Storm King Art Center opened its 2012 season in May with "Light & Landscape," a new exhibition that showcases the work of 14 artists who employ natural light as an artistic material. Alyson Shotz's Mirror Fence is much as it sounds, a 130-foot-long length of picket fence running along the edge of a copse of trees, somehow misplaced from Liberace's front lawn. Lunar, by Spencer Finch, is a reasonable facsimile of an Apollo-era moon lander that sits just inside Andy Goldsworthy's wall by the Thruway. Powered by two solar panels, Lunar absorbs energy during the day and glows at night in the precise color of the full moon on the July evening in 2011 when Finch measured the moonlight with a colorimeter.
Peter Coffin has three pieces in "Light & Landscape." Untitled (Yellow Outline) is a whimsical framing of a window within the museum building with solyx film, elevating sunlight into the status of work of art. Untitled (Bees Making Honey) is an apiary Coffin set up on the grounds of Storm King to answer the question: What does sunlight taste like? Tours and honey tastings are held at noon and 1pm each Saturday. Untitled (Rainbow) is a collection of found photographs of rainbows Coffin picked up at estate sales, junk stores, and drug store photo counters in recent years. His assemblage speaks to the profound universal wonderment brought on by light and mist, and how an artist's best attempt at portrayal may be through curation rather then fabrication.
Storm King, which has existed as a museum since 1960, now encompasses 500 acres of fields and woodlands and is home to over 100 post-World War II sculptures by internationally renowned sculptors like David Smith, Ursula Von Rydingsvard, Mark DiSuvero, and Maya Lin. "Light & Landscape" will be exhibited alongside the museum's permanent collection through November 11 at Storm King Art Center in Mountainville. Stormkingartcenter.org.
