Exhibits

Gita Lenzs New York Views Online Photo Gallery

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Places, an online journal of environmental design published in partnership with Design Observer, has just published an online slideshow &#8220Gita Lenz: New York Views.&#8221

The site features work by the mid-century New York photographer Gita Lenz, whose long neglected work is now gaining new attention. Lenz lived most of her life in Greenwich Village where from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, she the city and life around her first in the documentary tradition and then in abstraction. Lenz died January 20th, 2011 at a nursing home in New York City.

The gallery can be found on here.

Chapman Opens Harnessing the Hudson Exhibit

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The Chapman Historical Museum in Glens Falls has opened a new major exhibition, Harnessing the Hudson, which explores the history of how people in the region have harnessed the renewable energy of the Hudson River from early sawmills to hydroelectric generators.

In 1903, the Spier Falls hydroelectric dam, located on the Hudson eight miles upstream from Glens Falls, began to produce electricity. Touted at the time as the largest dam of its type in the United States, the dam supplied electricity not only to surrounding communities but also to the large General Electric plant in Schenectady 50 miles away. The dam quickly became part of a network of power plants and transmission lines that supplied power for factories, transportation and lighting in the Capital region.

The brainchild of Glens Falls attorney, Eugene Ashley, Spier Falls was a project that captivated the interest of people far and wide. They were familiar with water power, but electricity was a very new phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century, and many people were not convinced of its potential. Little did they suspect how much it would change their lives.

The exhibit features archival materials and artifacts principally from the Chapman’s Spier Falls collection but also from other regional archives. Of particular note are photographs provided by the Schenectady Museum and Science Center, which houses thousands of images that document the history of GE and the development of electricity. For those unfamiliar with the physics of water power, a hand-cranked generator and other interactive elements provide greater understanding of the science involved.

In conjunction with the exhibit, which will run through September, the museum plans to hold a series of public programs relating to the theme of Harnessing the Hudson. These will include talks about the history of hydropower on the upper Hudson, the development of the electric grid, a driving tour of mill sites, and kayak tours that explore the river ecology around Spier Falls.

This project is supported by: Brookfield, The Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, the Waldo T. Ross & Ruth S. Ross Charitable Trust Foundation, National Grid, the New York Council for the Humanities and general operating support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

The exhibit will be on display at the Chapman Historical Museum through September 25, 2011. The museum is located at 348 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY. Public Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm, and Sunday, noon to 4 pm. For more information call (518) 793-2826

Photo: Construction workers installing a 12’ diameter penstock at Spier Falls Hydroelectric Dam, 1901.

New York’s Historic Military Maps Event

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On Friday, May 6, 2011, the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor, NY, opens for the spring season with a special exhibit of New York’s Historic Military Maps from 1750 to 1820. At 6:30 pm that evening living history re-enactor Randy Patten will share his collection of historic maps, accouterments and artifacts from the French and Indian War.

Patten says, “These maps provide a fascinating look into America’s history as it occurred in New York State. Several show the local Northern New York area as well as all of New York state and parts of Canada and Pennsylvania, plus the waterways that people traveled to establish settlements and forts in such places as Oswego and Youngstown.”


Over the past 30 years, Patten has traveled to the Library of Congress and as far as Great Britain to obtain color copies of original maps, including some from the collection of King George III. Patten describes the hand-drawn maps as “works of art.”

The presentation by the retired New York State Trooper will include a look at French and Indian War artifacts, a British broadsword from a man-of-war used in the War of 1812, and a lesson on historic musket safety.

The exhibit of more than 50 historic maps will be on display Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 5 pm at the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center through June 26, 2011. The Center is located at 401 W. Main Street. Day admission is $4. Evening program admission is $5.

For more information on the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center and the Great Lakes Seaway Trail National Scenic Byway, visit www.seawaytrail.com or call 315-646-1000.

Saratoga Automobile Museum Offers Forza Italia!

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On May 7, 2011, the Saratoga Automobile Museum will debut the exhibit “Forza Italia!, Fine Sporting Cars From Italy.” The exhibit will feature several cars from the renowned Oscar Davis Collection in Elizabeth, NJ. Cars from Mr. Davis’ fine collection, housed in an exclusive private Museum, have appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, as well as at Amelia Island, Radnor Hunt, and other significant concours events.

Cars expected on display in Saratoga will include a prewar Alfa Romeo 6C1750, a 6C2300 and an 8C2900, along with a sporty Fiat Balilla Spyder. Postwar examples will include a Ferrari 212 Scaglietti Spyder, a Lancia B24S Nardi Spyder America, a Maserati Ghibli SS, a Bizzarrini 5300 Strada, a Fiat Abarth 750 sports coupe, and a Ferrari F40, to name just a few.

Italian vehicles embody everything that’s exciting about a country where speed, head-turning styling and pure sex appeal are standard equipment in every car. The Italian automobile industry has long been one of its country’s greatest, most visible and innovative assets. A major contributor to Italy’s dramatic postwar industrial rebirth, Italian cars continue to set trends and attract countless enthusiasts.

From FIAT, a pioneer automaker whose tiny Topolino economy car preceded Germany’s Volkswagen and Britain’s MINI- to Lancia, an early motoring innovator and successful racing marque- and Alfa Romeo, a serious technical and race-winning pre-war rival to Bugatti- to the premium postwar European sports car renaissance led by Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, Italian high-performance cars have long contested and set standards for the world’s best.

With the Fiat and Alfa Romeo marques returning soon to North America, and considering the present-day strengths of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, this is a ‘primo’ time for the Saratoga Automobile Museum to present an overview of great vintage Italian Sports and Grand Touring cars.

Open to the public through the Summer Season, the exhibit will end with the acclaimed Second Annual Fall Ferrari Festival, held in cooperation with the Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s acclaimed Wine and Food Festival, scheduled for September 10, 2011.

The Forza Italia! exhibit will open to the public on May 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM, and will be occupying the Museum during the summer months until September 25, 2011 at 5 pm.

Adjacent to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in the Saratoga Spa Park, The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located at 110 Avenue of the Pines, Saratoga Springs, NY. Hours of operation during the summer months are: Open Daily 10 am to 5 pm. †For more information, call 518-587-1935 or visit us on the web at www.saratogaautomuseum.org.

Applications for Fenimores Art By The Lake Due

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Fenimore Art Museum is still accepting submissions for its outdoor, juried art competition &#8211 which attracted over 800 visitors last year from all over the region. The 4th annual Art By The Lake will be held Saturday, August 6, 2011 on the Museum’s grounds overlooking Otsego Lake.

Art by the Lake is a juried art invitational celebrating artists and landscape. An artist’s information packet and application is available on the Museum’s website at FenimoreArtMuseum.org/lake.

Selected artists will have the opportunity to display, demonstrate, and sell their art. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

• Best Interpretation of New York Landscape

• Most Outstanding Use of Color

• Most Original Style

• Audience Favorite

Judges’ decisions will be based on creativity, craftsmanship, and relationship to the landscape theme.

Applications must be postmarked by May 2, 2011. (Late applications may be accepted at the discretion of the jury if space is available.) Artists will be notified of their acceptance by May 16, 2011, at which point they will receive detailed event information and an artist’s contract.

In addition to showcasing outstanding artists in all genres of landscape art, Art By the Lake features interactive demonstrations, educational programming, live entertainment, and tastings of some of the best food, wine, and beer from across the state, all with the backdrop of the spectacular Otsego Lake.

New Exhibit: African-American Landscape PainterRobert Duncanson

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On May 1, 2011, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site opens Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freedman’s Son, the first exhibition featuring the work of the nineteenth-century African-American landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson in many years, and, the first exhibition of his work to appear on the east coast, even in his lifetime. The exhibition will bring the work of this Ohio artist to the home of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School and major influence on Duncanson.

Robert S. Duncanson was the first American landscape painter of African descent to gain international renown and occupies a critical position in the history of art. Widely celebrated for his landscape paintings, Duncanson began his career in the family trades of house painting and carpentry, before teaching himself art by painting portraits, genre scenes, and still-lifes. His success is remarkable as a “free colored person” who descended from generations of mulatto tradesmen, to graduate from skilled trades and participate in the Anglo-American art community.

Duncanson’s turn to landscape as his subject was influenced by Thomas Cole in the late 1840s. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, then the largest and most prosperous city in the western United States, Duncanson became the cornerstone of the Ohio River Valley regional landscape painting school and, according to the Cincinnati Gazette declared that he &#8220enjoyed the enviable reputation of being the best landscape painter in the West.&#8221

Duncanson achieved his artistic success despite the oppressive restrictions that Anglo-American society placed on him as an African-American, a “free colored person.” His paintings earned him international attention with especially high esteem bestowed on him by the art press in Canada and England. Canadians acknowledged Duncanson’s seminal role as “one of the earliest of our professional cultivators of the fine arts.” And, the critics of the London Art Journal praised him as possessing “the skill of a master,” whose paintings “may compete with any of the modern British school.”

Duncanson adopted the style and metaphors of east coast landscape painting that depicted the “natural paradise” of the New World as a romantic symbol for the European settlers’ perceived covenant with God. But in so doing he also appropriated the art of landscape painting&#8211both in subject and content&#8211for African-American culture. In some of his paintings he subtly expressed the perspective of an African-American through his works.

A careful reading of his landscapes, reveals how Duncanson expressed his particular perspective. The grandson of a freedman, Duncanson’s artistic ambitions and the content of his paintings epitomize W.E.B. Du Bois’ statement that “the spiritual striving of the freedmen’s son is the travail of souls.”

Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freeman’s Son is curated by Joseph D. Ketner. Ketner is the Henry and Lois Foster Chair in Contemporary Art and the Distinguished Curator-in-Residence at Emerson College in Boston. He is the author of a definitive book about the artist, The Emergence of the African-American Artist: Robert S. Duncanson 1821-1872. The catalogue for this exhibition will contain an essay by Ketner including new information on the artist and color illustrations of many new paintings discovered over the past fifteen years.

“We are honored to have Joseph Ketner, the authority on this fascinating Hudson River School artist, curate our 8th annual exhibition,” said Elizabeth Jacks, Executive Director of the Thomas Cole Site. “The artist’s work, which can be found in the permanent collections of major museums across the country, stands alone in its beauty. What makes this exhibition even more powerful, however, is the fact that Duncanson achieved his success under the oppressive conditions of being a ‘free colored person’ in antebellum United States.”

Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freeman’s Son is on-view through October 30, 2011.

This exhibition is the 8th annual presentation of 19th Century landscape paintings at the Thomas Cole site, fostering a discussion of the influence of Thomas Cole on American culture through a generation of artists known as the Hudson River School. The Thomas Cole Historic Site is located at 218 Spring Street in Catskill, New York. For information call 518-943-7465 or visit www.thomascole.org.

Illustration: Robert S. Duncanson’s Times Temple, 1854. 34 x 59 inches, Oil on Canvas. Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Student Organized Exhibit Highlights Museum Collection

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”Follow the Light: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute,” opening April 14 is an exhibition organized by students in the Exploring Museum Careers High School Partnership Program, and examines a broad range of works from the Museum’s collection by tracing the connection each shares with a recent Museum acquisition.

Josiah McElheny’s, Chromatic Modernism (Yellow, Blue, Red), (2008), chosen for the museum collection by Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Mary Murray in honor of the MWPAI 75th anniversary, is the centerpiece for the exhibition. The exhibition shows how such diverse art works as a Tiffany lamp, c. 1900, and a Stuart Davis watercolor, Colors of Spring in the Harbor (1939), are a part of the history behind McElheny’s work, setting up an unexpected relationship between these and a variety of other works from the collection.

A gallery talk will be presented by the exhibition’s student curators at 5:30 p.m. A reception will follow the talk. Follow the Light remains on view through July 7.

The students, Amy Gleitsmann, Journey Gyi, Annalyn McNamara, Andy Mendez, and Roxanna Pineda, from Thomas R. Proctor High School in Utica, and Eliza Bell, Mary Bonomo, and Marlee Mitchell, from Clinton Senior High School, all worked together with Institute staff on all aspects of producing the exhibition, from selecting the objects to leading tours. The students met and worked with other museum staff to learn about each person’s career background and role at the museum. The students completed regular assignments and participated in art research, publication design, marketing, exhibition layout and installation, arranging public programs and tours- and producing an audioguide of the exhibition.

For more information about the program, contact Museum Education Director, April Oswald, at 797-0000 ext. 2144, or [email protected]. Upon the opening of the exhibition, listen to the exhibition audioguide at www.mwpai.org/museum/events.

Skylar Fein Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum

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A recent work by Skylar Fein titled Black Lincoln for Dooky Chase will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum through August 2011 as the centerpiece of an installation including related works from the permanent collection. In Fein’s 2010 work he overlays a silhouette portrait of Abraham Lincoln on a panel created to resemble an old wall menu from Dooky Chase, a well-known New Orleans Creole and soul food restaurant.

Painted in acrylic on plaster and wood, Fein’s portrait will be displayed alongside such works as an 1871 marble bas-relief profile of Lincoln, early nineteenth-century cut-paper silhouettes by French artist August Edouart, and Kara Walker’s 2005 Cotton Hoards in Southern Swamp (from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War).

Skylar Fein, a resident of New Orleans since 2005, believes that Lincoln’s opposition to slavery was shaped by a trip that he took as a teenager to New Orleans, which was then the center of the slave trade. Fein’s use of the silhouette taps into a long visual tradition, examples of which are included in the installation.

The silhouette was popularized in eighteenth-century Europe and soon caught on in the United States. Figures and profile portrait heads were cut from black card and set against a white ground or, in some instances, painted on glass. Evocative of the antebellum period and offering a graphic contrast of black and white the silhouette has inspired explorations of racial issues by contemporary artists such as Fein and Kara Walker.

A native of New York, Skylar Fein (born 1968) was a participant in Prospect.1 New Orleans, the 2008 biennial curated by Dan Cameron. His Remember the Upstair Lounge, a multimedia installation about a disastrous 1973 New Orleans fire at a gay bar that killed thirty-two and injured dozens, received broad critical acclaim. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions, including the 2009 exhibition Skylar Fein: Youth Manifesto at New Orleans Museum of Art, and is represented in public and private collections.

Image: Skylar Fein (American, born 1968). Black Lincoln for Dooky Chase, 2010.

Mohawk-Hudson Artist Call for Entries

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The Albany Institute of History & Art has issued a call for entries for the 2011 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, which the museum will host from July 9 through September 4. Entries are due by April 25, 2011. Established in 1936 and celebrating its 75th year, the Mohawk-Hudson Regional is one of the longest-running regional exhibitions in the country. This annual, juried exhibition occupies a major role in the history of contemporary art activity in the Upper Hudson Valley.

Highlighting the work of artists working within a 100-mile radius of Albany and Glens Falls, The Regional rotates every three years among the Albany Institute, the University Art Museum at the University at Albany, and The Hyde Collection. The Regional has become a barometer of contemporary art, as well as a means of support for emerging and established artists in the Capital District. Local arts patrons and businesses provide cash prizes and gift certificates that the juror awards to selected artists.

The juror for the exhibition is Holly Hughes, an artist, working in painting, printmaking, and ceramics, with studios in New York City and Columbia County. Hughes is a Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design and has extensive visiting-artist experience at other institutions, and as a teacher, lecturer, critic, juror, and curator. Her work––represented in numerous public collections––has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and reviewed in publications such as ARTnews, Art Forum, Art in America, and The New York Times.

For more information about the exhibition, call (518) 463-4478 or visit www.albanyinstitute.org. Downloadable entry forms are available on the website.

Artistic Visions Exhibit at Iroquois Museum

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“Iroquois Artistic Visions: From Sky World to Turtle Island” is an exhibition featuring new works by contemporary Iroquois artists in addition to art from the Museum’s permanent collection that will run from April 1 through December 31, 2011 at the Iroquois Indian Museum in Howe’s Cave, NY.

Paintings, sculpture, pottery, beadwork, textiles and other media in the exhibition will focus on the important symbols in the Iroquois Creation Story, which is fundamental to understanding Iroquois culture and society because it expresses what is valuable in Iroquois culture.

The story contains ideas that define the Iroquois role relative to the universe and confirms their attachment to a land on which their ancestors have lived for at least ten thousand years. It helps to explain their survival as a distinct ethnic group participating in a multicultural world. This exhibition takes a concept that was traditionally oral and translates it by using a number of exciting and contemporary visual forms.

Many of the artists featured in the exhibition are expected to attend the Gallery Opening . A full color companion book for the exhibition will also be available for sale in the Museum Shop.