REMEDIATE/RE-VISION: PUBLIC ARTISTS ENGAGING THE ENVIRONMENT
Exhibition Showcases Recent Remediative Artworks
Glyndor Gallery, August 1−November 28, 2010
Exhibition Reception, Sunday, August 1, 1–4PM
Bronx, NY, July 14, 2010 – Remediate/Re-vision: Public Artists Engaging the Environment showcases artists’ projects in public spaces where the work serves as a catalyst for environmental remediation. In settings as diverse as parks, water treatment facilities, waterfronts and city roofs, artists act as instigators, collaborators, activists and designers, raising awareness of such concerns as watershed fragility, industrial and natural history, personal responsibility and ecological balance. Artists in the survey include Lillian Ball, Jackie Brookner, Mags Harries and Lajos Héder, Natalie Jeremijenko, Patricia Johanson, Lorna Jordan, Matthew Mazzotta, Eve Mosher, Buster Simpson, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Suzanne Lacy and Yutaka Kobayashi, George Trakas, Mierle Laderman Ukeles.
In a field that can look back as far as 1965 for notable remediative artworks, this exhibition showcases projects completed or conceived in the past six years. Collectively, it demonstrates the wide range of approaches taken by artists to seriously engage environmental issues. Some examples are part of large-scale projects where artists participate in the design of a water treatment facility or park. In other cases, artists have initiated more low-tech projects that reflect the immediacy of environmental issues today. All installations in the exhibition included other community stakeholders, and required the artist to engage outside the traditional studio setting.
Wave Hill’s curatorial team is led by Jennifer McGregor, Senior Curator and a public art expert with substantive experience. As Director of New York City’s Percent for Art Program from 1983 to 1990, she supervised 60 public art projects. She facilitated the start of the Public Art Network for Americans for the Arts, most recently delivering a presentation on 50/50 Public Art, a retrospective look at 50 public art installations over the last 50 years, at the Americans for the Arts summit in Baltimore, Maryland. She serves regularly on juries, panels and selection committees, the most recent being the urbancanvas Design Competition, a competition launched by New York City in June this year to challenge professional artists and designers to use temporary protective structures throughout the city as blank canvasses for creative design.
Remediate/Re-vision has been developed with the Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a companion exhibition is on view in its gallery through August 20. Deliberately conceived and designed as an "exhibit in a box" that leaves a small carbon footprint, Remediate/Re-vision is easily replicated and will be available to travel to other sites.
The exhibition is also distinguished by two essays for its catalogue. One will be provided by Suzaan Boettger, Ph.D., art historian, critic and author of Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties. She will write about the artistic aspect of the projects in the exhibition. Patricia Watts will provide a companion essay, addressing the remediative aspects of the artists’ projects. She is the founder and west coast curator of ecoartspace, a non-profit organization working as a platform for artists to address environmental issues globally. Also included in the catalogue and on Wave Hill’s website (www.wavehill.org) will be artist interviews conducted by Jennifer McGregor.
Projects in the exhibition include:
Lillian Ball, WATERWASH, New York City, New York: Recycled glass, permeable pavement and vegetation replace asphalt and gravel as a solution for storm-water mitigation along the Bronx River and in Southold, Long Island.
Jackie Brookner, Veden Taika, Salo, Finland: Three floating islands, built in the local water treatment plant’s lagoon, function as a nesting site for birds and contain plants chosen to remove pollutants and sediments from the water, completing the cleansing cycle that began with the nearby sewage treatment facility.
Mags Harries and Lajos Héder, Terra Fugit, Miramar, Florida: An oasis within a regional park preserves marshland and interprets the area’s geologic and natural history.
Natalie Jeremijenko, Amphibious Architecture, NoPark, cross(x)species, New York City, New York and elsewhere: Locally optimized, often playful strategies effect remediation of urban environmental systems by producing measurable evidence and encouraging effective change.
Patricia Johanson, Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility, Petaluma, California: A series of ponds restore wetlands and wildlife habitats.
Lorna Jordan, Terraced Cascade, Scottsdale, Arizona: An environmental artwork and theater garden allow harvested water to flow intermittently down the cascade, irrigating a mesquite bosque that offers shade and respite from the desert sun.
Buster Simpson, The Monolith (Aggregate Plant), Redding, California: An interpretive sculpture, created from the ruins of a gravel plant located on the site, elucidates the history of the plant and the building of the Shasta Dam.
Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Suzanne Lacy, and Yutaka Kobayashi, Beneath Land & Water–A Project for Elkhorn City, Kentucky, Elkhorn City, Kentucky: A new "Blue Line Trail" walking trail includes a native flora/fauna park that absorbs storm water run-off to clean it before it enters the river.
Matthew Mazzotta, Park Spark Project, Cambridge, Massachusetts: An interactive urban intervention transforms dog waste into energy (methane) through a publicly fed methane digester.
Eve Mosher, Seeding the City, New York City, New York: Green roof modules combine with social networking tools track the growth of these interventions, with online tools that include mapping the project, tracking local urban heat island effect and resources to recreate the project worldwide.
George Trakas, Newton Creek Nature Walk, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York: Public access to a long-inaccessible shoreline surrounding Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant reveals the social and natural history of the site while facilitating its environmental revival and creating much needed park space.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Proposal for 1 million people to participate in an artwork for Fresh Kills Park: PUBLIC OFFERINGS MADE BY ALL REDEEMED BY ALL, Staten Island, New York: The transformation of the Fresh Kills Landfill into a public park invites "Donor Citizens" to release material offerings via cultural transfer stations.
Public Programs
- Weekly exhibition tours: Tuesdays and Thursdays at Noon, Saturdays at 2PM
- Sunday, August 1, 1–4pm: Opening Reception
- Sunday, October 12, 2pm: Curator Talk. 50/50–Important, Impressive, Influential, Personally Pivotal Public Art of the Last 50 years, a presentation delivered at the Americans for the Arts 2010 Half-Century Summit in Baltimore, Maryland in June, 2010
- Saturday, Sunday, October 9, 10, 3:30: Artist Talks as part of openhousenewyork weekend
- October 17, 2pm: Newton Creek Nature Walk with George Trakas, artist, and Gabriel Willow, naturalist
- November 6, 12–4pm: Public and Environmental Art Portfolio Review Day
- November 21, 2pm: Curator-led gallery tour
Wave Hill’s curatorial team includes Leigh Ross, Assistant Curator, Stephanie Lindquist Arts Fellow, and is led by Jennifer McGregor, Senior Curator, a public art expert with substantive experience directing, implementing, and managing contemporary art projects and programs. She facilitated the start of the Public Art Network for Americans for the Arts; in June, she delivered a presentation on 50/50 Public Art, a retrospective look at 50 public art installations over the last 50 years, at the Americans for the Arts summit in Baltimore, Maryland, a presentation she will repeat at Wave Hill on September 12, 2010. An authority on the subject of public art, she was Director of New York City’s Percent for Art Program in the 1980’s.
Remediate/Re-Vision is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for the Wave Hill’s Visual Arts Program is provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts–a state agency.
CONTACT: Martha Gellens 718.549.3200 x232 or marthag@wavehill.org
GENERAL INFORMATION:
Address: 675 West 252nd St, Bronx, NY 10471
Phone: 718.549.3200
Website: www.wavehill.org
Hours: Wave Hill is open all year, Tuesday–Sunday and many major holidays: 9AM–5:30PM; closes 4:30PM, October 15–April 14. GALLERY HOURS: 10AM─4:30PM
Admission: $8 adults, $4 students and seniors 65+, $2 children 6–18. Free Tuesday and Saturday mornings until noon. Free to Members and children under 6.
Directions–Getting here is easy: Located only 30 minutes from midtown Manhattan, Wave Hill’s free shuttle van transports you to and from our front gate and Metro-North’s Riverdale station, the 242nd Street stop on the #1 subway line. Limited onsite parking is available for $8 per vehicle. Free offsite parking nearby with continuous, complimentary shuttle service to and from the offsite lot and our front gate. Complete directions and shuttle bus schedule at www.wavehill.org.
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