Recapturing the Scenic Wilds Artists in Conversation with Wave Hill Curators, October 18, 2014
Recapturing the Scenic Wilds, currently on view in Glyndor Gallery, questions the impulse to collect and frame the living world, and makes tangible how this contradictory desire—to somehow “preserve” the living—informs contemporary art practice. On October 18, join exhibiting artists Dana Levy, Jessica Segall and Liselot van der Heijden as they discuss their artistic processes and theoretical concerns with Wave Hill curators Jennifer McGregor and Gabriel de Guzman. Deepen your understanding of the exhibition’s dynamic and diverse work, and ask your own questions of the artists and curators.
According to the curators, the paradox of natural history is that, in its beginnings with hunter-collectors in the 19th century like Theodore Roosevelt, the primary goal was to capture nature in order to categorize it. The artists in the exhibition simultaneously acknowledge and complicate this instinct; for example, when Segall pairs taxidermy
birds with pop birdsongs, when Levy sets butterflies loose in a museum, and when van der Heijden zooms in on dioramas and their spectators, they raise the question: why do humans portray the natural world in this way?
Enhance your experience of Recapturing the Scenic Wilds further with a guided Gallery Tour from Curatorial Fellow David Xu Borgonjon, held every Tuesday and Saturday at 2PM. "Viewers are sometimes surprised by how real the animals in the exhibition seem, even though they're usually taxidermy or even constructed,” he comments. “Because the natural history diorama is artificially crafted to look perfectly natural, it lends itself to this blending of reality and fiction.”
What: Dana Levy, Jessica Segall and Liselot van der Heijden in Conversation with Wave Hill Curators
Where: Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill, West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, Bronx, New York
When: Saturday, October 18 at 2PM
Fee: Free with admission to the grounds
Gallery Tours: Tuesdays and Saturdays at 2PM, through December 7, 2014. Free with admission to the grounds.
The Arts at Wave Hill are supported by the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by the Cathy and Stephen Weinroth Commissioning Fund for the Arts. The Institution’s operations are made possible in part by public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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