Chinese Characters Gallery http://www.chinesecharacters.hu/
Entrance through Vittula Bar
Kertesz U. 4 (off of Blaha Lujza ter)
Exhibition Dec 29- Jan 8
Wed, Thur, Fri 6-10 pm or by appointment
0630 356 0308
Exhibition Opening Party Dec 29 8-10 pm
Closing Party and Environmental Activist Mixer: Jan 5 8-10 pm
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Jenny Kendler's work revolves around human beings' relationship with nature and the natural world --- focusing on human sexuality and gender as it relates to our often denied animal origins, and environmental issues such as habitat loss, climate change, and the complexity of ecosystems. All of the profits from the sale of her works are donated to environmental charities. Exploring and attempting to bridge the widening schism between Nature and Culture, Kendler’s work considers human beings’ estranged relationship with the ecosystems we and other species must share. Her delicate drawings and tiny sculptural terrariums show people in intimate physical relation to the environment, directly confronting that erroneous notion that we human beings are somehow separate from and above the natural world. Kendler’s subjects empower themselves through their ability to accept and dissolve into nature, growing plants from their bodies, adopting manes in unlikely places, or “giving birth” to streams of tiny fish. Human beings become the animals they always were. Extinct and endangered species stand as totems of our disconnect with the natural world and sign-posts of loss. In her body of work, Kendler re-invents the Naturalist of the past through the lens of modern ecology, feminism and environmentalism. If the Naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries sought to lay personal claim to the natural world and contain it in a specimen cabinet, Kendler presents her intimate drawings and sculptures as a definitive counterpoint to the view of nature as something to be possessed. She suggests instead, that it is we who are possessed by nature. While cross-pollinating genres: drawing, installation, sculpture, photography, video, and narrative fiction, Kendler creates works that draw us nearer to nature --- intellectually and emotionally --- to rekindle feelings of interconnectedness, wonderment and love. She employs the language of myth magic and fantasy, and uses delicacy, fragility, ornamentation and intricacy, to echo the subtle and mysterious relationships of the natural world. In this way, her work stands in opposition to spectacle culture, irony, indifference, and the will to failure. Kendler believes that art has a vital role to play in our most desperate crisis between Nature and Culture, lest one destroy the other. Through her work these questions are raised: How has our environment shaped us? How should we shape our environment? And how can we shape a future that will protect and serve not only our own species, but our many beautiful and fascinating neighbors? Presenting moments of ecological crisis or wonder, Kendler hands us this tenuous thread to the natural world --- shadowing forth possibilities of ecological attunement and resolution. Kendler is one of the founders of the Endangered Species Print Project and writes an insiteful blog called http://www.environmentalartblog.com/ and Wunderkammer.org
“I believe art is about beauty, but I also believe art is about ugly too. I believe art can be a color matching wallpaper to fit ones interior design and I believe it can be a tool to change the world’s direction.” – Bill Watson
These artworks have been chosen to represent a variety of approaches to thinking about our relationship to the environment and its preservation.
Bill McKibben, founder of an international environmentalist movement called 350.org, wrote an essay entitled “What the warming world needs now is art, sweet art,” in which he bemoans the lack of artistic reaction to climate change:
“… if the scientists are right, we’re living through the biggest thing that’s happened since human civilization emerged. One species, ours, has by itself in the course of a couple of generations managed to powerfully raise the temperature of an entire planet, to knock its most basic systems out of kilter. But oddly, though we know about it, we don’t know about it. It hasn’t registered in our gut; it isn’t part of our culture. Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The g***d***** operas?”
As McKibben has acknowledged, visual artists are now approaching environmental issues in a variety of powerful ways. Some of their works are disturbing, while others are comedic or awe inspiring. Some work to persuade the audience through reason, while some are wild expressions of passion and exploration, more the stuff of dreams and madness. Both approaches have resulted in artworks that scream out of their frames.
We hope you allow yourself to be inspired to action through this exhibit.
Please sign the mailing list to hear about future exhibitions and events, and go to 350.org and to participate in one of numerous actions going on around Boston on October 24th.
Also, Northeastern University is holding its first Campus Sustainability Week from October 19-23, including many with events campus wide.
Artists have generously lent their artwork for a two year period, and this exhibition is potentially available to travel.
All inquiries regarding this exhibition or the art in it can be directed to
Kalman Gacs, Curator of Eco-Expresson, at: (617) 642 7740.
Thank you for your generous support and assistance, without you this could not have happened.
All the artists, artist agents, and galleries.
Rick Colson, of Eco-Visual and Greenphotoprint.com?
Jerry Ziola, NU Associate Director of Sustainability and Energy Management Carol Rosskam, NU Sustainability Manager
Robert Grier, NU Director of Operations, Curry Student Center
Director of Operations
Nora Oliviera, NU Contract Administrator
NU Chemistry Department,
Prof. Isabel Meirelles, NU Associate Professor and Acting Chair, Art and Design
NU Graphics Department
350.org
Laura Marotta, Assistant Curator
Environmental Art Blog
Art not Oil Gallery
Eco Art Space Blog
Endangered Species Print Project
October 19 – 23, 2009
“It All Adds Up”
Northeastern’s first Campus Sustainability Week shows the University’s commitment to reducing its carbon emissions and resource use. The week’s diverse activities will raise awareness about sustainability and illuminate the connection between Northeastern’s practices, policies, and procedures and carbon reduction on a university?wide, national, and global scale.
Sustainability Week coincides with two other important events:
7th annual Campus Sustainability Day
“Sustainability: Strategies for Vibrant Campus Communities”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Campus Sustainability Day, established in 1965, promotes awareness, education, and information about campus sustainability issues. It’s sponsored by the Society for College and University Planning
(SCUP), which provides support to colleges and universities in their institutional planning goals.
International Day of Climate Action
Saturday, October 24, 2009
This event was initiated by 350.org, an international campaign dedicated to uniting the world around the pursuit of solutions to the climate crisis. Events will be held worldwide. People are being asked to
organize events that incorporate the number 350 at an iconic place in their community, and then upload a photo of
their event to the 350.org website.
Click image to see all of the weeks ev
ents.
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“Eco-Expression” kicks off green week at Northeastern U
When Carol Rosskam, Northeastern University Sustainability manager, started organizing Sustainability Week, she knew she wanted to include art. She didn’t realize that she would have world-renown international artists showing next to local artists, NEU alumni and staff.
In the exhibition, “Eco-Expression: Art for Sustainability” artists include graffiti artists Banksy and Shepard Fairey, internationally known artists such as Harri Kallio and Mary Van der Park along with nationally known artists such as Jenny Kendler and Molly Schaffer (creators of the Endangered Species Print Project. For the project, they create and sell limited edition prints depicting endangered species in the number of copies equal to the number of specimens thought to be alive.).
Rosskam contacted Holland Dieringer, Curator of the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at Boston University’s Hillel House, only three months earlier. Dieringer had curated an exhibition with a Sustainability theme last March in which Kalman Gacs, an aspiring curator, was a juror. Dieringer connected the two, and according to Gacs, “it was the perfect opportunity for me.” He had curated smaller exhibitions on environmental themes at Massachusetts College of Art, Wellesley College and the Needham Public Library and was looking for a larger venue to showcase environmentally themed art. He had recently closed a small gallery in Needham that he had founded called “True Gallery,” so he had time to work on a special project.
After an extensive call for art, the pool of talent featured almost fifty artists. Between these fifty artists, “Eco-Expression” appears in a large range of styles. Gacs says he wanted to give a “survey of the wide range of artistic expression related to environmental degradation.” More than half of the show could be called “surrealistic.” In it, are scenes of a flooded London, a contribution of Squint Opera studios, a London-based 3D design firm. The apocalyptic scenes are at the same time strangely idyllic, reminiscent of Norman Rockwell paintings. Similarly beautiful are images of Dodo birds seemingly in their natural environment from Harri Kallio. At first, the photographs look like regular nature photographs, only when we consider the fact that Dodos were extinct before color photography, do we understand that the images may be coming as a warning. Also notable is a series of posters from an international poster competition called Good50×70; these are clever and direct calls to action on climate change. Katherine Haskell’s abstracted animals that seem to meld in and out of the canvas also should not be missed.
The exhibition is unusual in that most of the art was digitally submitted by the artists and printed. Most of the printing was done by Rick Colson of EcoVisual Communications, a print company based in Wayland, MA that prides itself in creating graphics with the most sustainable methods available today. The exhibition coincides with an international day of action on climate change coordinated by 350.org on October 24th.
Free and Open to the Public
Curry Student Center
360 Huntington Ave, Boston
exhibition runs through October 28,
(a small selection of the art will be exhibited through November 29)
Reception October 22, 3-6 pm
For more info, call Kalman Gacs 617 642 7740
For more info, and to preview the art
Go to http://www.climatechangeartists.org
