SPENCER FINCH LOST MAN CREEK
October 1, 2016 – March 11, 2018
SPENCER FINCH TO CREATE A MINIATURE REDWOOD FOREST IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
See the website of the exhibit at Public Art Fund for this description and more:
Lost Man Creek is a miniature forest. But rather than growing naturally and of its own accord, this undulating landscape populated by some 4,000 Dawn Redwoods is a recreation. Artist Spencer Finch partnered with the Save the Redwoods League to identify a 790-acre section of the protected Redwood National Park in California. Significantly scaling down the topography and tree canopy heights, he reimagined this corner of the California forest for MetroTech at a 1:100 scale. While the original trees range from 98 to 380 feet – taller than the buildings that surround the plaza – the trees in the installation are just one to four feet in height.
From the exhibit’s press release:
Public Art Fund and Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) present Spencer Finch: Lost Man Creek, an extraordinary new exhibition at MetroTech Commons that recreates, at a 1:100 scale, a 790-acre section of the Redwood National Park in California, one of the United States’ most treasured natural wonders. In this living artwork, Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch scales down the topography and tree canopy of his selected section, with trees that range from 98 to 380 feet becoming 1 to 4 feet in the installation. Finch’s miniature forest for Downtown Brooklyn will live in the eastern triangular lawn of MetroTech Commons, with a footprint measuring 4,500 square feet, and will feature some 4,000 young Dawn Redwoods. Visitors will be able to experience the work from a viewing platform installed on one side of the work, as well as from ground level, offering different perspectives of the work. Spencer Finch: Lost Man Creek is free to the public and on view October 1, 2016 through May 13, 2018 at MetroTech Commons, Downtown Brooklyn.
“Lost Man Creek reflects Finch’s fascination with activating the imagination through observation of natural phenomena,” said Public Art Fund Director and Chief Curator Nicholas Baume. “For many years he has explored the ineffable qualities of our ever-changing natural world through wide-ranging mediums, but this is his first use of living trees.”
To realize Lost Man Creek, Finch collaborated with the Save the Redwoods League, which provided details like topographical and canopy height maps of a select section of the protected, inaccessible forest. Utilizing these resources, Finch created a vision of the site at a 1:100 scale for MetroTech Commons. The miniature forest will flourish with the help of a specific planting and SPENCER FINCH LOST MAN CREEK October 1, 2016 – March 11, 2018 MetroTech Commons Downtown Brooklyn 2 of 3 irrigation system, designed to provide the trees with an optimum living environment within this urban context. When the exhibition closes, these trees will be rehoused.
“We are excited to team up with Public Art Fund for our 23rd year to bring beautiful art to MetroTech Commons,” said Ashley Cotton, Executive Vice President at FCRC. “The work of Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch will be on display for a year and a half, longer than any past installation that we have done with Public Art Fund, giving visitors an opportunity to fully engage with one of the world’s most renowned forests through the eyes of one of Brooklyn’s most highly regarded artists”.
At the core of Finch’s practice is an ongoing investigation into the nature of light, color, memory, and perception. The artist is known for transforming his own observations of a particular time or place into various media from painting, drawing, and photography to installation. Lost Man Creek references the fleeting and the temporal elements inherent in all areas of life, with the artist mining the observed world to create a poetic installation that speaks to a shared existence. Among previous projects are A Certain Slant of Light (2014-15), a large-scale installation at The Morgan Library & Museum inspired by its collection of medieval Books of Hours; Trying To Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning (2014), composed of 2,983 individual watercolors representing the artist’s recollection of the sky on September 11, 2001; There Is Another Sky (2014), which transformed a formerly dark alley into an urban forest sanctuary at South Lake Union, Seattle; Painting Air (2012), an installation of more than 100 panels of suspended glass inspired by the colors of Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny; and The River That Flows Both Ways (2009), a permanent installation composed of an existing series of windows transformed with 700 individual panes of glass representing the water conditions on the Hudson River over 700 minutes in a single day.
“Through both a scientific approach to gathering data—including precise measurements and record keeping—and a poetic sensibility, Finch’s works often inhabit the area between objective investigations of science and the subjectivity of lived experience,” said Associate Curator Emma Enderby, who organized the exhibition. “In a world where climate change is at the core of societal debates, Finch’s installation in the heart of one of the most urbanized neighborhoods of the city presents us with the universal reality of nature’s power to awe and inspire, and the importance to remember and protect such wonders.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, Spencer Finch will give a Public Art Fund Talk at The New School on November 16 where he will focus on his various public and large-scale installations.
This exhibition is curated by Public Art Fund Associate Curator Emma Enderby.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Spencer Finch (b. 1962, New Haven, Connecticut) lives and works in Brooklyn. Having exhibited extensively internationally, his solo shows and projects include Ulysses, Marfa Contemporary, Texas (2014); Colour/Temperature, Hanes Gallery, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC (2014); Spencer Finch: Yellow, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ (2014); A Certain Slant of Light, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (2014); The Skies can’t keep their secret, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2014); Painting Air, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI (2012); Lunar, The Art Institute of Chicago (2011); Rome, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA (2011); Between the light – and me, Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, MA (2011); My Business, With the Cloud, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2010); Evening Star, Pallant House, Chichester, UK (2010); Between The Moon and The Sea, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France (2010); and As if the sea 3 of 3 should part and show a further sea, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2009). He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions including Light and Landscape, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York (2012); NEON, La material luminosa dell’arte, MACRO, Rome (2012); More Light, Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle, The Netherlands (2011); Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Making Worlds: 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2009); 50 Moons of Saturn, Turin Triennial (2008); Refract, Reflect, Project: Light Work from the Collection, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2007); Light Art from Artificial Light, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany (2005); and Colour After Klein, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2005). His work can be found in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA; the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Spencer Finch is represented by James Cohan Gallery in New York, Lisson Gallery in London, Galerie Nordenhake in Berlin, and Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago.
VISITING THE EXHIBITION With a focus on exhibitions featuring new commissions, past Public Art Fund exhibitions at MetroTech Commons have included artists like Vito Acconci, Martin Basher, Chakaia Booker, Matthew Day Jackson, Esther Kläs, Ryan McGinness, Dave McKenzie, Jason Middlebrook, Adam Pendleton, Erin Shirreff, Valeska Soares, Do-Ho Suh, Katharina Grosse, Sam Falls, and most recently, Hank Willis Thomas. MetroTech Commons is located in Downtown Brooklyn between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle Avenue. Viewing hours are dawn to dusk daily. Subways: A, C, F, R to Jay Street – MetroTech, exit at Myrtle Promenade. SUPPORT Spencer Finch: Lost Man Creek at MetroTech Commons is part of an ongoing program organized by Public Art Fund, and sponsored by MetroTech Commons Associates and MetroTech companies including Forest City Ratner Companies, JPMorganChase, National Grid, WellChoice, and Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Special thanks to Forest City Ratner Companies and First New York Partners. Special assistance generously provided by Kolkowitz Kusske | ALA. This exhibition is also supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
ABOUT PUBLIC ART FUND As the leader in its field, Public Art Fund brings dynamic contemporary art to a broad audience in New York City and beyond by mounting ambitious free exhibitions of international scope and impact that offer the public powerful experiences with art and the urban environment.
MEDIA CONTACTS Kellie Honeycutt | 212.223.7810 | khoneycutt@publicartfund.org Sandrine Milet | 212.223.7074 | smilet@publicartfund.org Photo: Micah Bozeman, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY
