Passages
June 5-November 23, 2005
Passages came at a time of transition and expansion at Abington Art Center. The Sculpture Park is poised to undergo a transformation in terms of the way it is viewed and in allowing for new spaces in which art can be seen. Passages aimed to investigate this time of change in our landscape at Abington Art Center both in a physical and metaphorical sense. Passages can be thought of in artistic terms as a visual space where the development of an idea is expressed. In literary terms a passage denotes a phrase or selection of writing. The word has several other meanings and implications. Physically, a passage can be seen as a walkway, path, route, channel, course, means of access, bridge, clearing, scope, space, area, vista or span. These common terms are all typically used in relationship to the landscape both in the vernacular as well as by landscape painters and architects. Poetically, passages can also imply a journey, period of time, season, migration, transformation, ritual, or rite of passage. In a deeper sense, passages conveys the life cycle of birth, growth, and decay.
Detail of “Katsura Passage” by Roy Staab
Roy Staab
For over two decades Roy Staab has traveled the world constructing hundreds of works out of reeds, native grasses, willows, knotweed, maple saplings, bamboo and other found natural materials. He travels from continent to continent, in order to make his works in diverse natural locations around the globe. Staab creates site-specific sculptures that are delicate and ephemeral. His work in our woodlands made use of an unwanted invasive, the Norway Maple. Hundreds of these saplings were woven into three overlapping circular forms that were suspended from a living Katsura tree with arched limbs draping over the site. Staab chose this location due to the natural circular passage the Katsura provides. Staab’s goal is to create art that is sensitive to nature, fits in with the environment and is biodegradable. The ephemerality of the work is intrinsic to its reason for being, relating the sculpture to natural decay and the forces of nature that operate over the passage of time.
“LaBrea” by Warren Angle
Warren Angle
Warren Angle makes work that operates at the intersection of art and ecological issues. His installations are composed of a wide range of materials and found objects and he is inspired by poetry, prose and humor. Angle’s work is influenced by being raised in the rural farm country of the mid-west and comments on the desire of humans to manipulate and preserve nature. La Brea was created on site by Angle for Passsages. This piece alludes to the November 2004 oil spill in the Delaware River and the plight of water fowl and other species in the aftermath of this and other similar environmental disasters. The site appears as a pool of tar, but on further observation it is in the shape of the United States map. The surface is punctuated with roughly one hundred duck heads forming the pattern of the first United States flag. La Brea calls attention to the industrial use and navigation of our waterways and the fragility of their ecosystems when such accidents occur.
“A Dovetail Garden” by Joan Bankemper
Joan Bankemper
Joan Bankemper develops community-based art projects that involve planting and growing gardens in both urban and rural areas. Her works blur the boundaries between art and nature and bring people together to recognize nature and neighborhood in their own surroundings. For Passages, Bankemper created five new birdhouses related to her 2002 work “A Dovetail Garden”. Bankemper’s five sculptures on view each represent a different point of passage in terms of her own life including, adolescence, womanhood, marriage, motherhood and spirituality. A Dovetail Garden is installed on the lawns and around the periphery of the grounds bordering the woods. These whimsical, mosaic shard birdhouses are surrounded by special plantings selected to attract and eventually feed birds on our grounds. A Dovetail Garden also calls attention to the migration routes of birds as they are attracted here for the season.
“Arbor Lace II” by Michele Brody
Michele Brody
Michele Brody creates site-specific sculptural installations using living plant materials. Her works offer a space through which the viewer can enter, pass through or sit. When entering her installation one is being made aware of the passage of time through the germination, growth and decay of sprouting plants. Brody’s works invite viewers to experience the actual process of change and transformation as witnessed in this life cycle. For Passages, Brody installed “Arbor Lace II”, which was sited on an existing slate path and was also related in scale to the adjacent gallery windows. The piece consisted of a lace covered walkway constructed of copper pipes. The pipes supported a hydroponic drip irrigation system to water grass seed planted within pockets sewn into hanging lace walls. The growing grass created a brilliant living green pattern, that went fallow in its natural cycle.
“Typha Latifolia” by Lisa Murch
Lisa Murch
Lisa Murch is influenced by her undergraduate studies in entomology, biology and zoology. She creates sophisticated and intricate sculptures using common materials such as paper, wire, thread and yarn. Her delicate works transform these mundane materials into the extraordinary. Murch explores the complex relationships between organisms and their environments and is inspired by natural forms and processes. Her sculptures make reference to plants, seeds, wings, birds and insects. Murch’s work, Typha Latifola (Cattails) merged inconspicuously into the vegetation at first glance. On closer examination the cattails proved to be meticulously crafted from ordinary plastic vertical blinds. While referencing the natural world Murch’s works are also humorous, imaginary, worlds that focus on the interconnections between all of nature and the transience of life.
