AMERICAN LANDSCAPES

Marin Abell - Josh Bricker - Dan Carlson - Chad Curtis -
Dymph de Wild - Ben Finer - Daniel J. Glendening -
Peter Lapsley - Jan Mun - Tom Pnini - Leah Raintree -
Rick Reid - Corina Reynolds - Greg Stewart - John Wanzel

Organized by Dan Carlson 

on view: November 17 – December 16, 2012 
Opening: Saturday, November 17, 6-8pm

This exhibition collects 15 young artists from across the country who use the Romantic landscape paintings of the Hudson Valley School as a point of departure to make work that re-thinks this landscape through the lens of the constant shift of cultural patterns and the on-going flux of construction and destruction. 

Whereas the Hudson Valley School offered idyllic visions of a new country’s seemingly endless bounty of open space and natural resources, the artists in this exhibition are grappling with effects of late model capitalism, and with the sense that this bucolic and romantic vision has been but a mirage. Instead their work aspires to hold up a mirror to the present state of the American landscape’s moral and physical decline. 

Greg Stewart and Dymph de Wild’s sculptural works and “survival suits” are eerie mutations of the plant and animal kingdom. Dan Carlson video installation shows abandoned military bases and industrial wastelands, the residue of the cold war.  
Peter Lapsey’s sculpture is made with industrial materials used in contemporary architecture, but gives the impression of an archeological find.  

Other work in the exhibition are Leah Raintree’s unsettling photographs of the evidence of climate change, Corina Reynold’s Toaster on the Wall, advertising free toasters for Level 2 Investors and Chad Curtis’s scaled down mountain made from everyday disposable materials, among otheres 

This exhibition has been organized by emerging artist/curator Dan Carlson, who received his MFA in Fine Art in 2010 from Parson’s The New School in New York.  

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

This exhibition is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the Brooklyn Community Foundation.