Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats
Private Members Reception - in person
Williamsburg Art & Historical Center
Thursday, May 5, 2022
United States: 6 to 8 pm ET
Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats will be on view at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center May 7—June 4, 2022, including over fifty artists who are members of ecoartspace, an international platform for artists addressing environmental issues.
The exhibition’s title found inspiration in the show's largest artwork, Claire McConaughy’s painting Fragile Rainbow (2021). In her words, McConaughy’s sanguine waterscape addresses “interconnection, loss, transformation, and hope.” Her title is especially relevant for this heterogeneous exhibition of artworks by ecoartspace members based in the New York City region whose paintings, sculptures, photographs, and installations evoke “connection, loss, transformation, and hope.” These artists are especially conscious of our indebtedness to living beings in our midst and human beings’ obligation to appreciate and protect organic and inorganic matter alike.
Ordinarily, human beings, especially urbanites, find it difficult to situate themselves as embedded in their habitat. This exhibition aims to inspire visitors to view one’s environment as habitat and to realize one’s contribution to habitat. When we walk in the woods, we become part of the forest.
To create this sensorial experience, works were selected that amplify habitats’ various voices from birds to bladderwrack, clouds, cochineals, compost, coral reefs, cows, deer, flowers, fungi, human beings, jellyfish, knotweed, lichens, mangroves, metals, minerals, mugworts, mushrooms, plastic, rainbows, rivers, roots, rust, seeds, shells, soil, the sun, rivers, trees, watersheds, and worms. Idyllic landscapes stride landscapes riddled with plants eager to migrate and unpredictable outcomes. Similarly, imagery evoking bleached corals find resolution in a biomorphic sculpture meant to substitute for coral reefs.
Artists:
Elizabeth Albert, M. Annenberg, L.C. Armstrong, Nancy Azara, Jeannine Bardo, Jude Norris - Bebonkwe, Lois Bender, Jean Brennan, Michele Brody, Diane Burko, Pamela Casper, Margaret Cogswell, Elisabeth Condon, Katie De Groot, Kate Dodd, Rosalyn Driscoll, Eliza Evans, Rachel Frank, Alice Garik, Tessa Grundon, andrea haenggi, Mara G. Haseltine, Kristin Jones, Natalya Khorover, Jennifer Kotter, Laurie Lambrecht, Rita Leduc, Stacy Levy, Lenore Malen, Claire McConaughy, Lauren Rosenthal McManus, Emmy Mikelson, Patricia Miranda, Seren Morey, Carol Padberg, Aviva Rahmani, Leah Raintree, Laziza Rakhimova, Bonnie Ralston, Lisa Reindorf, Eleni Smolen, Anne-Katrin Spiess, Priscilla Stadler, Linda Stillman, Mary Ann Strandell, Debra Swack, Sandra Taggart, Kate Temple, Deborah Wasserman, Riva Weinstein, Linda Weintraub, Stephen Whisler, Marion Wilson, Chin Chih Yang, Millicent Young
Exhibition Dates: Saturday, May 7 to Saturday, June 4, 2022
Public Reception: Saturday, May 7, 3-5pm
Public Closing Reception: Saturday, June 4, 4-6pm
Organized and Produced by ecoartspace
ABOUT Sue Spaid
Cincinnati-based philosopher Sue Spaid, Ph. D., has been active in the artworld as a collector, curator, art writer, university lecturer, and museum director since 1984. The author of five books on art and ecology, Spaid's most recent monograph is The Philosophy of Curatorial Practice: Between Work and World (2020), published by Bloomsbury Academic. In 2017, Spaid curated "Ecovention Europe: Art to Transform Ecologies, 1957-2017," a sixty-year survey of artists' ecological efforts throughout Europe, accompanied by a book of the same name, published by Hedendaagse Kunst De Domijnen. In 2013, her traveling exhibition “Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots,” funded by an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award, concluded its tour at the American University Museum and Arlington Arts Center. While Curator at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (1999-2002), she authored the book Ecovention: Current Art to Transform Ecologies that accompanied the 2002 exhibition she co-curated with Amy Lipton (1956-2020), former east coast curator of ecoartspace. https://suespaid.info
ABOUT ecoartspace
ecoartspace was conceived in 1997 by Patricia Watts in Los Angeles as a venue where visitors could learn about the principles of ecology through immersive environments created by artists. That year she published one of the first websites with a directory of artists addressing environmental issues. In 1999, Watts partnered with east coast curator Amy Lipton (1956-2020), combining forces working from both coasts while operating under the nonprofit umbrella of SEE, the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, a 501c3 fiscal sponsor. 2019 marked 20 years that Watts and Lipton curated art and ecology programs, participating on panels and giving lectures internationally. Combined, they curated over 60 art and ecology exhibitions, many outdoors, collaborating with artists to create site-specific works. They have worked with hundreds of artists from across the country, and internationally. Starting in 2020, ecoartspace became an LLC membership organization based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. www.ecoartspace.org
ABOUT WAH Center
September 8, 1996, Yuko Nii purchased a New York City Landmark Kings County Savings Bank and also on the National Register of Historical Places, and founded the non-profit Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, aka WAH Center, based upon her “Bridge Concept.” That concept envisions a multifaceted, multicultural art center whose mission is to coalesce the diverse artistic community, and create a global bridge between local, national and international artists, emerging, mid-career and established artists, and artists of all disciplines. Thus through the international language of art we come to understand each other to create a more peaceful and integrated world. The WAH Center is a force for peace and understanding and its concept is incorporated in its acronym: “WAH” in Japanese means “peace” or “harmony” or “unity.”
The WAH Center is located at 135 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Gallery hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from Noon to 6pm. Admission is Free. For more information visit www.wahcenter.net or call 917-648-4290 or 917-974-6096 or email: wahcenter@earthlink.net
MEMBERS ONLY plus four guests per member. YOU MUST REGISTER to gain entry.
