Gala-Inspired Arts Weekend—Art & Nature Entwined

The Spring Gala celebration continues throughout the weekend as the outdoor, site-specific installations commissioned for the Gala will remain on view through Sunday. And step inside with visits to Glyndor Gallery, the Sunroom, the Sun Porch and Wave Hill House for exhibitions which include mixed-media and sculptural installations. Outdoor installations include:

Laura Anderson Barbata
Our History is Not Found in a Book, 2001-2009-2021
Handmade hammocks, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.

Laura Anderson Barbata’s Our History is Not Found in a Book offers visitors an opportunity to slow down, socialize, and connect to nature. Originally installed in the Woodlands, but now suspended between the trees just outside Glyndor Gallery, Our History is Not Found in a Book includes hammocks whose origins can be traced to the pre-Columbian Latin America indigenous communities and the Taino and Awark people’s hamacas. Handmade in Yucatán México, these hamacas carry with them a lineage of rest, restoration, and oral history. In referencing their traditional use for sleeping and their contemporary associations with tropes of tropical vacations, Anderson Barbata acknowledges the leisurely aspects of gardens. Simultaneously, the hamacas offer a pointed critique of traditional European gardens, which were historically designed to glorify royalty and kings with sprawling spaces used for entertaining, impressing, and holding court. The focus of this installation is not the wealth of kings, but the offering of a moment to reconnect with nature and each other.

Our History is Not Found in a Book was originally installed at Wave Hill as part of The Muhheakantuck in Focus, an exhibition centered on the significance of the Hudson River to indigenous peoples. Read a review of The Muhheakantuck in Focus in The New York Times.

Chris Doyle
The Lightening
Digital Video, 7 minutes; Courtesy of the artist
Music composed by Jeremy Turner and performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus

Originally installed in April of 2015, Chris Doyle’s The Lightening transformed Wave Hill’s Aquatic Garden into an animated spectacle, celebrating the arrival of spring and summer. Multicolored, polygonal sculptures that resembled crystal shards appeared to emerge from the water and ground surrounding the Aquatic Garden, heightening its whimsy and fantasy. As day turned to night, projectors installed within the Aquatic Garden illuminated parts of the large sculptures with a kaleidoscope of colors, patterns, and animated drawings of wildlife. The monitor installed in the Monocot Garden for this event features animations from The Lightening, compiled into a video piece. The visual components of The Lightening were paired with a bespoke musical score written by Jeremy Turner and performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. To hear audio from The Lightening, please scan the QR code on the onsite signage.

The Lightening was originally installed as part of “Night Lights” in 2015, celebrating Wave Hill’s 50th anniversary.

Read a review of “Night Lights” here.
Wave Hill Puts Spotlight on Art to Celebrate Its Gardens and Lure Visitors - The New York Times

Brece Honeycutt
When they come back-if Blossoms do, 2007, 2021
Etched copper, anodized aluminum. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.

Brece Honeycutt’s When they come back-if Blossoms do connects the ever-changing, seasonal delights of Wave Hill’s Gardens to 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson. The 36 etched copper plant labels that make up this work were exhibited in Wave Hill House and on the grounds. Their envelope shape and form refer to the many poems Dickinson wrote on envelopes. The copper labels feature stanzas and words from Dickinson’s lifework that reference plants grown both at Wave Hill and by Dickinson at her Amherst garden.

When they come back-if Blossoms do was originally installed as part of Emily Dickinson Rendered, an exhibition that probed the history, life, and myth of poet Emily Dickinson.

Read a review of Emily Dickinson Rendered in The New York Times.

Location: Various Sites throughout the Garden (Look for Signage)

Nina Katchadourian
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASED TO MEET’CHA, 2006, 2021
Signage and soundtracks. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, and Pace Gallery
LOCATION—AT VARIOUS SITES ON THE GROUNDS (Look for Signage)

Nina Katchadourian’s PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASED TO MEET’CHA is an exploration into translation that brings into focus the challenges of describing and accurately depicting animal communication and language, in this case various types of birdcalls. Originally audible through speakers installed in the same trees where this sign is now, the sound track to Katchadourian’s piece can be accessed by scanning the QR code using a cellphone. The genesis of this work stems from the artist’s interest in the complexity of describing birdsong and the myriad of systems—phonetic, mnemonic, and graphic —that have evolved over the years to do so. The voices you hear belong to translators and interpreters at the United Nations who have a deep familiarity with acts of translation but have no familiarity with birds or their songs. All the birds chosen for “translation” are native to Wave Hill. The procedure for these imaginative acts of translation involved giving participants the descriptive materials you see reproduced on the sign here, and recording their improvised, spontaneous vocalizations. To hear this sound piece, please scan the QR code on the onsite signage and listen ambiently with your phone volume at its maximum.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASED TO MEET’CHA was on view in 2006 as part of generated@wavehill, Wave Hill’s recurring outdoor sculpture commissioning program.