 David X. Levine's "I Know More About You Than They Do, and I Don't Even Know Your Name (PXP)", 2006, colored pencil & graphite/paper, 10.5" x 7" |
Similarly, the contemporary art scene is too often dependent on a cliquish attachment to social exclusivity—focusing time and critical energy on a very limited horizon, the same few dozen artists promoted by the same handful of curators, represented by blue-chip galleries that can sometimes make you question your worthiness to step in the door.
So it's especially refreshing when instead of restricting access, whether through impenetrable clouds of explanatory concept or simple snob appeal, a contemporary art institution elects to broaden the circle, engaging the community and expanding the dialogue between artists and their potential audiences. This is exactly what's happening this month, as the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) spearheads the Peekskill Project for the third year running.
Calling upon over a dozen curators and exhibiting work by more than 100 artists, the project will install works throughout the town; from a special fall equinox event organized in the gazebo at the center of town to a sculpture park installed on the waterfront to a nomadic video-projection piece that will be driven through the streets, it will be difficult to pass through Peekskill without running into some part of the project.
One of the more interesting aspects this time around is a strong emphasis on viewer participation. Dutch artist Esther Kokmeijer is drawing a "mental map" of the city of Peekskill, which will be inserted in the official exhibition handout; she is also inviting visitors to draw their own maps representing their individual perceptions of the city. Ultimately, she intends to assemble 100 of these in an installation in one of the project's many locations throughout town businesses and public parks.
Founded by the Marc and Olivia Straus family, the HVCCA opened two years ago, dedicated to developing and presenting new art in a range of media and offering exhibitions and programs aimed at increasing the understanding of contemporary art and its social context. The ongoing Peekskill Project represents a real commitment by the museum to participation in the local community—a welcome respite from the icy, often "holier than thou" attitude toward both potential art viewers and local communities by some major institutions.
On the opening weekend, September 16 and 17, the Peekskill Project will offer a number of festive, family-oriented activities, including a rock-skipping contest on the riverfront. One curator has even organized a kite-flying event, in which a number of artists have been invited to design kites based on a theme inspired by Yoko Ono: "Kites Are for Peace and Love." In addition to the artist-designed kites, visitors will be invited to create their own airborne peace messages with various materials provided by the organizers, making the event truly interactive.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project for me is the sheer range of its contributors. The curatorial team this time around includes a writer from the international art magazine Tema Celeste, a sculpture professor from SUNY New Paltz, and project organizer Alison Levy, who lives in Brooklyn while she works on a Master's in art history at Purchase.
Similarly, the contributing artists come primarily from New York City and the Hudson Valley, with a significant handful of international participants. The work itself ranges from the high-conceptual to the down-to-earth, offering multiple potential points of entry for viewers of all backgrounds. Emily Puthoff, sculpture professor from SUNY New Paltz, has organized a group of sculptors working in unorthodox materials that serve to push the envelope in terms of traditional sculpture. From Elena Sniezek's cast-salt pieces to Donald Bruschi's neon work to Hyom Kang's imaginative fountain composed of common garden hoses, the materials themselves render the sculptures more approachable, opening up references to the "real world" that are essential if contemporary art has any hope of seeming relevant or interesting to the average, non-artworld viewer.
 Proposed banner site for Boston artist Magda Fernandez's "Kathryn Dziadik Lapolla" multimedia project for the 2006 Peekskill Project. |
If you're a bit farther north and can't make it down to Peekskill, there's a veritable art festival taking place at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson. The current show (open through September 10) includes no fewer than seven artists from Davis's stable, ranging from the main exhibition of obsessive-compulsive, often large-scale colored-pencil drawings by the self-taught David X. Levine to the works in cast metal and chain-link material by John Ruppert in the sculpture garden.
Davis's carriage house is populated by five very different artists, with innovative drawings by Elise Engler, who works in extended conceptual series such as her inventory of Everything I Own, contrasting with the subtle beauty of Sarah Sterling's altered photographs of temple ruins from a trip she made to Indonesia. Tom Nicol is showing geometrically based, shaped canvases, sometimes in clusters of two or three separate parts, which emphasize the physicality of the painted surface. He hesitates to call them abstractions, as they are intended to stand as objects in their own right even as they recall the flattened farmland of his native Ohio. Nicol's putative landscapes stand in stark aesthetic contrast with Daisy Craddock's softly modulated, representational works, which reflect on the feeling of a warm summer day.
The most daring space in the carriage house, the elevator shaft, is elegantly used to display several of Sara Jane Roszak's paintings illuminating the I Ching, a project that has engaged her for some time. Hanging in 10-foot-long strips, the pieces show how Roszak has found a visual corollary for the abstract concepts presented in this ancient book of wisdom, and offer the viewer a space in which to contemplate, as she puts it, "a world where the past has become meaningless and the future unpredictable."