Age of Wonder: Artists Engaged with the Natural World, running at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding through December 31, examines nature through the eyes of thirteen very diverse and accomplished Bay Area artists. Curated by Oakland painter Gary Brewer, the show is both esthetically and scientifically rewarding—well worth a visit if you’re in the area, 3.5 hours north on Highway 5m in Shasta County. TBEP’s museum is not the only attraction: an arboretum, a botanical garden, and a nursery also beckon, as does Santiago Calatrava’s famed Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River, just adjacent—and, an hour or so north, Mount Shasta. See TurtleBay.org for more info.
Instead of writing an intro to the show, I’m rerunning my introductory essay from the show catalogue here. (By the way, the beautifully designed and printed little catalogue is a stunner, so kudos to TBEP!) I have also violated the dramatic unities by posting some pictures of the artists taken earlier in their studios when good reception shots were lacking, and combining shots from Friday night’s members-only reception and Saturday’s special free-admission family day.
Age of Wonder
Considering the disparity between our current environmental challenges and our delayed responses, it’s clear that we could and should do better. Stanislasw Lem, the Polish science fiction writer, satirized human foibles in his story, “Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) The Eighteenth Voyage.” In it, a mathematician discovers that the universe violates physical laws, and is thus an anomalous “forbidden fluctuation ... of monumental proportions”; it’s a bubble living on borrowed time. To balance the equation, scientists fire a proto-particle bullet 18.5 billion years back in time, successfully, but they find that egomaniacal colleagues —Lou Cipher, Eve Addams and Ast A. Roth—have sabotaged the mission, and at the end of the story, back in the present, flawed humanity remains saddled with its flawed universe.
Reality is not that different from fantasy, in this case. A new, global consciousness uniting both science and spirituality, spiritualizing science and rationalizing religion, is needed—a modern mythology, to paraphrase Joseph Campbell. Bruce Babbitt, Clinton’s Secretary of the Interior, concurred: “if the two most powerful forces in America, religion [broadly speaking, spirituality] and science, could be united on the issue, the country’s environmental problems would quickly be solved.”
Perhaps visual art—with its reconciliation of reason and emotion, self and world—can be one of the vehicles of that transformation. Artists have always reflected the values of the societies in which they worked, and have also looked beyond their boundaries. In Has Modernism Failed? (1984) the art critic and historian Suzi Gablik argued that modernist art had been thoroughly co-opted by capitalist market values; in her view, artists withdrew from reality into perfect esthetic inner worlds. In recent years, many artists have created a new kind of art that embraces wider societal concerns, takes part in discourse and dialogue, creates communities of interest for collaborative projects, and even effects incremental social and political change. Of course, the “pure” studio artists that Gablik disparaged with her broad polemical brush have and have always had their role, too, inspiring viewers to see the world anew, free from practical constraints.
Age of Wonder brings together a selection of mid-career Bay Area artists who treat with the theme of nature in contemporary ways—both art-for-art’s sake makers of traditional objects, and social-practice activists, and hybrids in the middle of the spectrum. Michael Bartalos, Tiffany Bozic, Mark Brest Van Kempen, Gary Brewer (also the curator), Isabella Kirkland, Judith and Richard Lang, Carrie Lederer, Aline Mare and Olivia E. Sears, Susan Middleton, and Rick Prelinger and Megan Shaw Prelinger link human survival with the reuniting of reason and emotion, intellect and spirituality. These artists, so fascinated with the natural world, point the way toward genuine human stewardship of the planet. —DC
Gary Brewer’s Curatorial Statement (printed in full in the catalogue) concludes on a hopeful note: “In poetic visions and voices these artists express ideas for a sustainable future where reverence replaces exploitation and a heightened awareness of our vulnerability leads us to wiser and more informed decisions in our relationship with nature.”
1. Santiago Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge, Friday night, before members’ preview reception. The architect likened it to a swan, but the sundial metaphor has prevailed.
2. Marjory, my “high-school girl” navigator
3. TBEP Museum. Bridge railing in foreground.
4. AOW reception.
5. AOW Curator Gary Brewer, TBEP Curator Julia Pennington Cronin and TBEP President and CEO Michael Warren.
6. Artist Carrie Lederer and TBEP’s Julia Pennington Cronin.
7. Reception crowd.
8. Centerpiece.
9. Another shot (taken Saturday).
10. Sculptor John Martin Streeby.
11. Art and nature—old school.
12. Gary Brewer and TBEP COO Maggie Redmon.
13. The opening of the doors.
14. Art by Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang (left) and Isabella Kirkland (right).
15. Oath of the Horatii audition.
16. Art by the Langs: abstract digital prints of scavenged beach detritus.
17.Detail.
18. More.
19. The Langs in their studio.
20. Art by Isabella Kirkland.
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24. Isabella Kirkland in her houseboat studio.
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41. Susan Middleton.
42. Archival film art by Rick and Megan Prelinger.
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48. Mark Brest Van Kempen in studio.
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54. Art on Duratrans film by Aline Mare (images) and Olivia E. Sears (poetry).
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60. Art by Gary Brewer.
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64. Carrie Lederer.
65. Art by Carrie Lederer.
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69. Natural elements are integrated into the museum.
70. Same.
71. Saturday was misty, so the Sundial Bridge looked less picture-perfect than it had at the golden hour on Friday. Undercarriage looking across river toward TBEP.
72. Swan wing, sundial gnomon—okay, spire. No swifts are visible in this picture, but plenty of them were perched on other parts of the bridge.
73. Liability vs. esthetics.
74. Spire seen from paved part of river bank.
77. PS. We stayed in Anderson, 9 miles south of Redding, at the Gaia Shasta Hotel, just off Highway 5 near Sacramento River. Energy-efficient, modern and quiet without being pretentious. The rooms are wedge-shaped segments of ring-shaped buildings built around internal courtyards (think of Shakespearean theaters), so they don't have the claustrophobic vibe of standard shoebox-template motels. Sorry I didn't take a picture of the high-ceilinged room, with its nice views of greenery/landscaping. Pond, pool, restaurant, and spa.
