What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1123630
JUNE 2-8, 2019 WHAT'S UP! 9 As she began thinking about those abstract uses of color, the sculpture exhibition began to take shape. Many guests will remember last year's Chihuly exhibition in the forest and the museum, and other individual artist projects and public sculptures have been on display throughout the museum's grounds, but "Color Field" is Crystal Bridges' very first internally curated outdoor sculpture exhibition. "We're thinking critically with the trails and grounds team, with the exhibition designer, myself as a curator, and also with the artists, because all of the artists that I'm working with are living artists," Glenn says. "So that's something different, too. There's a real sense of collaboration." A collaboration of sorts is the objective of the exhibition inside, as well. "Nature's Nation" unites art and science, the environment and the canvas to examine humanity's place in nature and capacity to cause dramatic change. More than 100 works of varying media span 300 years of American artists thinking "eco- critically." Alan C. Braddock, co-curator of the exhibition and associate professor of art history and American studies at the College of William & Mary, explains that eco-criticism is a method of looking at cultural artifacts, in this case visual artifacts, with an eye toward ecology, and was the impetus for "Nature's Nation." The exhibition deals with humanity's inaccurate belief that the world is unchanging; the scope and scale of human beings' effect on the planet and other species; and the potential consequences of some of the actions done in the name of progress. Both "Nature's Nation" and "Color Field" make connections to works and themes in Crystal Bridges' permanent collection to tell a new story of American art encompassing ecology, art history and novel perspectives. Amanda Ross-Ho's "The Character and Shape of Illuminated Things (Facial Recognition)" was placed to interact with some of the temporal things that happen in the forest, curator Allison Glenn explains. "This is a sculpture about amateur photography, and we were thinking a lot about the circulation of images. So we chose to position that sculpture near the stage for the forest concerts because we know that people will see it, they'll take a photo of it, it will circulate in this way and it will occupy the space that the artist intends it to occupy." Valerie Hegarty's "Fallen Bierstadt" is one of the first pieces to greet visitors in "Nature's Nation." The visual of seeing a work of art melting to the floor is arresting on its own, but the positioning of Hegarty's piece hanging beside its inspiration, Albert Bierstadt's beloved "Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite" makes the work even more haunting. Photo courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash Photo courtesy of the artist and Guild & Greyshkul, N.Y.