Mountainville—In 2018, Storm King Art Center will present the exhibitions Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, on view from May 19 through November 11, and Outlooks: Elaine Cameron-Weir, on view from May 19 through November 25.
Indicators: Artists on Climate Change will present work in a variety of media by over a dozen artists, including works newly created for the exhibition at Storm King. Illuminating the threats of a changing climate on a biological, personal, cultural, microcosmic, and macrocosmic scale, these artists will reveal how the acts of making and viewing art differ in both approach and effect from research, advocacy, and reportage.
Works in the exhibition will explore the impacts of a changing climate in ways that incorporate scientific, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives. Through a wide variety of works and artistic media, the exhibition will demonstrate how art can command attention for difficult subjects and spur creative thought, solutions, and ideas in ways that elude other means of communication and understanding.
John P. Stern, President of Storm King, says, “From its founding, Storm King has prioritized environmental projects, including land conservation and reclamation of industrial sites. This exhibition will pay tribute to that history and vision through both site-sensitive and site-specific works that highlight Storm King’s relationship to the land, while speaking to larger issues that affect regional, national, and global ecological health.”
The organizers of the exhibition are Nora Lawrence, Curator; David Collens, Director and Chief Curator; and Sarah Diver, Curatorial Assistant, who have been working with artists to develop their ideas and proposed projects for the exhibition. While the full roster will not be complete until next spring, the list of artists currently committed to the project include David Brooks, Dear Climate (Una Chaudhuri, Marina Zurkow, Fritz Ertl and Oliver Kellhammer), Ellie Ga, Justin Brice Guariglia, Jenny Kendler, Maya Lin, Mary Mattingly, Steve Rowell, and Tavares Strachan.
For Storm King’s annual Outlooks exhibition series, Canadian artist Elaine Cameron-Weir will present a new site-specific installation at Storm King. When experiencing Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76) in the Utah desert, the artist noticed motorcycle tracks throughout the cement cylinders that sparked an association between stunt riding and repurposing of landscape.
This exhibition will include a large-scale sculptural form inspired by a “Globe of Death,” a large spherical structure used in motorcycle circus stunt performances in which riders dangerously orbit one another. Reminiscent of objects used to study outer space, such as radio satellite dishes, the installation will draw on Cameron-Weir’s interest in reinterpreting the Globe of Death in dialogue with natural forms, and celestial or otherworldly concepts.
Outlooks is an exhibition series that invites one emerging or mid-career contemporary artist to engage with Storm King’s landscape and history and create a new, site-specific work to be installed on-site for a single season. Prior Outlooksexhibitions at Storm King have featured the work of Heather Hart (2017), Josephine Halvorson (2016), Luke Stettner (2015), Virginia Overton (2014), and David Brooks (2013).
Go See Art 