Natural Wonders spotlights the works of thirteen artists who work in various media to depict themes of nature both its beauty and its more disquieting aspects from painting and sculpture to 3-D landscapes and botanical replications to dioramas and lenticular prints. The range of works encourages us to be more attentive to our natural surroundings and address timely issues such as habitat loss, environmental toxins, bioengineering, and increasing alienation from nature. Ramljak s essay provides a...
Jacob van Ruisdael’s Ecological Landscapes (Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700)
by Catherine Levesque
This book examines Jacob van Ruisdael's treatment of five subjects—dunes, grainfields, ruins, rushing water, and woodlands—that recur throughout his career. The paintings, though fictive, show close attention to the complexities of particular environments that can be fruitfully considered “ecological.” The pattern of Ruisdael’s reworking each environment and associated phenomena shows him as laboring over these themes. His work across media conveys something of his demanding and methodical proce...
Forests and Fences (WildZones)
This book examines critical themes in environmental studies though theatre and performance studies. It experiments with forms along with the practice of praxis to provide radical frameworks for resilience in the contemporary age of crisis. Drawing on Ravi Sundaram’s concept of “Wild Zones”, it explores the kinetic overflows in informal sites, but also in the intimate spaces that have been realigned or shocked or fenced in, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This volume will be...
Holly Gordon and Ward Hooper have worked independently as artists for decades. In 2014 they embarked on an artistic collaboration exploring Long Island's communities, coastlines, and landmarks. Hooper's paintings and Gordon's photographs reimagine an iconic but rapidly changing place in America, one marked by beauty/grit, quiet/bustle, rural/industrial, heritage/change, and wealthy/working class tensions. They also explore preconceptions about relationships, aging, and infirmity. Taken together,...
Brackenridge Park began its life as a heavily wooded, bucolic driving park at the turn of the twentieth century. Over the next 120 years it evolved into the sprawling, multifaceted jewel San Antonians enjoy today, home to the San Antonio Zoo, the state’s first public golf course, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Sunken Garden Theater, and the Witte Museum.The land that Brackenridge Park occupies, near the San Antonio River headwaters, has been reinvented many times over. People have gathered there s...
The ice mountains of the Karakoram are among the world's greatest natural treasures. At 8611 metres (28,251 ft), K2 is the second tallest mountain on Earth. There are three other mountains in the range that top 8000 metres (26,247 ft) - Gasherbrum I, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum II - and more than 60 peaks above 7000 metres (22,966 ft). Extending in a south-easterly direction from the north-eastern tip of Afghanistan and spanning the borders of Pakistan, India and China, the Karakoram is part of a...
Bharatatil Aapatti Vyavasthapan Va Prashasan
by Professor Priti Diliprao Pohekar
In 1933, the Banff School opened in the stunning surroundings of Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. From its beginnings offering a single drama course, it has since grown into the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, a renowned cultural destination. Uplift traces its first four decades as it generated ideals of culture and liberal democratic citizenship intrinsic to the development of modern Canada. In an era of unstable cultural policy and state support, Uplift draws welcome attentio...
A photographic study of the land that served as the main testing site for American nuclear devices for four decadesMore nuclear bombs have been detonated in America than in any other country in the world. Between 1951 and 1992, the Nevada National Security Test Site was the primary location for these activities, withstanding more than a thousand nuclear tests that left swaths of the American Southwest resembling the moon. In The Nevada Test Site, renowned American photographer Emmet Gowin (b. 19...
A Robert Smithson Film - Broken Circle Spiral Hill
by Roel Arkesteijn, Eva Schmidt, and Theo Tegelaers
Wrapping historic structures in silvery fabric and blue cable - a famous tradition for Christo and Jeanne-Claude In the summer of 1995, the Reichstag building in Berlin was transformed into an immense sculptural experience by Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude along with a team of hundreds. Wrapping historic structures in silvery fabric and blue cable has become a famous tradition for Christo and Jeanne-Claude: landscape projects in the USA, Japan, and Australia and urban projects such as the Po...
Art and science – they may seem like opposites, but throughout history there have been visionaries who have brought together these contrasting subjects. The Art of Science explores the work of 40 such artists and artist-scientists, uncovering how these innovators have designed futuristic technology centuries ahead of its time, investigated time and space through abstract art, and created sculpture informed by NASA technology. An expertly curated selection of artists from many different culture...
Clare Reilly: Eye of the Calm is an exploration of New Zealand painter Clare Reilly’s life and work. The mixture of autobiographical writing and gorgeous paintings subtly shows how Reilly’s art and experiences are entwined. Her themes cover the issues of habitat destruction and renewal, depicting native New Zealand birds in the landscape as metaphors for joy. In an increasingly troubled and fast paced world, Reilly’s work offers the viewer a place to reflect on the healing qualities of nature an...
Unthought Environments brings together art influenced by the forces that are integral to our daily lives, yet are easily forgotten or overlooked, such as the ancient elements of air, fire, water, and earth; weather systems; geopolitics; and the hidden physical components of our virtual world. Informed by media studies, ecology, and philosophy, these multi-media artworks explore the elemental sphere as it intersects with the human-made. This exhibition catalog brings together images from the ex...