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Environmental Exhibition
Undercurrents: Experimental Ecosystem in Recent Art
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Ethical cohabitation is the theme of the Whitney’s Undercurrents exhibition opening May 27. The exhibition that deals with the way humans interact with space is, appropriately enough, held in four separate locations along the west side of the city. One of these locations is a traditional art gallery — The Kitchen in Chelsea — the other three locations are not so traditional: the High Line park, The North West River Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the Little Red Lighthouse in Fort Washington Park. The Whitney states the decentralized location is to create the opportunity for “artists and visitors to perceive and participate in (the geographical, historical, and physical) interrelationships within the urban environment”.
The Kitchen will be exhibiting works by several artists that deal with the cultural, ecological, and sociopolitical implications of cohabitation. Among the art being shown is Rachel Berwick’s project titled Lonesome George. This video and three-dimensional work deals with a humungous Galapagos tortoise named Lonesome George. According to the artist, the video of George “slowly and impossibly moving laboriously over the rough, sharp rocks” is intended to “highlight the relationship of tortoise to island/terrain”. Lonesome George is so lonesome because he is the single last member of his species; this is also why Berwick has chosen to work with him. She states that the viewer should get “the sense of time that Galapagos tortoises embody in contrast to the loss of time or ending that George represents by being the last of his kind.”
Undercurrents will also include “This Picnic Stinks”, a potluck picnic at The North West River Wastewater Treatment Plant, and sound-walks at the High Line and the wastewater treatment plant. The show opens on May 27 and runs through June 19. Visit whitney.org or the kitchen.org for details.