“Going Green” Exhibition
Crossing Art
This event has ended.
Crossing Art Gallery presents the juried group exhibition “Going Green” that explores how contemporary artists integrate natural systems with human patterns to celebrate continuity, uniqueness and place making in their work. From an international pool of artists 6 were selected by a jury consisting of gallerists, curators, writers and a sustainable urban development expert, whom work in a variety of mediums. “Going Green” is composed of artworks that range from painting and video to interactive installations and reactive sculptures to interventions and includes the work of Mark Andreas, Susan Evans Grove, Rachel Kohn, Diane Meyer, Maria Michails, and Andrzej Wasilewski.
Artist Mark Andreas manipulates natural systems to create his “Reactive Sculpture Series”; a body of kinetic artworks that have movements stimulated by natural forces. Once triggered by the natural environment, his reactive sculptures, undergo a physical transformation that make reference to the environmental impact that humanity has on the earth’s natural systems and resources. Artist Susan Evans Grove’s work addresses the suburban sprawl enveloping open rural spaces in her native New Jersey. Her photographs, printed on canvas, are digitally manipulated to depict the surreal emptiness that these new developments of “all house and no community” have created. LIC-based artist Rachel Kohn turns cycles of growth and decay into visual landscapes. By interpreting the beauty found in rocks, weeds and moss she creates harmonious relationships between nature and man-made objects in her paintings. Los Angeles- based artist Diane Meyer presents a selection of prints from her “Without a Car in the World” Series that combine portraits and interviews Meyer conducted with 100 of her fellow Angelenos that have chosen to not use cars.
Meyer herself has been carless since 2008 and found that going “carless” provided more than much-needed help for the environment; it provided access and acceptance into a diverse community brought together by their “carless” status. “Without a Car in the World” is reflective of the community centeredness that “going green” has the power to effect. Brooklyn-based Maria Michails’ work contextually links industrial resource use and consumptive human behavior with current environmental problems. Her work invites viewers to be part of the human-powered energy production that generates light in her work and is made with re-purposed mechanical and bicycle parts, coupled with new energy- efficient technology. Michails' projects specifically link energy and a local resource being managed or used that has global repercussions; such as energy and water in the desert or energy and topsoil in the Midwest. Poland-based artist, Andrzej Wasilewski creates work that employs technological forms (systems composed of many cables, monitors, displays and mechanisms) to examine the juxtaposition of human nature and moral messages that concern the political, social, ecological and catastrophic. The video installation on view for "Going Green" titled "greentrix" was created specifically for the exhibition.
“Going Green” is presented at a time when concerns regarding eco-systems, conservation, recycling and sustainability have increased and made critical, that as a world and community, we find ways to address these growing concerns. Thus, in order to take a step forward in reducing our carbon footprint we need to take a step back and change our daily habits and ways of life. The artworks on view in “Going Green” aim to inspire and promote public awareness of green initiatives while examining the conditions that caused our need for them in the first place.
Media
Schedule
from August 13, 2011 to September 11, 2011
Closing Reception on 2011-09-10 from 16:00 to 18:00