NYAB Event - Beth Lipman ”Alone and the Wilderness”

Beth Lipman ”Alone and the Wilderness”

Claire Oliver

This event has ended.

Have human beings permanently changed our planet? What on its surface seems a simple question, has sparked a new altercate between Geologists and environmental advocates over what to call the current epoch.

It is a Sisyphean effort to cajole perfection from our tumultuous and imperfect world. Ever cognizant of this Lipman creates visual metaphors that represent both humanity’s abundant success and its potential, or inevitable decline. In an instant the Artist is a stand - in for Man and the environment. Lipman’s process of sculpting and blowing records her ability to control the material as the work begins to form. As in Life, the Artist reminds us to embrace what we may at first see as imperfections - every detail has a role to play in the composition.

Situated center stage in the main gallery, viewers will come upon Laid (Time - ) Table with Cycads, a fifteen - foot long sculpture the Artist has created from transparent glass, wood, adhesive and paint. Merging the genres of still life and landscape Lipman juxtaposes our current era with ages past. The work’s still life composition references historic objects attributed to the splendor and excess of the Anthropocene layer that humanity will leave on Earth. Drawings, books, chalices, food, rope, and a viola can be found scattered among crumpled tablecloths and bits of other castoff detritus.

Beneath the table, a shimmering phantasmagoric paleo - landscape unfolds, alluding to deep time. The different levels of Laid (Time - ) Table serve as simulacra for the earth’s strata that mark the geological history of our planet. The verdant foliage populating the work is informed by the Artist’s time at The Smithsonian Museum during a research fellowship. It was here that Lipman was inspired to create an interface between her iconic objects of recent history and ancient botany. The shimmering spikes of the extremely ancient Cycads that pierce the table in three locations are the result of biotic interactions over millions of years. They invade the accumulation of objects left in civilizations wake as a startling reminder that even in the most extreme circumstances the force of nature endures.

Glimpsed through the tall palm fronds of Laid (Time) Table, the far wall of the main Gallery holds Windfall, a time based work incorporating 48 hours of time lapse photography. Featuring a static gazing ball, which stands in as our surrogate, the viewer sees our world reflected in the surfaces of the sculpture, whose form and density buckle and twist the landscape. Lipman situated the scene en plein air, directly informing the qualities of the still life composition, as light, weather, animals and insects collaborated in the final arrangement.

Through her meticulous attention to detail and intense creative vision Lipman has presented the viewer with an astoundingly beautiful interpretation of death, decay and life that defies it’s past, preserves in the present and gives hope to the future.