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The New York Public Library

 

presents

 

Art and Literature Series Event

 

Landscape in Contemporary Art

 

Marcella Durand

in conversation with

Eric Aho, Mark Innerst,

Claire Sherman, Darren Waterston

 

Wednesday May 14, 2014

6:00 p.m. 

 

Margaret Liebman Berger Forum
Room 227 (2^nd Floor)

 

The New York Public Library

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

5^thAvenue at 42^nd Street

New York, NY 10016

917-275-6975

 www.nypl.org

(directions)

 

 Room 227 opens to public at 5:30 p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation.  

 

Poet and art writer Marcella Durand moderates a discussion, with artists Eric Aho, Mark Innerst, Claire Sherman and Darren Waterston, about the significance of landscape and environmental issues in contemporary art and the multifarious ways that their works and practices address word and image. Durand's reading of her poetry accompanies the conversation. 

 

Eric Aho is an American painter known for his gestural, abstracted paintings that evoke natural forms. Recent exhibitions include In the Landscape at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C. (2013), Transcending Nature: Paintings by Eric Aho at the Currier Museum of Art in New Hampsire (2012), and Eric Aho: Ice Box at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont (2009). Aho’s paintings have also been shown internationally in Ireland, South Africa, Cuba, Norway, and Finland, among others. His work is represented in many collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, MA; The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, CA; and The New York Public Library, NY. He lives and works in Saxtons River, VT.

 

Marcella Durand’s most recent books are Deep Eco Pre, a collaboration with Tina Darragh (Little Red Leaves); AREA (Belladonna); and Traffic & Weather, a site-specific poem written during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in downtown Manhattan (Futurepoem). Her essays on the intersections of poetry, ecology and art have appeared in NYFA Current, Critiphoria, Ecopoetics, and other venues. She has recently completed a new collection titled The Prospect, and is now writing a book-length alexandrine titled In This World Previous to Ours.

 

Mark Innerst is a painter who transforms the urban landscape, investing it with deeply resonant beauty and complexity. His scenes of skies and waterways also have luminous and morphing qualities, the works appearing alternately majestic, immense, and serene. He has exhibited widely, with solo shows at museums including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MI; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL. His work is represented in many collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY. Innerst lives and works in Philadelphia, PA and Cape May, NJ.

 

Claire Sherman’s paintings alternate between representative and abstract, depicting situations that are familiar, yet banal. Her images address the ubiquity of imagery that we associate with the landscape genre, and while not seeking to portray any specific view or experience, they become their own locations. Sherman has completed residencies at the Terra Foundation for American Art, the MacDowell Colony, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Yaddo, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program. Her work is included in collections including The UBS Art Collection, NY; The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, KS; and The Margulies Collection, FL. Sherman is an Assistant Professor at Drew University, Madison, NJ, and lives and works in New York, NY.

 

Darren Waterston creates illusionary paintings that hint at another dimension or reality. The exhibition, Darren Waterston: Uncertain Beauty, opens at MassMOCA, North Adams, MA, in March 2014. Other exhibition highlights include A Bestiary: New Prints by Darren Waterston at the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA (2013-14) and The Forest Eater (2011), which Waterston conceived for The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI. His work is represented in numerous collections, including the Hammer Museum, CA; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; and The Portland Art Museum, OR. Waterston currently lives and works in New York, NY and North Adams, MA.

 

Conceived and organized by Arezoo Moseni, and in its fifth year, Art and Literature Series events bring forth pollinations across the literary and visual arts with readings and discussions by acclaimed artists, authors and poets.