Page 10 - Boca Club News - December '19

Page 10, Boca Club News
“Waves” and “Tree of Knowledge”: Nature’s Power

Unleashed For Boca Raton Museum

of Art’s Bold New 70th Season

The power of nature is unleashed with two timely, These waves invoke the power of wind as well
powerful exhibitions at the Boca Raton Museum of Art as the power of water, the great cyclical forces
for the new season. Both of these original shows ─ Maren of nature that generate energy.
Hassinger: Tree of Knowledge and Clifford Ross: Waves ─ This major survey includes his monumental
will kick off the museum’s 70th anniversary season. hurricane wave images. The exhibition also
The museum is presenting both exhibitions together features a site-specific installation of extremely
through March 1st, because the two shows sound a clarion large-scale prints on wood, as well as the artist’s
call for environmental awareness. These shows also remind Digital Waves --a computer generated video
viewers that the beauty of nature can still inspire us, despite displayed on an LED wall that has been acquired
the over-saturation of society by hand-held devices and by the museum for its collection.
screens. Renowned sculptor and performance artist
The two exhibitions are presented side-by-side in Maren Hassinger was commissioned by the
adjoining galleries. museum for a residency that explored the staying
power of nearby Pearl City, Boca Raton’s historic
African-American neighborhood.
Her exhibition at the museum, “Tree
of Knowledge,” is the largest installation (Left) A portion of the actual tree. (Right) The public’s paper coils
that Hassinger has ever created in her long interpretation of the tree.
and celebrated career. Her new site-specific
installation is based on Pearl City’s landmark, the majestic point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity. This
100-year-old banyan tree that still stands today and is year, the leading scientists of the world warned that civilization
protected by the Historic Preservation laws. The tree has was in jeopardy due to forest clearance, over-usage of land,
served the people of Pearl City since the dawn of the 20th climate change, and pollution, putting a million species at risk
century as a gathering place for sharing stories and communal of extinction.
spirit and is the inspiration for her artwork here. “Both adults and children from the community welcomed
Hassinger vigorously engaged the public to recreate the my project with enthusiasm and proceeded to twist and twist
tree’s aerial roots by gathering many groups over several to create the aerial branches. Their enthusiasm and spirit of
Hurricane months. People from the community and visitors to the camaraderie is uplifting and contagious,” says Hassinger.
museum spent hundreds of hours twisting by hand thousands Paper is a natural material, made from trees, and throughout
The Clifford Ross exhibition features a new approach of recycled newspapers. Thousands of recycled newspapers the installation there will be fans that evoke the wind blowing
to his monumental depictions of ocean waves that the were twisted to mimic the aerial roots of the banyan tree for gently through nature, as opposed to the hurricane winds of
artist captures during extreme weather. The result is the her new installation. Ross’s work.
most comprehensive survey of his process ever shown in These banyan “branches” are suspended from the ceiling Hassinger ’s new
a museum. While it explores the limits of photography and of the main gallery, representing the community-based exhibition will also feature
abstraction, this exhibition is also a dramatic declaration “Creation-Stations.” The participants’ names are incorporated the installation “Love”
about climate change. into the monumental new work. --an experiential portal for
Ross dramatically presents the monstrous power of the “I want visitors to the museum to think about the endurance visitors to walk through.
seas in his new exhibition at a crucial moment in time for of the tree and the endurance of the people who live beside As the entranceway
our planet: The United Nations recently issued a major new it,” said the artist. “I hope they realize it’s possible to build into the museum’s main
report warning that the dangerous effects of climate change a world in which, like this installation, people work together galleries, it will surround
on our oceans is much worse than previously thought. The side by side. Both the tree and the residents have inspired me visitors with hundreds of
new findings warn about warming oceans and damaged with their mutual endurance.” recycled pink plastic bags
ecosystems. Sea levels are rising faster than previously In new reports, the United Nations warns that fires such as that will completely cover
predicted, glaciers and ice sheets melting more rapidly than those causing de-forestation in the Amazon elevate concerns all of the surfaces around
expected, shrinking the fisheries that feed millions. for the planet’s natural life support systems. This global call them. The shopping bags
The new report warns that many cities around the to action urges countries, companies and consumers to build are filled with the air of
world will experience annual flooding events by 2050 that a new relationship with nature. human breath, and contain
previously occurred only once per century. The world’s The destruction of the world’s largest rainforest calls human love notes inside.
oceans have been warming since 1970 and have absorbed 90 attention to the need to prevent ecosystems from declining to a LOVE pink plastic bags
percent of the planet’s excess heat, killing off vast stretches
of coral reefs. Absorbing massive amounts of carbon has
made the ocean more acidic and inhospitable to corals that
millions of species depend on for survival.
“When I first began photographing these hurricane waves
30 years ago, most of us were unaware that global warming
was seriously damaging our oceans,” said Clifford Ross.
“Now, as I look back on my work, it takes on a whole new
meaning.”
The size of these images is humbling. The angle of vision, Do you know a family member,
from as low as possible, is calculated to inspire awe. The
waves dominate us, framed or cropped; we feel their full force. friend or a neighbor in need of
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