Earlier this summer, our review of the Clark Art Institute’s current exhibition, Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth (Open through October 15, 2023) in Williamstown (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, noted that Munch’s questioning of “humankind’s place in a cosmic cycle of life” is stunningly of the moment.
As the summer of 2023 evolved, there were increasing concerns about the “shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth system that threaten environmental, social, and economic crises on global to local scales” (in the words of the Anthropocene Working Group at the University of South Florida). The latest news on the catastrophe of wild fires in Maui, the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, is staggering.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, Hawaii Officials Release List of 388 People Missing From Maui Fires (8/25/23) by reporters Tim Arango and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, in addition to the fire’s official death toll of 115 there are also 388 people unaccounted for after the wild fires.
And it is also “the worst summer for fires since records began” in the Eastern Mediterranean according to the Civil Protection Minister of Greece, Vassilis Kikilias. According to another article in the New York Times, Extreme Heat And Wildfires Ravage Greece (8/24/23) by reporters Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Niki Kitsantonis, “355 new fires had broken out in the past five days- 209 of them in the last 24 hours.”
Last year, as the summer wound down, we sang praise for the Tivoli Artists Gallery in the Hudson Valley village of Tivoli (Dutchess County), New York and its 2022 late summer exhibit, Earth + Sky, A Tribute to Agriculture. The gallery’s membership, which includes painters, sculptors, photographers, illustrators, digital artists and animators, jewelers, potters and performance artists, “perform all phases of the gallery’s creative and administrative tasks.”
And in this summer of 2023 climate woes, the Tivoli Artists Gallery’s late summer exhibit, Farms & Fields (on view through September 10, 2023) beckoned. The show features artwork of over thirty artists “inspired by the natural world” and does not spotlight Munch-like hallucinatory depictions of a trembling earth; Rather, some soothing of a troubled brow of this gallery visitor on a recent visit.
Many of the gallery’s members create animal portraits including Elizabeth M. Dama’s “Mountain Road Resting Cows” included in the current show, with her “eye to eye with cows.” Also intriguing is Maria Kolodziej-Zincio’s encaustic painting, using the medium of hot beeswax, of sheep in snow.
It should also be mentioned that the Tivoli Artists Gallery is promoting the 16th annual Arts Studio Views tour, over Saturday and Sunday, Sept 2nd & 3rd, 11AM-5PM of Labor Day weekend 2023, when 30 artists in northern Dutchess and southern Columbia counties open their art studios to visitors. This is an annual event, free and open to the public, and is a “self-guided, family-friendly event designed to promote the artwork and talents of local artists in Northern Dutchess & Southern Columbia counties (Germantown, Hyde Park, Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Tivoli).”
[[Farm & Fields, Tivoli Artists Gallery, through Sept 10, 2023, 60 Broadway, Tivoli, NY, 845.757.2667, Hours: Friday 5:00-8:30PM, Saturday 12:00-8:00, Sunday 1:00-5:00PM and by appointment]
(Frank W. Barrie, 8/25/23)
