The Parrish Art Museum displays ~ Sand: Memory, Meaning & Metaphor |
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| Thursday, 31 July 2008 04:50 |
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SOUTHAMPTON, NY - SAND: Memory, Meaning and Metaphor considers the imagery of sand in a broad range of art and undertakes an inventive inquiry into the myriad ways in which artists have, in their work, explored sand’s physical and metaphysical properties.Organized by Alicia Longwell, Ph.D., the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education, the exhibition is comprised of more than 50 works drawn from public and private collections and includes painting, sculpture, photography, installation and film. On view through14 September, 2008 at the Parrish Art Museum, The exhibition encompasses an extraordinary range of works by an exceptionally wide-ranging assembly of artists including, among others, 19th-c. Americans William Merritt Chase, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Winslow Homer; modern masters Milton Avery, Joseph Cornell, Dorothy Dehner, Roy Lichtenstein, Alfonso Ossorio, Pablo Picasso, Fairfield Porter, Costantino Nivola and David Smith; contemporary artists Alex Katz, Ashley Bickerton, Lynda Benglis, Vija Celmins, Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, and Billy Sullivan; and a roster of international luminaries, including Ernesto Neto, Manfredi Beninati, Mariko Mori and Gabriel Orozco.  The exhibition traces several thematic threads. Ed Ruscha’s painting, The Beginnings, 1987, is emblematic of sand as metaphor and introduces the idea of Time, Trace and Memory: Footprints in the Sand. In Surrealist Maya Deren’s evocative 1944 film At Land, filmed in Amagansett, New York, the artist revives the myth of Aphrodite rising from the sea, while the elegiac 1993 photographs of footprints on a beach by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, reference memory and loss. “Sand is certainly one of earth’s most fundamental elements,” observed curator Alicia Longwell. “We so often evoke sand in our everyday speech—from “shifting sands” to the fairytale “sandman.” It’s not surprising that artists have been attuned to this and have delved into sand’s many potential meanings--bringing us marvelous insights into nature, time and our own place in the universe.” Another theme, A Line Drawn in the Sand, gathers works that operate as potent social, political and psychological statements. In Untitled ( From the Silueta Series ), 1976, Ana Mendieta, an artist whose work expresses the pain and rupture of cultural displacement, documents the gradual effacement of her body’s outline in the sand as the tide washes over it. Island-dweller Ashley Bickerton reminds us, in his rollicking Rat Island Painting (1993), of the fragility of the ecosystem and its greatest enemy, the tourist industry.  The theme Littoral Drift: Along the Shore, is especially relevant to the East End of Long Island, focusing as it does on the conjoining of land and sea. In The Bayberry Bush, c. 1895, painted not far from the Parrish’s site, American Impressionist William Merritt Chase transformed a prosaic depiction of his three daughters in the sandy scrub of the Shinnecock Hills into pictorial gold. Shoreline, 1989, a soaring seascape by Alex Katz, is shown alongside a work from photographer Richard Misrach’s recent On the Beach series, informed by the artist’s own response to the events of September 11, in which the human figure, seen from far above, is dwarfed by the sand and the sea. Lastly, in The Alchemy of Sand: Physical and Metaphysical Ballast, the exhibition will bring together a group of works by artists who have used sand in their medium, channeling its alchemical properties, from Man Ray’s drawing and assemblage on sandpaper, l’Etoile de Verre, to Jackson Pollock’s oil and sand Bird of 1941. Also included will be contemporary Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, who uses sand to weight the outstretched tendrils of his lyrical sculpture Life that Spreads Out, 2002. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue with essays by curator Alicia Longwell, and a contribution from noted poet and art essayist, Max Blagg. In addition, the catalogue will include a “Convergence” on the subject of sand from Lawrence Weschler, longtime New Yorker writer and now director of New York University’s New York Institute for the Humanities. THE PARRISH ART MUSEUM EXPANSION The Parrish continues moving forward with a major new building project, which will enable the museum to display more of its collection, increase its special-exhibition program, and expand its diverse offerings. The new building will strengthen the Parrish’s role as a vital cultural center and resource for the East End of Long Island and beyond. The 64,000 square-foot facility is being designed by the internationally renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron and will be located on 14 acres adjacent to Montauk Highway, at the site of the former Whitmore’s Nursery, two miles from Southampton Village. ABOUT THE PARRISH ART MUSEUM Established in 1898 by Samuel Parrish, The Parrish Art Museum is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting American art, with a focus on the art and artists of Long Island’s East End—one of America’s most enduring art colonies. Over the years, the Museum has evolved into one of the region’s most significant cultural institutions, where diverse audiences can explore and experience American art. Since its founding, the Museum’s holdings have grown to encompass a distinguished collection of American art from the nineteenth century to the present. Particular strengths are the work of famed American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, who founded and taught at the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art in the 1890s, and works by the important figurative painter and critic Fairfield Porter, who lived in Southampton from 1949 until his death in 1968. Other major artists represented in the collection include Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Dan Flavin, Chuck Close, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, and Elizabeth Peyton, among many others. Visit : www.parrish.org Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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