Marianna Williams

MAIN GALLERY

DIRECT FLEX: NORTH OF EVERYTHING

MARIANNA WILLIAMS

January 16 – February 27, 2015

On January 16, 2015, the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art will present Direct Flex: North of Everything by artist Marianna Williams. The exhibition will include a variety of work offering viewers a unique perspective into the environment and life of the Arctic. 

 In September and October of 2013 Williams sailed from the Greenland Sea side of Svalbard, Norway, into the Arctic Ocean en route to the North Pole. The ship matched, perhaps, the dimensions of the Main Gallery of the Gertrude Herbert, although the waves and ice that surrounded at times climbed to the scale of the entire building. The Arctic is simultaneously an isolating and expansive environment, which forced her crew of 27 - plus one dog – to rely on not just their eyes, which could easily be seduced by an Arctic mirage, but on all of their senses. They needed more than just sea legs; they needed sea eyes, hands, ears, and some sort of awareness of a moment by moment life.

 The works for the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art have been specifically constructed so that visitors to the gallery may, if they choose, navigate, hear, see, and without touching, get a multi-sensory feel for:

  • Daily life on a very warm boat in a very cold place (i.e. life in the middle of the ocean, North of Everything);
  • A landscape ecology that is still developing - as though it were human, too;
  • The skeleton of an abandoned Russian settlement, which also just happens to be the northernmost Cold War Frontier

Fact or fiction? See you at the opening on January 16!

Opening reception and artist talk, Friday January 16, 2015, 6-8 p.m.

 

Admission is free

Schedule
Friday, January 16, 2015 - 6:00pm to Friday, February 27, 2015 - 5:00pm
Location
Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art