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Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and
Space
Wendy Ross
Bloom, 2001
The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) expanded beyond its
walls
with Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and
Place.
This special traveling exhibition, comprised of 26 indoor and outdoor
sculptures by 11 artists, was sited inside the UA Museum of Art as well
as in the adjacent Joseph Gross Gallery (UA School of Art) and at seven
selected UA campus locations. The entire exhibition opened on January
13,
was on view in the UAMA and Gross Gallery through March 19, and the
exhibit of outdoor works remained on view until April 2.
A public reception and an artist's lecture marked the opening of
the exhibit, Material Terrain, on Thursday, January 19. Artist
Wendy
Ross, whose elegant sculptures were prominently sited along Park
Avenue,
spoke about her work from 4:00 to 4:45 p.m. at the UA Center for
Creative Photography, located across from the Museum. The lecture was
followed by a reception in the Museum from 5:00 until 6:30 p.m.
Artists featured in Material Terrain use diverse
materials and techniques to address intersections between the natural
and the constructed environments. Featured projects explore human
associations with the natural terrain to reveal the fantasy of nature as
a place of retreat and wonder, consider both pre- and
post-industrialized landscapes, and suggest the imaginative desires
inspired by the cycles of cultivation, production and consumption by
which we all understand "land." By employing richly symbolic objects,
and through the extreme manipulation of organic as well as industrial
materials, the artists reveal complex affiliations to the environment.
Through these materially and conceptually diverse projects, the works in
Material Terrain bring to attention the mixed and often
contradictory
landscapes we inhabit daily.
In Tucson's desert context, and for the diverse communities in
which the University is embedded, UAMA is a perfect site for the
reconsideration Material Terrain offers - regarding the
imagined,
the
built, the industrial, the native, the fantastical and the pedagogical
environments, The artists presented in Material Terrain address
provocative questions such as: the impact of electronic media on our
sensory experiences, scientific advances in genetic engineering and
species modification, and the negotiation of our relationship to the
planet. Whether through crafting exquisite sculptural forms, imbuing
work with irony or danger, or representing nature with startling
verisimilitude, these artists consider nature's astonishing power and
vitality. In alignment with the UAMA commitment to the University of
Arizona and greater Tucson communities, these projects also suggest the
power of art to intervene in and question the landscape of the everyday.
Featured artists: Kendall Buster and Dennis Oppenheim create
structures that reveal conflict between the natural and the constructed;
Donald Lipski blurs boundaries between the tree as found in nature and
rendered through sculptural form. Ming Fay imposes a haunting presence
on larger-than-life vegetables, fruits and foliage, while Valeska Soares
address gardens as places of posterity and longevity. James Surls
employs a sculptural language that plays between masculine and feminine
symbols to reconsiders balances of power. Utilizing the process of
hydroponics, Michele Brody layers symbolic content by shaping living
environments as feminine garment forms. Ursula von Rydingsvard's
sculptures of roughly textured carved wood reference the confined spaces
and structures of minimalism, as well as resemble ruptures in the earth.
Wendy Ross bases her large-scale, steel geometric abstractions on the
physical structures of plants, aquatic animals or simple organisms.
John Ruppert's work examines organic forms in various states of
fecundity and decay.
The University of Arizona Museum of Art presented Material
Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and Place - and so
expanded outward to connect art in the Museum spaces to those in the
public sphere. UAMA was one of 10 museums across the United States to
host the exhibition, which was organized by International Arts &
Artists, Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Laumeier Sculpture
Park, St. Louis, MO. Curated by Carla M. Hanzal, Curator of Contemporary
Art at the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. Material Terrain was
supported in part by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and by an
anonymous private donor. The UAMA presentation of Material
Terrain
received
partial support from the Jack and Vivian Hanson Foundation and the
Partners of the UAMA.
This travelling exhibition was organized by International Arts & Artists
in Washington, DC
Reference: Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of
Landscape and Place [Washington, DC: International Arts and Artists,
2005] by Carla
Hanzel and Glen Harper. ISBN: 0-9662859-8-0
Visit our Exhibition History page for information
on past exhibitions at UAMA.
UAMA: (520) 621-7567
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