion of the multi-meaningful ménage. The organic shapes, warm harmonious hues, and rhythmic organization interact, infused with vivid joyous fun. Los Angeles composer Carol Worthey’s delicate sensitive music accompanies the display; it can be heard as one views the installation from the street.

By Mary Hrbacek, Contributing Writer

At, The LAB [for installation+ performance art], Roger Smith Hotel, New York City, May 13 – June 3, 2011

www.thelabgallery.com

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(Left) Alexis Rockman, Airport (1997). Envirotex, digitized photograph, vacuum-filled Styrofoam with aluminum finish, Plasticene, oil paint and Laughing Gull specimen on wood. Collection Rachel and Jean Pierre Lehmann. All images pictured in this article ©Alexis Rockman. Photos courtesy of the artist. fine arts magazine

The artist in front of 'South' (2008) at the Smithsonian exhibit; oil on gessoed paper. Collection: Pappas family, Boston. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

For nearly twenty-five years Alexis Rockman has been an artistic leader in scrutinizing the natural world through his symbolic paintings that represent wary moments in human and natural history, from the Industrial Revolution to this digital age of climate change. His first one-man retrospective titled, Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. until May, testifies to his exacting, spectacular representation, illuminating this artist’s love of nature, science-fiction and popular culture. Dr. Elizabeth Broun, the Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, has expressed that “Alexis Rockman’s cross-disciplinary approach is well suited to the Smithsonian’s long tradition of embracing science and art as complementary ways of understanding our world.”

Joanna Marsh, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art at SAAM is organizer of this extensive survey and its fully- illustrated catalogue. [1] Throughout she demonstrates her acute grasp of Rockman’s work by the selection of his multifaceted work in this show and her writing. The opening chapter from Rachel Carson’s noteworthy book, Silent Spring, 1962, in which the author joins two unsuited literary genres—mythic narrative and factual reportage, inspired the title of the exhibition…

Pond's Edge (1986), oil and acrylic on canvas. Rubell Family Collection, Miami. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

Rockman’s artistic evolution unfolds from his early works in the mid-1980s to the present in the progression of the exhibit’s 47 paintings and works on paper. Viewers are brought nose to nose with a future that is at once surreal and yet disconcertingly familiar. Painted exquisitely in lush colors are snails, insects, rodents, phantasmagorical creatures, mutant animals, flooded urban sites and alternative environments, either sterilized by science or perpetually altered due to pollution that are metaphorically objectified by their pictorial placement in bizarre, yet sensuous, environments. Marsh expressed that Rockman’s work “hovers between the extremes of creation and destruction.” At times all of this makes for some uncomfortable viewing, notwithstanding the appeal of this weird and wonderful imagery. According to Rockman, “In collaboration with members of the scientific community, I focus on the geological future after the effects of global warming. In so doing, I am taking the impossibly abstract notion of global climate change and applying it to familiar territory, to convey the profound effect that humans are having on the environment.”

To create his forward-looking landscapes, Alexis Rockman consults with biologists, zoologists, and paleontologists having done field work in locations as remote as the rainforests in Guyana. He is a former columnist and illustrator for Natural History magazine, and draws upon extensive scientific research, including consultations with NASA climatologists, to create his theatrically arresting work. He has also worked directly with architect Diane Lewis, who produced comprehensive architectural renderings of sections of Brooklyn. Collectively, these all inform his work, as do art historical references from Thomas Cole to Robert Smithson.

Balance of Terror (1988), o/c. Coll: James and Abigail Rich. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

This survey affords viewers not only the strength of Rockman’s oeuvre and his absorption with extraordinary detail, but also his observations of the negative consequences of industrial and technological progress, fuelled by products of multinational conglomerates and their lack of compassion for the environment. Rockman explains, “My position is one of ambivalence, as the horse is already out of the barn so to speak; it is not biotechnology that is the problem, but corporate America, globalism, or colonialism. The implications of using technology are far more devastating because of the unknowable effects. This is something that is very disturbing and visually compelling to me.”

Simultaneously, the results of Rockman’s meticulous work invokes a type of critical poetry as well as provocation. Though he has traveled to Guyana, Tasmania, Brazil, Madagascar and Antarctica to conduct research, he nonetheless generates the paintings in his studio based on his photographs– some altered with computer software– as well as images harvested from the Internet. A strange, kindred relationship can be drawn between Rockman and the painter Henri Rousseau, whose inspiration came from illustrated books and the botanical gardens of Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermied wild animals.

Hollywood at Night (2006), oil/wood. Courtesy Mr. & Mrs. Henry P. Davis. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

Rockman’s art is equally striking and alarming—it expresses deep concerns about our world’s delicate ecosystems and the conflict between nature and culture. The visitor must slow down so as to absorb and reflect on the content of each compelling, fantastic composition. Even so, the exhibition’s thematic arrangement enhances the progression of the artist’s ongoing examination of nature. The show’s layout coincides with the artist’s method of working—his compositions and subjects evolve within each particular series, such as Artificial Selections, Biosphere, Guyana and American Icons. Additionally, the scale of the exhibit’s galleries is inviting, affording visitors a chance to assimilate at their own pace the otherworldly juxtapositions of animal and plant life within the relics of human construction and devastation. The appeal of this journey increases with brief and intelligent wall cards, disclosing succinct information about each section of the exhibition.

One enters the exhibition through a gallery filled with early works from the 1980s. Pond’s Edge (1986) and Balance of Terror (1988) depict the artist’s initial exploration into the realm of natural history and alerts the viewer to the imminence of an unusual visual voyage. The latter is a seminal piece in Rockman’s artistic evolution–a mixture of fantasy and scientific fact and a blend of abstraction and realism. All fuse in this yellow-green, glowing, uncanny, enigmatic image in which the interior of a translucent apple reveals a worm and is placed in a mysterious spatial environment.

Hieronymus Bosch (detail), The Garden of Earthly Delights (1480-90 or 1503-04) Coll: Museo del Prado, Madrid

Several other notable pieces surface in the Biosphere series, based on Douglas Trumbull’s eco-thriller, Silent Running. Especially remarkable is, Biosphere Hydrographer’s Canyon (1994), depicting a colorful, complex constellation filled by an infinite array of aquatic organisms, co-existing and freely floating in a luminous galaxy. Golf-Course (1997) is perhaps the most bizarre work, comprised of envirotex, digitized photographs, and scavenged objects on wood. In the upper portion we see a manicured golf course and ‘perfect’ landscape; below this lush surface however, exists not only a secret landfill of lost golf balls, cigarette butts and pizza, but also a monster lurking below with half- eaten human body parts littering its lair. A quirky balance between humor and moderation is achieved throughout this absurd composition.

Hollywood at Night (2006), an exceptional image, is one of the show’s darker paintings not only in its moody blue-black night tone, but also in its content. Here again, Rockman defers to film in depicting this iconic location, where bling and celebrity fall victim to environmental collapse. He reduces the eminent California hillside landmark to a vanished civilization where Los Angeles is barely distinguishable in the distance and a decaying ‘Hollywood’ sign appears against a spectacular sunset. The city’s lights and power are extinguished and only a crescent moon and fireflies sparkle against deteriorating silhouetted structures.

Three densely-painted, large murals anchor this exhibition, mapping out Rockman’s creative path, marking pivotal turning points in his artistic journey. Each helps define the painter’s trajectory and evoke Bosch’s noteworthy triptychs, among his most famous, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Rockman’s huge, theatrical, apocalyptic images address issues of global warming, genetic manipulation and environmental destruction in a way that is simultaneously beautiful, disturbing and inexplicably humorous.

Evolution (1992), o/wood. Coll: George R. Stroemple. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

Evolution (1992) is Rockman’s first mural-sized painting, and is as rooted in pop cinematic methods, as it is in actual prehistory. In this startling panorama, the world is adrift in primordial ooze, threatened by a volcano, populated by half man/half woman creatures cavorting, killing, flying and dying, with more than 200 other real or imagined species of plants, animals, and insects. It features the iconic pop culture images of the face-hugging monster from the film, Alien, among others.

Manifest Destiny (2003-2004), oil and acrylic on wood. Courtesy the artist and Waqas Wajahat, NY. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

Originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Museum, Manifest Destiny (2004), is a wondrous 8 x 24-foot portrayal of an apocalyptic vision of that borough mostly engulfed by water. In this phantasmagorical mural, one observes that New York metropolis reduced to a vast floodplain, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Brooklyn Museum, following a sea-level rise because of dramatic global warming. Familiar landmarks are flooded, creating a new geology sustaining a variety of marine plants and animals. Rockman maintains, “Manifest Destiny is concerned with the projected domino effect of the industrial revolution 3000 years into the future. It is as scientifically accurate as possible as I wanted to confront the public with a visual display of the repercussions of current trends.” He claims that the painting, “came from desperation that people refused to see the reality of climate change.”

Two equally stunning, yet disturbing, paintings also created in 2005, are Gateway Arch, in which the famous St. Louis Arch stands as a haunting architectural ruin, and Mount Rushmore, in which former terrain is ocean and the presidential busts of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln barely clear the water.

Old Dirt Road (2007), oil on gessoed paper. Michael Polsky. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

A technique employed in several of his ‘weather drawings’, including Old Dirt Road (2007) and Cambridgeshire (2008), becomes central to the huge mural titled, South (2008). It is more fluid and lighter than his densely detailed paintings. This change signals a formidable shift — perhaps a return to a simpler abstracted approach, as evident in Pond’s Edge (1986). Implemented on intensely gessoed sheets of paper, the painted surface is saturated in vividly exploding stains, spills and drips. In these images, as well as in those evolving later, Rockman clearly moves away from his formerly meticulous, detailed method.

Host and Vector (1996), o/wood. WhitneyMuseum of American Art, NY; gift of Nye Family. ©Alexis Rockman. Photo courtesy the artist.

South (2008), a seven-panel piece on paper and over 30 feet long,documents the artist’s 12-day sea voyage from the tip of South America to the Antarctic Peninsula. Placed in the final gallery of the show, the terrain of this perilous scene is inhospitable and any evidence of life in the Antarctic clings to the edges of the ice and coast. South reveals Rockman’s long-term interest in scientific pictorialism—in an interplay between art and science—and alludes to human intervention, providing simultaneous views above and below the water, allowing for his representation of the impossible. Despite the significance of the subject matter, this is the least successful of the three murals—perhaps because of its overt didacticism and clash of abstraction with his earlier styles—yielding a visual distraction.

The viewer must retrace their steps through this disquieting apocalyptic ‘Tale of Tomorrow’ in order to exit the exhibition. A compelling mix of intensely colored realism, scientific components and environmental apprehension coexist in Rockman’s paintings—nothing is genuine except their reference to an impending crisis. None of these images represent actual landscape paintings—instead they act as types of extensions of 19th century dioramas—inanimate still life’s that beckon us to inspect their urgent ecological messages. The artist’s nightmarish visions appear to inhabit a zone somewhere between art and activism, echoing Al Gore’s noted work, An Inconvenient Truth. This art privileges imagination over accuracy, portraying what has never been seen, or at least not yet! Ultimately Alexis Rockman’s art neither praises or demeans humankind; it merely invites thought, dialogue and reflection.

By Elaine A. King, Ph.D. ©, Contributing Writer

Alexis Rockman, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., through May 8, 2011

Dr. King is Professor, History of Art, Theory & Museum Studies, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. She is a critic and frequent guest curator, traveling widely and writing a on a variety of topics related to fine art for ARTES and other publications.

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1.  Joanna Marsh writes the catalogue, co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D GILES LIMITED, with contributions from Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C.; and Kevin J. Avery, senior research scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book is for sale through the museum’s website and store.

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Slung around the harbor and plaza side of the structure is a bulging swath of glass that cuts across the concrete mantel like a 3-D sash that terminates in geodesic knots, a nod to Teatro-Museo Dali in Figueres, Spain. Inside, this is the place to meet, a gathering spot for the photo op, perhaps the podium, or the bar, depending on the occasion. This cool windshield-like fixture admits as much light as it permits the gaze of the crowds to float outward onto the harbor, the airfield next door and the Verde Gris of Tampa Bay – a compelling vista.

Welcome to interior museum planning as of 1.11.11, when the Dali Museum opened: 68,000 square feet divided into public space, offices and last but not least, galleries. The Dali brand gift shop, where one arrives, is a surrealist chotztke paradise. Save for a greeter to point the way, one could wander there endlessly, perhaps taking a Catalonian bean soup and alighting in the adjacent open café for a glass of Rioja. If you remember why you came here, you may now buy your admission ticket.

With deference to Frank Lloyd Wright, you start at the top floor, awash in natural light. Ascending via elevator or a single helix stairwell – tight, when up and down visitors employ it simultaneously – one enters gallery spaces that may be cavernous or confined or both. The installation sweetly begins with the narrative of mega-benefactors A. Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, who befriended Dali, and their first acquisition Daddy Longlegs of the Evening – Hope! Arranged chronologically, the early impressionist still life work, nudes, (particularly Femme Couche, 1928), as well as landscapes notable for their oyster white light, are installed in close quarters that suggest nothing more than a high ceilinged storage area.

In 1925, Dali read Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams which catapulted his imagination, style and subject matter in new directions. At this point, the gallery space likewise opens up. Un Chien Andalou, 1929, an absurdist film made with Luis Bunuel is projected large-scale onto one wall of a vast rectangular space. So enjoyable is the phenomenon of viewing video in situ, that one never wants to enter a small darkened place segmented behind a curtain again. Sculptural objects co-mingle, like Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936, (having white fur knobs), extending the cathartic relief of Surrealist humor to previously unrealized dimensions.

Augured by the seminal Nature Morte Vivante (Still Life – Fast Moving), 1956 the next paintings gallery heralds several key works, including the oft reproduced Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln – Homage to Rothko (Second Version), 1976 – which is also the collection catalogue cover, (by Robert Lubar); and the image adorning, for example, a hotel corridor at the Hilton in Pinellas Park, Florida.

The hauntingly powerful works, Old Age Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages), 1940, through The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, 1 952-54 – here the iconic melting watches; and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, 1958-59 articulate Dali’s breadth of artistic concerns. But although there is breadth, there is not necessarily breathing. This installation does not permit the depth of perspective, the arc one of the peripheral walk, or the generosity of space that allowed one to absorb, much less luxuriate in, each work in the previous building. That generosity might now be called wasted space. Or perhaps, interest in this collection is simply greater than expected, and so one jostles for space.

The installation’s last progression – there are a total of over 2,100 phantasmagorical Dali holdings, so exhibitions revolve – is the “Nuclear Mysticism” period, the artist’s response to a perceived lack of spiritualism in Abstract Expressionism. (He felt a computer could generate a Mondrian or Pollock.) Monumental canvases like The Hallucinogenic Toreador, 1969-1970, which seems to hale Jim Dine’s Venuses, document the classicism, supernatural aura and transcendental concerns of Salvador Dali. What painter working today is consumed with reconciling the metaphysical with the political, scientific and the psychological?

Having broken early on from Andre Breton, Dali’s sweeping, alchemic worldview ultimately became self-referential, and simultaneously validated. When the artist consolidated his works in the Teatro-Museo Dali in 1974, diametrically opposed events unfolded: his beloved wife and muse Gala died; King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia became honorary patrons of The Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dali; and Dali was honored with the Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, the State’s highest award, all in 1982 – the same year the Salvador Dai Museum first opened in St. Petersburg Florida.

Beyond the kitsch, the caricature and the reputed 400 blank pieces of paper Dali signed – or because of it – this prolific artist’s oeuvre is accessible. Diverse mediums such as holograms, jewelry, film, sculpture, painting and works on paper, represents exactly what the artist sought—an amalgam, a holistic view and a way of seeing things. Take a look at the influence in fashion, personified by the apparition Daphne Guinness. Such creative whimsy filled the crowds on opening day at The Dali Museum, when a Dali impersonator and a Salsa band sizzled on the outdoor plaza with rhythm and beat beneath this latest signature piece. The ingrained dance steps of well-dressed patrons patterned the sunlight and suggested that it’s this composite that will likely succeed – and outstrip its predecessor – not solely as a museum with a great biographical collection, but as a fascinating cultural destination. Does the building become as iconic as the artist?

The artist and building converge into a seamless whole, a Dali universe. 40,000 visitors have toured the museum since it’s opening last month. One Saturday alone recorded 2,300 guests. With over a $1,000,000 in revenue since 1.11.11, this Dali Museum generated a quarter of the annual revenue above its previous location. Surrealism is getting real; its imagination and lofty ideals got packaged here with zest and panache, without the pretense, and coalesced into the intuitive experience one craves.

By Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer

A mid-20th century architectural rendering for urban renewal

“E xcept man, nobody lies. A rosebush cannot lie. It has to produce roses; it cannot produce marigolds — it cannot deceive. It is not possible for it to be otherwise than it is. Except man the whole existence lives in truth. Truth is the religion of the whole existence — except man. And the moment a man also decides to become part of existence, truth becomes his religion.”   -Indian Mystic, Osho

Architectural Forensics is a term to describe how it is that the ‘built environment’ perfectly expresses the intrinsic quality of any society’s sociological, economic, and political nature. In the search for truth, the parsing of concepts, deliberation of ideas, or the use rhetorical analysis to glean the essence of our reality pales in comparison to the truth at it is revealed by the world which we have wrought; and with this fact, there can be no mistake or equivocation. fine arts magazine

Boston City Hall (KM&K Arch.,1962-67). Blocks of Boston's West End neighborhoods were torn down to make way for sprawling plazas and Brutalist-style I.M. Pei-inspired architecture

Architects and urban designers are renowned for their ability to define concepts by employing formal constructs and then to argue the merits of their design as is expedient to gain favor for their proposal. The completed projects however are rarely given the proper scrutiny to gauge the product against the initial arguments upon which the physical expressions are based; and when they are, it is clear that the idea rarely matches reality. Western Civilization’s fundamental philosophical postulation to reason can readily facilitate the contamination of the truth by infusing ulterior motives into its meaning; whether or not consciously intended in order to advocate a pre-conceived objective; the resulting built-landscape purveyed as a litany of conjecture in which we continually bear the consequences of real structures and places.

Once clear about our intent, there can be no equivocation about our perception. If the discovery of truth is our objective, then it exists all around us; ready to reveal the unassailable reality that will guide our course of action and indicate the direction of our pursuit. For example, one may argue the merits of permitting a modern glass and steel tower to occupy an infill site within the context of early 20th century, pre-war masonry apartment buildings on Park Avenue in New York City. The architect or developer may cite the benefits of infusing a contemporary architectural expressions to an otherwise tired streetscape; the visual benefits of contrasting transparent forms to masonry facades; the wonderful addition of a brutally honest structure to the dated historical formalism so prevalent in the neighborhood; and even argue the merits of including modern and ‘relevant’ forms of expression within an historic context… all which sound like cogent arguments at the front end of the process when the project strives to gain approval. Yet the simple reality of such an experiment has indicated quite a different legacy; one that has only served to erode a wholesome identity often caused by economic initiatives that are conveyed by architectural seductions. We know this to be true not as a consequence of clarity derived from the initial conceptual debate, but we know this truth to be evident because we can walk the streets and see and feel the physical evidence of our actions as one misguided seduction leads to others until integrity of the place has been thoroughly compromised.

Rendering of Le Corbusier's 'Ville Radieuse', his concept of 'machines for living' (1923).

When the initial arguments were made for the ‘Urban Renewal’ of the lower east side in Manhattan as the dereliction of these neighborhoods was considered to be unsustainable, theory usurped observation and the consequences were swift and dramatic. A wave of gentrification prompted the previous generation of immigrants to move further uptown and to occupy larger homes and more spacious neighborhoods. As soon as the migration had gained momentum degradation was swift even though the urban fabric remained in-tact and might have been resurrected. Concepts abounded for what to do with the tenement structures that lined the lower east side of downtown Manhattan. The prevailing notion that won favor conveniently employed Le Corbusier’s concepts of urbanism as described in his diatribe Toward an Architecture (1923). The concept that large, densely-populated towers, these ‘machines for living’, would be set within rectangular park-like green spaces and permit its residents a gasp of nature if they so dared to venture onto that barren land seemed like quite a good idea. Unfortunately for idealism; reality presented a far different picture; stark in its contrast where crime followed the anonymity of these faceless towers, while the utter segregation of an impoverished socio-economic class of the population was clearly defined by these piles of masonry blight. Traditional neighborhoods where migrants flowed into this nation and then graduated to another existence gave way to these new, urbanly-renewed ghettoes that held its inhabitants largely captive to the now very familiar architectural stereotype that defines public housing. We know this to be true because we see and witness the effects of this reality. There can be no argument to the expression of the world that we’ve built as is indicated by the construction as it exists, and the effects that are consequential to our built environment.

A typical New England 18th c. era village center- church, commerce and homes facing the town green

The truth as revealed by architectural forensics. We are the detectives who observe, investigate, and reveal unassailable realities as expressed by the physical world. The aim: to provide clarity as to the purpose and understanding of the consequences for that which we’ve created. What does the ‘village green’ tell us about 18th Century New England colonial society? That the church dominates the essential position of power, authority, and honor is no accident. Other homes that surround the ‘green’ are generally of similar if not identical shape, size, materials, and coloring to each other and they surround a very regular and ordered pastoral setting around which the townsfolk gather, share, provide, and protect one another from the threats of savages and secularism. The yearning for freedom, for equality amongst one’s brethren; to conform, to live humbly and yet with determination; to control their environment and yet with a clear respect that society persists or perishes at the whim of what nature issues forth, as conveyed by God’s will… All of these attributes are qualities gleaned from observation with just a modicum of written history that serves to temper the inclination one might have to go too far astray. The truth about this society, as immortalized by the wood frames and clapboards of their construction—what remains in our time and that which has long since disappeared due to our delinquency, obstinacy, ignorance, and willful intent—are quite simply more evidence that provides clarity of the society as conveyed by its architecture.

Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda (1591)

Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda (1591), serene, powerful, perfectly symmetrical in plan, the rotunda and cupola elements that terminate the center of the Greek cross plan; the point of focus to the entire composition, the universe where man is at its center, controlling of his destiny as expressed by this creation… the art which adorns the walls, ceiling, each and every nook and crevasse of this palatial home; the saturation of form and attention to each surface whether it be adorned or left spare as an intended repose; the owner’s clarity of purpose, no hesitation, willful, wonton, desirous, thoroughly committed in its expression of erudition; that art is the consummate expression of beauty; that beauty is both the point of departure and realization to what mankind can aspire in this life, perhaps the only life; as if that remains the sole vestige of his paradise and salvation. To observe any subject building; allowing it to speak through its form is a certitude upon which we can rely, because it is unassailable. We are witness to these realities; and only that awareness can provide clarity and meaning.

If Charles Darwin spent months on the Beagle floating up the Hudson River instead of off the coast of the Galapagos Islands, having sequestered his observations in an investigation entitled Conclusions of our Civilization instead of The Origin of Species, would we be any less impressed with the veracity of what he’d witnessed and assessments drawn accordingly? Society is, in fact, the expression of the environment that it has inherited coupled with the built environment that it has created. Our society has become overly seduced with the “what-ifs”, and no longer cares to acknowledge the “has-beens”; and yet we live in a world that we’ve made; there can be no dispute about that.

I’ve often thought that it is a fool’s errand that architectural publications and journals evaluate built projects shortly after their completion. There is hardly a message to be conveyed about a newly minted project that couldn’t be have already been reviewed when it was merely a conception on either the drawing board or in the fancy of one’s mind. A building or urban landscape can only be truly evaluated after it has existed for some substantial period of time; after when it has been burnished by the elements; trodden upon; been used and abused; becomes part of a fabric or recognized as a carcinogen that has assaulted the world already extant.

My position is quite simply to observe that which we’ve created in order to know the truth. The built environment is the perfect mirror in that it tells us everything about ourselves and perfectly expresses who we are; with utter disregard for propaganda or innuendo.

Architectural forensics is the tool to gain this understanding. They are clear and ingenuous; forensics discover the reality that gives birth to form and makes eminently clear the choices that may not have been initially understood because they were not yet expressed physically and could have been subject to willful or even unintended deception. We as employers of this powerful tool need know nothing about architecture or urban planning in order to draw our conclusions. In fact, we will no longer be seduced by the critical experts of architectural proposals as we become more confident that words cannot be used as a substitution for the reality of what buildings tells us through their forms and physical presence. We now possess the tools to have a clear understanding to the meaning of that which was destroyed in order to make way for the existence of a new structure; or even how a street, city, or forest may have benefited or suffered as a consequence of the new physical landscape . Truth gained in this manner of observation and description is unassailable.

Thus is the power and potential of Architectural Forensics- a force for truth and meaning.

By William Green, Contributing Writer

William Green holds a fine arts degree from Tufts University.  He continued his studies with a year at the University of Copenhagen, Royal Academy of Architecture; proceeding to the University of Colorado in pursuit of his Master of Architecture degree. This was followed by an internship at the prestigious Studio Coppola in Milan, Italy. After several years of practice and a number of awards, the opportunity to design offices for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Inc., in New York City, provided the impetus to establish his own firm in 1986.

William has served on the faculty of the New York School of Interior Design and has lectured at various universities and numerous design symposiums.

His firm can be reached at: www.wgaarchitects.net

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J&S: The Juvet Landscape Hotel is located at Valldal, near the town of Åndalsnes in north-western Norway. Passing tourists are attracted by a spectacular waterfall, in a deep gorge near the road in Gudbrandsjuvet. The client, Knut Slinning, is a local resident. The idea emerged as an opportunity to exploit breathtaking scenery with minimal intervention, allowing locations which would otherwise be prohibited for reasons of conservation. fine arts magazine

ARTES: How did the client, Knut Slinning, and your firm come to work together?

J&S: The client, Knut Slinning, comes from the coastal town Ålesund, about 100 km west of Gudbrandsjuvet. He is a property developer. He has owned a cottage in Gudbrandsjuvet since late 1980′s. He listened to our first presentation of ideas for the site (part of a national tourist road project Gudbrandsjuvet viewing platform, http://www.jsa.no/galleries_index_2.html) where we, amongst other things, proposed a ‘landscape hotel’. This idea originally came from another project we did, in the Aurland valley further south, in the Sognefjord, but it is still not realized there. About two years after our presentation in Gudbrandsjuvet, Knut Slinning bought a farm with a river, close to the waterfalls in Gudbrandsjuvet, and he asked us to help him realize the landscape hotel idea. We did the zoning plan (he is allowed to build 28 rooms on his property) and have now realized the first seven rooms. A small spa will be completed this summer as well, very close to the river, with one wall just in glass in each of the saunas, relax rooms and massage rooms.

ARTES: Of course, the green theme is on everyone’s mind right now, but what inspired you for this particular design?

J&S: We wanted to create rooms that does not have the conventional borders (the walls), but which offer an experience that is as large as the landscape—a mountainous gorge three-to-four miles wide in this case. To create this, we worked a lot with the windows so that as much as possible of the “bordering” or “enclosing” effect that a window and its framing usually gives were eliminated, or made as small as possible. This is intended to give an effect of being in a large and grand landscape (not merely looking at it), but maintaining absolutely private, while also being protected and warm.

Instead of the conventional hotel, with guest rooms stacked together in one large building, the Landscape Hotel distributes the rooms throughout the terrain as small individual houses. Every house has one or two walls that are entirely built in glass, making the experience of being in the space truly breathtaking. Through careful orientation, every room gets its own exclusive view of a beautiful and unique piece of the landscape, always changing with the season, the weather, and the time of day. No room looks out at another, so the rooms offer the ultimate in privacy, even though curtains are not used.

At the moment there are seven units completed, but with the possibility of adding 21 additional, according to the master plan. All the rooms have slightly differing designs, as a result of local topographical needs and vegetation, as well as to maximize the requirements for privacy and the best possible views. Construction was carefully planned to eliminate the necessity of blasting of rock or altering the terrain in any way. In this way, the rooms become the least invasive addition to the existing topography.

ARTES: Each room seems to have its own character. Why are the rooms laid out differently?

J&S: We did not want to use dynamite, we wanted a project that could be removed without leaving scars in the landscape, and therefore we regarded the houses as guests on the site. Basically we discussed a lot what each single room should contain. All the rooms are slightly different because of the typography and conditions on each plot, but with same basic services.

ARTES: The construction and interior design considerations must have been a challenge, given the rough terrain and harsh winter conditions. How did you solve those problems?

J&S: The units are over-engineered for harsh winter conditions, built with massive spruce construction (85mm in the walls, 120mm in the roof and the floor), as a finished reveal on the interior (roof and walls). On the outside there is pine panel, treated with iron vitriol, which creates a chemical process on the surface of the wood that resembles ageing; the wood turns grey in a couple of months because of a reaction with the daylight.

The modular units are intended for summer occupancy only. Each building rests on a set of 40mm massive steel rods drilled into the rock, with existing topography and vegetation left largely untouched. The glass walls are set against slim frames of wood, locked with standard steel profiles, using stepped edges to extend the exterior layer of the main glass surfaces all the way to the corners.

The interiors are treated with transparent oil with black pigments, so that reflections from the inner surface of the glass wall are minimized. Shelves, benches and a small table are all built by the same massive wooden elements to maintain a certain degree of deliberate monotony, serving as a visual counterpoint to the complex nature views outside and to keep the visual presence of the interior at a minimum.

ARTES: Tel me a bit more about J&S’s commitment to green design and how you optimized those guidelines in this project?

J&S: Today’s concern for sustainability in architecture focuses almost exclusively on reduced energy consumption in production and operation. At Jensen and Slodvin, we think that conservation of topography is another aspect of sustainability deserving of attention. Standard building procedure requires the general destruction of the site to accommodate foundations and infrastructure before building can commence. Conserving the site is a way to respect the fact that nature precedes and succeeds man. Also, dutiful observation of existing topography produces a visual ‘reading’, where the geometry of the intervention highlights the irregularities of the natural site, thus explaining both itself and its context in a more powerful way. In this way, a sustainable connection is established between structure and site.

The hotel had a planned opening for summer, 2009. A small spa is being built very close to the river, with two saunas and a massage room. It is inserted into the ground, but with glass walls facing the view of the river and the mountains.

ARTES: Thank you for your time. The photographs themselves were breath-taking. I hope I can get to see the finished project someday soon.

Client: Knut Slinning; Project Architects JSA: Jan Olav Jensen (pl), Børre Skodvin, Torunn Golberg, Helge Lunder, Torstein Koch, Thomas Knigge; Landscape Architect: Jensen & Skodvin; Static Consultant: Siv. Ing. Finn Erik Nilsen; Year Planned: 2004 – 2009; Year Built: 2007 – 2009; Status: Under realization;  Area: 800m2; Cost: 2 Million Euro

All photographs courtesy of Jensen & Skodvin Architects. For more information, see: The Juvet Landscape Hotel website at: www.juvet.com

or contact Jensen & Skodvin at: www.jsa.no

(Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor AS, Sinsenveien 4D, 0572 Oslo, Norway)

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Above: Alex Maclean, Las Vegas, Housing subdivision built out in the desert, from his solo exhibition, ‘Vegas-Venice’  

Alex Maclean's, 'Vegas-Venice' at ERES-Stiftung, Munich, Germany

  Having traveled through much of the United States and parts of Europe, Maclean documents the changing landscape with stunning aerial images, traversing historical, as well as physical boundaries. He has earned a reputation by perceptively documenting the changing nature of the landscapes below him—from agricultural rows to city grids. The images he gathers serve as symbols for a larger matrix of ideas. On a superficial level, Maclean’s photos are spell-binding studies in geometric shapes and patterns. They might be initially dismissed as studies in form over context. But the power of the image and a more detailed analysis of his subjects draws the viewer back to read, inquire, and interpret the altered landscape more carefully. Only then does the viewer encounter the leit motif of Maclean’s work: the impact of the hand of man on his three-dimensional surroundings over the course of a fourth dimension, time.  

Alex Maclean, 'Vegas-Venice', Dense island settlement inside the lagoon is connected to the mainland by causeways

  Using the sun to cast light and shadow, Maclean captures the changes brought about by both human intervention and natural events, far below him. While hovering over a site in his fuel efficient Flight Design CT light sport aircraft, Maclean says his methodology is actually circular, rather than a linear approach to history. “My strategy with a subject is to rotate around it, while taking in the regional and cultural context. I then shoot at four different angles—vertical, oblique, horizontal and bird’s eye view,” says Maclean. “Different angles and shifting lighting can produce very different results when shooting the same subject, exposing years of stories.”  

It is human nature to take a chance; the American dream was built on it. Today, under the ominous cloud of global economic crisis and a wide range of environmental disasters, the dream seems more a mirage, not only in the U.S., but in every corner of the world. Maclean asks us to consider whether las Vegas and Venice, cities built by serendipity in unlikely and hospitable environments, (and staking their reputations on the game of chance), are destined to collapse in much the same way?  

Alex Maclean, 'Vegas-Venice', Las Vegas, single-use residential subdivision block devoid of any urban amenities

 The oldest casino in the world was established in Venice, the city of masks. Casinos once served as centers of gambling, dance, and decadence–a perpetual carnivale, as it were, where aristocrats and merchant classes alike were known to mingle. A similar portrait can now be painted of America’s, Las Vegas, the city of sin. Removed from reality, whether by desert or lagoon, both Venice and Vegas are suffering the consequences of excess and neglect of precious resources. Climate change is causing sea levels to rise world-wide, while Venice, sitting for centuries on its crumbling sub-structure of ancient foundations and pilings, is slowly sagging into the Adriatic Sea. Preservationists are taking measures to preserve the protective wetlands that surround the city, as well as to conserve some of the most beautiful art and architecture in the world. Vegas’ lights, too, are dimming, as real estate markets go bust and excessive water use to irrigate golf courses and maintain green lawns in a desert climate, is literally drying up the most precious of the city’s resources.  

File photo of debris at an abandoned Las Vegas construction site after economic down-turn

After photographing Las Vegas and Venice from the air, Maclean discovered in his studio that he had difficulty sorting the photos, noting that, “there were some images where even I had difficulty distinguishing which city was which. I started to see how the cities were coming undone. Side-by-side, I saw ‘waves’ of water and sand, serpentine canals and paved roadways, all emerging from fragmented lands. How can two such distant landscapes and cultures seem practically identical? I love land and am witnessing how history makes things valuable; how places are becoming memories; how we’ve become environmental refugees seeking shelter. I can’t walk away without taking a chance and hoping that what I do matters.”  

Maclean’s solo exhibit, Vegas-Venice, set to open at ERES-Stiftung in Munich, Germany, on September 7th, 2010, is an exploration of two very distinct landscapes in distress, the similar patterns that emerge, and how time changes our perception of what truly exists.  ERES-Stiftung is a non-profit organization that encourages a collaboration of the arts and sciences to better understand and communicate in an increasingly complex world. Rather than simply asking questions, ERES-Stiftung emboldens society to be part of the solution. www.eres-stiftung.de  

by Michelina Docimo, CSBA, Contributing Writer  

Michelina Docimo is a certified sustainable building advisor and writer. Her focus is on sustainable or “green” architecture, landscape, design, and the representation of nature in art. Her writings have appeared in ARTES Magazine, CT Green Scene, D’Art International, and other industry publications.  

Visit her blog http://michelinadocimo.com/myartobiography  

Over the past 33 years, Alex Maclean has exhibited his work in galleries all over the United States, as well as Canada, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. He has been the recipient of: the CORINE International Book Award: For OVER: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point, 2009; Boston Society of Landscape Architects: Award of Excellence, 2006; American Academy in Rome: Awarded the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture for 2003-2004; The American Institute of Architects: Citation for Excellence awarded to “Taking Measures Across the American Landscape,” 1997; The American Society of Landscape Architects: Honor Award in Communications bestowed upon “Taking Measures Across the American Landscape,” 1997; National Endowment for the Arts: Design Grant, 1990-1992; among a host of other honors. Some of his public collectors include: Banque Nationale de Paris, Centre Pompidou, DeCordova Museum, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and J.P. Morgan.  

Alex Maclean  

www.alexmaclean.com