Date: Fri 17-Sep-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Barbata-Wave-Hill

Full Text:

Wave Hill Premiers Art In Woodland An Installation By Laura Anderson Barbata

(with 2 cuts)

BRONX, N.Y. -- This fall, Wave Hill will premier a new program of

site-specific art in the landscape. Through "generated@wavehill," an artist is

invited to create an outdoor art installation at this 28-acre public garden

and cultural center in the Bronx.

Wave Hill's Visual Arts curator, Jennifer McGregor, notes, "Installations will

be inspired by the natural surroundings and will frame visitors' experiences

of the landscape... In this way, Wave Hill will be a laboratory for the

artist, a place for posing questions."

The program also integrates the visual arts with Wave Hill's education

programs, in order to offer visitors an even more rewarding experience of the

natural world.

The pilot project of "generated@wavehill" is an installation by Mexican artist

Laura Anderson Barbata, entitled "Infinity of Traces/Infinidad de Trazos." The

public opening will be held on Saturday, September 18, from 1 to 4 pm and the

work will be on view through November 14.

Ms Barbata will weave a series of installations through Wave Hill's ten-acre

Abrons Woodland to engage the visitor through physical and conceptual

metaphor. "The woodland environment provides points of reference,

opportunities to reflect upon those traces within ourselves while

contemplating the multitude of lives and paths drawn out by nature," says Ms

Barbata. One may be drawn into the woodlands by an ethereal path of flower

petals, introduced to indigenous languages of the Bronx in a "reunion circle"

of fallen tree trunks, or engaged by masses of birdhouses representing local

native birds and their migration patterns.

The woodland by its very nature implies a relationship to natural form and

occurrences that are larger than ourselves. Through "Infinity of Traces," Ms

Barbata is transforming Wave Hill's woodland so that we look inward instead,

reflecting on our own personal interconnectedness with the environment.

Members of the Forest Project Summer Collaborative (Wave Hill's environmental

education program for Bronx high school students) will be assisting Ms Barbata

with the installation. By working with the artist, they will be exposed to a

new interpretation of the woodlands.

Born in Mexico and a resident of New York City, Laura Anderson Barbata's

diverse body of work includes drawings, paintings, photography, papermaking,

canoe-building projects in Venezuela, and mixed-media sculpture. Much of her

art is informed by seven years of work preserving the languages of the Amazon

through Venezuelan community art projects.

Ms Barbata's installations often explore the loss of identity through the loss

of language, a theme that she will further develop at Wave Hill. She is the

recent recipient of a three-year artists grant from the National Fund for

Culture and Arts of Mexico.

The Galeria Ramis Barquet on 57th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan will

be presenting an exhibition of related works by Laura Anderson Barbata through

October 9. Entitled "Traces of Infinity/Trazos del Infinito," the exhibition

will explore "the interior spaces of the self."

Wave Hill is a 28-acre public garden and cultural institution overlooking the

Hudson River and Palisades in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Award-winning gardens, greenhouses, and woodlands offer people of all ages the

opportunity to explore their connections to the natural world. Programs are

offered in horticulture, environmental education, land management, landscape

history, and the performing, visual, and literary arts.

Operated by an independent non-profit cultural organization, Wave Hill's

buildings and grounds are owned by the City of New York. With assistance from

the Bronx Borough president and Bronx representatives in the City Council and

State Legislature, Wave Hill's operation is supported with public funds

through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State

Council on the Arts, the Natural Heritage Trust, and the New York State

Department of Environmental Conservation. Foundations, corporations, and

individuals also contribute vital support.

Hours through October 14 are Tuesday through Sunday, 9 am to 5:30 pm;

Wednesday, 9 am to dusk. Hours October 15 to April 14 are Tuesday through

Sunday, 9 am to 4:30 pm. Wave Hill is located at West 249th Street and

Independence Avenue. Telephone 718/549-3200.