Kristen Neville Taylor & Norwood Viviano: Notes on Sustainability
October 19th – January 20th, 2023Exhibitions
Join us for a special opening reception October 19th from 6-8 PM with a walk through at 7 PM to dive into the works with both artists and our Curator At Large, Zeljka Himbele!
Kristen Neville Taylor and Norwood Viviano are interested in ecological issues of our times. In their artistic research, both artists focus on entanglement and interrelations of human, natural, and artificial elements that constitute our fragile and continuously changing ecosystem. While their artworks in glass and other media tell us the story about underlying interdependency of all these components, they also hopefully act as triggers for contemplation and critical rethinking of our current policies and relationships to the natural environment.
Norwood Viviano investigates histories and transformation of places and landscapes, as well as land use in relation to economic shifts, trade and migrations. While keeping an active dialog with scientists from various fields such as historians, urban planners and climate scientists, the artist is interrogating, towards better understanding, the impact of past and present industries on environmental crises and our future ways of living. In Notes on Sustainability exhibition, Viviano will present his large-scale installation Cities Underwater (2018-2022), which consists of a series of sculptures - nesting glass cylinders representing various coastal cities, displayed on a shelf and accompanied by vinyl cut drawings and an animation.
The selection of works by Kristen Neville Taylor takes New Jersey’s Pine Barrens blue holes for its topic. The area known for its wildlife is also recognized for its high-quality sand that has been mined for centuries as an ingredient for many products, such as concrete and glass. The large blue holes in the area, resembling lakes, are not a natural phenomenon- they are in fact man-made sandpits from previous times’ quarries, often containing industrial waste in the bottom, that over time got filled with water. The artist is interested in the ways our landscapes are transformed by man-made activities, as well as the local myths and legends developed along the way.
Read the curator's essay in digital format here!
About the Curator
Zeljka Himbele is a curator based in New York City. Originally from Croatia, where she worked for several years at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, she graduated from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, US. From 2008-2010 she worked at the Contemporary Art Department of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, working on a series of solo and group exhibitions for New Media Gallery. She frequently collaborates with G-MK Gallery in Zagreb, where she curated the exhibitions by Mark Tribe, Duncan Campbell, Eve K. Tremblay and, most recently, eteam. She was a guest critic, lecturer, panelist or exhibition juror for the institutions The ISCP, NY; NARS Foundation, NY; CUNY, NY; The New School, NY; The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NY; Wave Hill, NY; Art OMI International Art Center, Ghent; Dumbo Arts Center, NY; Residency Unlimited, NY; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; Flux Factory, NY; Chester College, NH; Cambridge Art Association, MA; Parsons The New School for Design, NY; and Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design, RI, among others. Additionally, Mrs. Himbele was a Curatorial Fellow at Art in General, and also curated exhibitions at Plexus Projects, Residency Unlimited and NURTUREart in Brooklyn, NY; Big Medium Gallery in Austin, TX; Lafayette College, PA; Cuchifritos, NY; Illuminated Metropolis, NY; Occurrence, Montreal, Canada; and Futura Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
