SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – An ingenious show of rare antique maps and contemporary artwork opened at Skidmore’s Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday, March 3. The show, which is the Tang’s third since its October opening is entitled “The World According to the Newest and Most Exact Observations: Mapping Art and Science.” The show appeals to fans of antique maps as well as contemporary art or just anyone interested in seeing the original Watson and Crick model of the DNA double helix.
The show is a collaboration of diverse ideas brought forth by Susan Bender, professor of Anthropology (Skidmore), Bernard Possidente, professor of biology (Skidmore), Richard Wilkinson, professor of anthropology (SUNY Albany), Skidmore College and Tang curator, Ian Berry. “Mapping Art and Science” highlights the process of defining space, mapping space, recording space, and interpreting space.
Rare maps from the Saratoga Springs area helped anchor the show in the here and now of March and served as a starting point for the show. The Saratoga maps included an 1810 map of the Gideon Putnam property, a 1887 Northumberland-Saratoga Lake map, an 1881 map of Saratoga Springs and Excelsior Park by Henry Lawrence, a 1907 map of drives of Saratoga Springs by the Lester Brothers, and a 1879 Cramer and Mott map of the Kayaderosseras Patent.
A 1755 French map of Ohio, New England, New York and Pennsylvania by Robert De Vaugondy was nearby, as was a 1711 map belonging to Queen Anne to Walter Douglass by Herman Moll, geographer. The Queen Anne map was a “new and exact map of the dominions of the king of Great Britain of the continent of North America.”
A featured scrimshaw map of the Hudson River from New York to Albany was drawn on an Eighteenth Century powder horn. The piece proved that a map can be drawn anywhere at anytime. The piece was on loan from the Library of Congress.
Old maps were not restricted to just recording land. An early print of the “Arterial System of Man,” a life size color chart of the muscular and circulatory system, a 1947 Knapton-Londini print of a skeleton with rhinoceros, and a page from a Vedic text mapped man and his parts.
Maps in the round were represented by an 1850 Franklin improved celestial globe with new constellations on loan from New York State Museum.
Mapping entering the technology age could be seen in the original wire model of the DNA double helix on loan from the Cold Harbor Lab. The piece was reported to come right form researcher Watson’s desk. Nearby a computer chip from the human genome project was hung on the wall, on loan from Yeshiva University.
Contemporary mapping spoke up at the Tang with a fascinating sphere construction with painted interior by artist Joyce Kozloff. The piece entitled, “Targets 2000” had a natural wood exterior held together by large metallic bolts. The interior was brightly painted segments of maps done in acrylic paint. Museum staff invited show goers to walk inside the sphere. Once inside, the energy changed dramatically both visually and physically. The sphere’s interior was a series of tightly pulled curved canvas maps.
The canvases caused a reverberation or echo if someone spoke. That effect could be heard as well as felt on the body. Lisa Palmero of Saratoga Springs said of the energy of the sphere “you could feel it in our chest, you could feel the air change as you breathed in.” Museum workers said the effect inside the 108-inch sphere was all-natural and the piece was not electrified to create the effect. Joyce Kozloff first gained recognition in the 1970s as a feminist artist. Her work is on display in many public places throughout the country.
Kozloff continued the sphere concept with three small painted globes entitled “Knowledge #75” and “#78.” The globes were a mix of gesso, watercolor and acrylic paint. The way the paint was applied on one of the globes was reminiscent of pointillism. Kozloff’s globes were displayed next to the 1850 antique globe of constellations and seemed to suggest that where there were similarities between the globes, the differences were greater. The painted globes were on loan from the artist gallery and D.C. Gallery.
Sam Easterson’s video piece entitled “Memories of Manhattan From a Millennium Ago,” presented an animals point of view or the way an animal mapped its environment. A taxidermy wolf, deer, and lobster was fitted with video equipment so the observer could see their point of view on a television screen positioned overhead. The animals sat in a myriad of bright green cabling shaped to represent the Island of Manhattan.
Wim Delvoye’s “Svikxonia ’92” was a map of unusual material and of an unusual size. His brightly colored piece filled with names and map places were actually a silkscreen on a PVC tarp. Delvoye left the grommets on the edge of the tarp so the piece can be wrapped around an object and tied down. The piece does not have to remain flat like the antique maps found in the show.
Artists John McQueen likes to reduce places to sculpture. This way his sculptures become the map. In his 6-foot brown snake-like piece entitled “Up the Nile ’95,” McQueen reduces the Nile River sculpture. The long piece is made of bark and thread. Natural materials are McQueen’s hallmark. Using bark and thread again, McQueen transforms Lake Michigan into a three dimensional wall hanging. “Up the Nile ’95” is on loan from the collection of Robert Plannebecker, while “Lake Michigan” is from the collection of the artist.
British painter Matthew Ritchie explores space in the Tang Show with his large gray painting entitled “Prelapse, 1995.” In the painting, Ritchie reveals his view of the chaos theory with large yellow shapes highlighted in black marker. Artist Nina Katchadourian uses maps from all around the world to show us how small the world has become. Her “Map Dissectional 1991-97” is projected on the wall’s surface and is made of excised paper mat between glass.
Wenyon and Gamble showed “Haystack in Radome” a kind of self mapping with a telescope. This long iris print on tyvek was courtesy of the artist. Theodore Coulombe and Alan Krathaus showed their cibachrome print, “Air to Ground Triangulation, Bridgehampton, N.Y.” to remind us that some of the best maps are still photographs.
The “World According to the Newest and Most Exact Observation: Mapping Art and Science” runs through June 3, at Skidmore College’s Tang Gallery. Hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm. For information, 518-580-8080.
