Trees in the Forest July 23–Sept. 2, 2016 Curated by Kari Rittenbach

Home , Bernice Bing, Beverly Buchanan, David Askevold, Rainbow (sculpture)

Stereo view high above the Columbia River at former Indian campsite. Carleton E. Watkins, Courtesy Oregon Historical Society (bb014690) TREES IN THE FOREST JULY 23–SEPT. 2, 2016 CURATED BY KARI RITTENBACH

Andrei Koschmieder, Plant on radiator (if the phone rings...), detail, 2012. Courtesy the artist and Real Fine Arts, New York

Martha Rosler, Seattle: Hidden Histories, 1991–95. Courtesy the artist and York Arts Intermix, New Electronic 84” x 84” x 8” diameter © Jackie Winsor. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Courtesy the artists detail, 2016. , 1971-72. Wood and twine. , 1971-72. Wood Bound Grid Nina Könnemann, Madagascar, 2004. Courtesy the artist Toyota Sunflower, Sunflower, Toyota Jackie Winsor, Jackie Winsor,

(1995), XP (2001), Vista (2006), 7 (2009), 2016

Real Life magazine #19, Winter 1989 Jen Shear & Vinnie Smith, Jen Shear & Vinnie Windows Disclaimer: 95 Windows Courtesy the artist and 47 Canal, New York Courtesy the artist and 47 Canal, New Elise Duryee-Browner, Elise Duryee-Browner, Martin Beck, video still from The Environmental Witch-Hunt, 2008.

Charles Gaines, Trisha Brown Dance, Set 7, 1980–1981, Cibachrome photographs, ink on Strathmore paper. Set of 4 small drawings, 2 large drawings and 2 photographs. Small drawings: 11” x 19 YU Tim Young & Ben Blackwell Young Tim

YALE UNION 800 SE 10th Ave Portland, Oregon 97214 Courtesy the artist. Photos:

Howard Fried, Fireman’s Conflict Resolution #4 and Fireman’s Conflict Resolution #5, 1982. Los Angeles Projects Los Vielmetter Susanne and York New Gallery, Cooper Paula Courtesy Gaines. Charles © each 20” x 16” photographs: & drawings large each, 1/2” David Askevold, video still from Beverly Buchanan, UAB Arts Gallery Exhibition Pamphlet, Beverly Buchanan: Sculpture, 1982. Courtesy the Estate of Beverly Buchanan Bernice Bing, September 1965. Don’t Eat Crow , 1994. Courtesy the Estate of Bernice Bing Courtesy David Askevold Estate and CANADA, New York Courtesy the Estate of Carlos Villa DAVID ASKEVOLD CHARLES GAINES CARLETON WATKINS b. 1940, Conrad, Montana BERNICE BING black and white photograph, 1981 b. 1944, Charleston, South Carolina b. 1829, Oneonta, New York b. 1936, San Francisco, California d. 2008, Halifax, Nova Scotia 22 7 7/8 x 10 in. (20 x 25.4 cm) “If culture is created by cutting, cropping and merging, a d. 1916, Napa, California d. 1998, Philo, California Walnut Tree Orchard: Set 9, 1975–2014 bonsai tree is the highest form of explosive DNA, Nova Scotia Fires, 1969 Guggenheim Fellowship Report, 1981/2016 31 Black & white photograph, ink on paper sublimating itself like an ascetic monk in the tight corset Watkins’ Pacific Coast, 1274: Lotus Sutra I, early to mid-1980s 1 16 mm converted to digital video, color, mono sound 23 Booklet of black and white photographs and text, photograph: 29 x 23 in. (73.7 x 58.4 cm) of its limited growth. In everlasting childhood like ‘the 51 Islands in the Columbia, from the Upper Cascades, 1867 8 Acrylic pigment and gouache on rag board 2:30 min. typewritten on translucent paper with color cover; Two drawings, each: 29 x 23 in. (73.7 x 58.4 cm) boy who never wanted to grow up,’ planted in little pots Stereoview card mounted to masonite reprinted from photocopy Frame: 31 3/4 x 25 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (80.6 x 64.8 x 3.8 cm) for offshoots, the bonsai’s aura of innocence is 3 1/2 x 7 in. (8.9 x 17.8 cm) Framed, 37 x 25 in. (94 x 63.5 cm) My Recall of an Imprint from a Hypothetical Jungle, 1973 11 x 8 1/2 in. (28 x 21.6 cm) Overall: 31 3/4 x 80 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (80.6 x 204.5 x 3.8 cm) preserved by its forced state of Zen. As a highly 2 videotape, black & white, sound advanced post-tree it resorts to posing and sending Untitled (Asanas), c. 1990 5:30 min. Southern House, undated Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York ornamental vibes instead of giving in to its natural Watkins’ Pacific Coast, 1257: 9 24 1 52 Series of 16 drawings black and white photograph impulses.” The Garrison, Cascades, Columbia River, 1867 Ink on paper Don’t Eat Crow, 1994 15 7/8 x 20 in. (40.3 x 50.8 cm) Stereoview card Each 18 x 12 in. (45.7 x 55.9 cm) 3 videotape, color, sound 3 1/2 x 7 in. (8.9 x 17.8 cm) 29:00 min. Mary Lou Furcron’s, 1989–90 NINA KÖNNEMANN 1. Exhibition press release for “Andrei Koschmieder: Untitled (Trees), c. 1990 25 color photograph b. 1971, Bonn, Germany 10 Set of 4 drawings Rainbow” at Dold Projects, Sankt Georgen, Germany. Childhood Drawings Surrounded, 2001–2004 15 7/8 x 20 in. (40.3 x 50.8 cm) JACKIE WINSOR Ink on paper August 23–September 29, 2013. 4 Pigmented inkjet on paper M.U.D., 2000 b. 1941, St. John’s, Newfoundland Each 18 x 12 in. (45.7 x 55.9 cm) Triptych: 24 x 24 in. (60.96 x 60.96 cm) each Courtesy the Estate of Beverly Buchanan 32 Color video, sound Edition of 3 8:00 min. 30 to 1 Bound Trees, 1971–72 (destroyed 1972) Courtesy the Estate of Bernice Bing 1 tree, 30 saplings, hemp rope Early Morning Lessons, 2004 240 x 60 in. diameter (610 x 152.4 cm diameter) Courtesy David Askevold Estate and CANADA, New York 33 16mm transferred to video, black and white, silent 2:00 min. TRISHA BROWN ELISE DURYEE-BROWNER 53 30 to 1 Bound Trees in process, 1971/2016 b. 1936, Aberdeen, Washington b. 1985, San Francisco, California 34 The Fence, 2008 MARTHA ROSLER 8 archival pigment prints 16mm transferred to video, color, silent b. 1943, Brooklyn, New York Each approximately 47 x 39 in. (119.4 x 99 cm) La Chanteuse (1963) GovtOS, 2016 1:36 min. 11 26 Metal and stained glass Performed at The Walker Art Center, 1974 Lithic Reductions, 2015 and 2016 43 Seattle: Hidden Histories, 1991–95 54 Banner for 30 to 1 Bound Trees, 2016 Open reel transferred to digital video 22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm) 35 Sanitary porcelain 13 public service announcements intended for commercial Vinyl 0:53 min. 17 pieces, dimensions variable television broadcast 264 x 60 in. (670.6 x 152.4 cm) MARTIN BECK Courtesy the artist Color video, sound Photo: Brian Forrest b. 1963, Bludenz, Austria 12 Falling Duet 1 (1968) Courtesy the artist Each 1:00 min Performed at The Walker Art Center, 1974 Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Open reel transferred to digital video “The ethnohistorical observations of stone-using Courtesy the artist and Electronic Arts Intermix, New York June 14–19, 1970, 2008 In this series of eight photographs, 5 1:53 min. societies illustrate that women both make and use 24 page booklet, altered cover Jackie Winsor can be seen installing her stone tools … in at least one instance, a compan- 11 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (29.2 x 22.2 cm) post-minimal column-sculpture in the Spiral (1974) ion to the Lewis and Clark expedition reported 13 woods of Purcell’s Cove near Halifax. Performed in Loring Park, Minneapolis, 1974 seeing ‘squaws chipping flakes into small arrow Aspen (“Man-Made Environment”– Ivan Chermayeff The film was shot brusquely, as the work 6 Open reel transferrred to digital video points, holding the flake in their left hand, grasped for Reyner Banham for IDCA) itself was carried out, in anticipation Aspen (“Problems, Problems”– Ivan Chermayeff for 2:33 min. between a piece of bent leather, and chipping off JEN SHEAR & VINNIE SMITH HOWARD FRIED b. 1987, Taipei, Taiwan of a coming December storm. Archival Reyner Banham for IDCA) small flakes by pressure, using a small pointed b. 1946, Cleveland, Ohio b. 1987, Los Angeles, California prints made from the original exposures Aspen (“Beetle Country”– Ivan Chermayeff for Courtesy Walker Art Center Archives bone in the right hand for that purpose’ (Holmes 1 are exhibited here for the first time. The Reyner Banham for IDCA) Fireman’s Conflict Resolution #6, 2016 1919: 316).” 27 Toyota Sunflower, 2016 full color, 1:1 scale banner print is a Aspen (“The Orders of Freedom”– Ivan Chermayeff 2 hemlock ladders, steel pipe, grease, 2x4s and 44 contemporary reproduction of the same “Producing expedient tools requires only a single Found objects, fishing wire, concrete for Reyner Banham for IDCA) drywall sculpture, reconstructed in 2016 in a blow to a core and virtually no time at all. Even 96 x 60 x 60 in. (243.8 x 152.4 x 152.4 cm) Aspen (“Polarization”– Ivan Chermayeff for Reyner PETER MOORE Approx. 180 x 48 x 120 in. (457.2 x 121.9 x desert environment foreign to its original Banham for IDCA), 2008 304.8 cm) working formalized tools is not time consuming: b. 1932, London, England Courtesy the artists stand. Set of five framed serigraphs d. 1993, New York, New York Wall: 144 x 480 in. (356.8 x 1219.2 cm) an ‘average sized’ projectile point is finished by a Each 18 3/8 x 13 5/8 in. (46.7 × 34.6 cm) practiced knapper in about 30 minutes (Holmes 2 Untitled (“Skunk Cabbage, Salt Grass and Waders” Fireman’s Conflict Resolution, 1978 1919: 313 and 328).” This collaborative sculpture is a three-dimen- The Environmental Witch-Hunt, 2008 14 by Trisha Brown), 1967 28 Four text pages describing three performance sional collage reflecting travels through a partic- KARI RITTENBACH is a critic and 1. Joan M. Gero, “Genderlithics: Women’s Roles HD digital video, color, sound gelatin silver print scenarios ular environment and way of life steeped in the independent curator based in Brooklyn, New York. She in Stone Tool Production.” In Joan M. Gero and 10:02 min. 6 x 9 in. (15.2 x 22.9 cm) IBM executive drawing, correction fluid counter-cultural histories of the San Francisco is a graduate of Yale University, the Courtauld Institute Margaret W. Conkey, ed. Engendering Archaeol- Screening, August 19, 2016, 8pm Each 8 1/2 x 12 in. (21.6 x 30.5 cm) Bay Area (from Jess and Robert Duncan to V. of Art, and the Whitney Independent Study Program. * Untitled (“Skunk Cabbage, Salt Grass, and Waders” ogy: Women and Prehistory. Oxford: Blackwell, Vale) with an injection of contemporary dime- Her writing has appeared in Afterall, Artforum, Art 15 1991: p. 170. Courtesy the artist and 47 Canal, New York by Trisha Brown), 1967 The Edge of the Forest: Keystone 1, 2016 store trash culture set against a more delicate Papers, Frieze, Paper Monument, May Revue, and Texte 2. Ibid., p. 171. Gelatin silver print 29 2 hemlock ladders, steel pipe, grease feeling for wabi-sabi. zur Kunst, and in artist books and exhibition catalogues. 10 1/4 x 7 in. (26 x 17.8 cm) Approx. 180 x 48 x 120 in. (457.2 x 121.9 x 304.8 cm) She has organized events and exhibitions at The Kitchen “Diversity of the cultural ecology is a desirable (New York), The Whitney Museum (New York), Sculpture Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New Courtesy the artist and The Box, Los Angeles state of affairs, especially in opposition to the Center (New York), Artists Space (New York), Barbican York ANDREI KOSCHMIEDER accelerating trend toward the uniform digita- Art Gallery (London), and at other institutions in New lization of all sensory experience, wherein an York, London, and Berlin. ELI NOYES & b. 1980, Frankfurt, Germany electronic ‘reader’ stands between experience and observation, and all manifestation is encod- CLAUDIA WEILL 36 Untitled (handsonhardcore), 2013 ed identically.”1 b. 1942, Amherst, Massachusetts Inkjet dye on mulberry paper THANK YOU b. 1947, New York, New York TONY GREENE & 37 x 25 1/4 in. (94 x 64 cm) 1. Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, To all of the participating artists, without whose generous BEVERLY BUCHANAN Untitled (realitykings), 2013 collaboration this exhibition would not have been IDCA 70,1970 RICHARD HAWKINS Designers, Poets & Philosophers. Berkeley, CA: 7 b. 1940, Fuquay, North Carolina 37 Inkjet dye on mulberry paper Stone Bridge Press, 1992: p. 8. possible. And also to Anthony Allen, Paula Cooper, 16 mm transferred to DVD, color, sound b. 1955, San Francisco, California d. 2015, Ann Arbor, Michigan 60 x 36 in. (152.4 x 91.44 cm) Laura Hunt, Blair Moll and Jan Riley at Paula Cooper 22 min. d. 1990, Los Angeles, California Gallery, New York; Harold Batista; David Birkin at Frustula: Wall Fragments & Slab Works, c. 1978–1980 38 Untitled (CFNM18), 2013 Martha Rosler Studio; Sarah Braman, Emily Davidson, Courtesy Eli Noyes cast concrete sculpture with acrylic paint b. 1961, Mexia, Texas Inkjet dye on mulberry paper Matthew Flaherty and Phil Grauer at CANADA, New dimensions unknown 36 x 58 in. (91.44 x 147.32 cm) York; Mike Bray at Ditch Projects, Springfield; Bridge Excerpts from Martin Beck’s work examining An Offering of Works, 1989 Untitled (plant on radiator - sad plant), 2016 City Steel, Portland; Jane D. Bridges; Andy Buchanan social and historical developments in design, black and white photograph, undated 30 Artist insert, Real Life magazine #19 39 CARLOS VILLA 16 Paper, Fabric, inkjet dye, acrylic paint, spray paint b. 1936, San Francisco, California at VPI Tool and Machine, Benicia; Benjamin Buchloh; Panel 2 — “Nothing better than a touch of 3 3/8 x 4 15/16 in. (8.6 x 12.5 cm) Black & white photocopy 43.5 x 29 x 8.5 in. (110.5 x 73.7 x 21.6 cm) d. 2013, San Francisco, California Jennifer Burris; Lenore Chinn; Tony Chrenka; Liam ecology and catastrophe to unite the social Page size: 11 x 8 1/4 in. (27.9 x 21 cm) Considine; Celina Contreras de Berenfeld; Elliot Cost; classes...” (2008–2009) focus on events color photograph, 1980 40 Untitled 1 (trash can series), 2016 Untitled (Spiral Drawing), c. 1960s Monica Crozier, at the Whitney Museum of American Art; surrounding the International Design Confer- 17 3 1/2 x 5 in. (8.9 x 12.7 cm) Collection of Jason Simon, New York Paper, glue, gloss spray, inkjet dye, spray paint 45 36 x 24 x 20 in. (91.4 x 61 x 50.8 cm) Colored pencil on paper Tyler Dobson, Doris Guo and Ben Morgan-Cleveland ence, held annually in Aspen, Colorado during 24 x 18 in. (61 x 45.7cm) at Real Fine Arts, New York; Joaquin Dollar, Chiara a moment of countercultural backlash against Slab Works, c. 1978–1980 “Dripping from upstairs and seeping in from below, Untitled 2 (trash can series), 2016 Giovando, Elise Kesselring, Zac Kresl, Neville Radon, 41 Untitled (Feather Painting), 1978 the mid-century hegemony of modernist cast concrete sculpture with acrylic paint the ooze of Tony Greene’s canvases muffles the Paper, glue, gloss spray, inkjet dye, spray paint 46 August Stanley and Camille Westerberg, Yale Union Unstretched canvas, oil, feathers principles. The topic of the 1970 conference, dimensions unknown roar of its own extinction. Ornaments become 37 x 25 x 21 in. (94 x 63.5 x 53.3 cm) Volunteers; Brian Forrest; Shawna Gandy and Scott 25 x 31 x 3 in. (63.5 x 78.7 x 7.6 cm) “Environment by Design,” was met with harsh blistering sores, torsos become plants, and Rook at Oregon Historical Society; Gilbertson Machine Untitled (flying trash cans), 2016 criticisms by conference attendees then ques- black and white photograph, undated fragments become alphabets … Referring, even Shop Inc., Portland; Brian Isobe at FM Artist’s Services, 42 Spray paint, paper, glue, balloons, helium Surrender Monkey, 1979–80 tioning the social implications of design and 18 3 3/8 x 5 1/8 in. (8.6 x 13 cm) degenerating, to pre-modernist roots, this work 47 San Francisco; Aaron Flint Jamison; Mark Johnson at Dimensions variable Aluminum, rope, feathers, paper pulp development in a newly global context. The challenges critical postmodernism in its capacity 39 x 36 x 36 in. (99 x 91 x 91 cm) San Francisco State University; Jamie Kenyon, Margaret film by Eli Noyes and Claudia Weill portrays black and white photograph, undated to figure illness, sexuality and death. This is work Lee and Oliver Newton at 47 Canal, New York; Park 19 Courtesy the artist and Real Fine Arts, New York Performance Monkey, 1986–88 formal panels and informal actions throughout 5 x 3 3/8 in. (12.7 x 8.6 cm) on AIDS that is neither oppositional nor critical. 48 Aluminum, rope, feathers, paper pulp McArthur; Mara McCarthy and Jacqueline Tarquinio at the weekend. Various documents, proposals, If anything it is integral, inhabiting the mythology 39 x 36 x 36 in. (99 x 91 x 91 cm) The Box, Los Angeles; Karl McCool at Electronic Arts and manifestos generated from the eventful Marsh Ruins, 1981 of the disease, the echoing corridors and ‘interior Intermix, New York; McCoy Millwork, Portland; Mack Andrei Koschmieder’s sculptures are, materially, proceedings are compiled together in Beck’s concrete and tabby design’ of desire and abjection.”1 McFarland at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland; not always what they seem. His drawings and Performance Monkey, 1986–88 booklet. His silkscreen aspen-leaf prints are site-specific installation Cherry Montejo at Trisha Brown Dance Company; Dan other paper-based works are produced through 49 Aluminum, rope, feathers, paper pulp modeled after the patterns designed by Ivan Marshes of Glynn, Brunswick, Georgia Nicholson; Cameron and Kirsten Norgate; Oregon Blue uniquely developed 3D “printing” processes 39 x 36 x 36 in. (99 x 91 x 91 cm) Chermayeff for the chapter headings in archi- Print, Portland; Scott Ponik; Mary Potter at InFocus, 1. Matias Viegener, “Creature of the Black resembling both frottage and press mold tech- tectural critic Reyner Banham’s book on the color photograph, 1981 Untitled (Tree Rings), 2006 Portland; Lisa Radon; Fe and Leroy Rittenbach; Moira Lagoon.” In Richard Hawkins, ed. Exhausted niques. The same graceful hand construction is historical legacy of the conference (The Aspen 20 3 3/8 x 4 3/4 in. (8.6 x 12.1 cm) 50 Scored and painted plywood Roth at Mills College; Jason Simon; Sarah Stephenson; Autumn: A Collection of Fiction, Criticism and applied to the wrinkle on what appears to be a Papers: Twenty Years of Design Theory from 24 x 14 in. (61 x 35.6 cm) Nicholas Strobelt and Michael Van Horn at the University Testimony, Los Angeles: Los Angeles Contempo- plastic bag, as to the ostensibly dehydrated tendril the International Design Conference in Aspen, black and white photograph, 1981 of Washington; Jason Thackeray; Mary and Rio Valledor; rary Exhibitions, 1991: p. 66. of a neglected houseplant. London: Pall Mall Press, 1974.) 21 4 15/16 x 8 in. (12.5 x 20.3 cm) Courtesy the Estate of Carlos Villa Jill Vuchetich at the Walker Art Center; Frieda Weinstein; Alexa Young. 3 TREES IN THE FOREST the biggest result: Loggers and distinct traces of roots and nonconform- 41 42 foresters could agree on it.1 ist feeling may certainly be apparent, KITCHEN 40 I saw a man in pyjamas walk up to a the regionally and ethnically scrubbed tree, stop, regard it, and change his 37 In fact, the particularities of individual universalism implicit in the dominant 4 posture. organisms (to fulfill an ecological niche) (American) art historical paradigm still Simone Forti, Handbook in Motion, 1974 38 and singularly destructive events within insufficiently accounts for diversity of the multispecies forest have signifi- form, genre, context, and experience.3,4 The title of this group exhibition is a play 12 39 52 51 cant effects on overall health: This is 11 15 on the English idiomatic phrase—dating a problem that a mere scale change That we are bound to the earth does 13 36 46 14 from the sixteenth century—that sets in outward perspective alone cannot not mean that we cannot grow; on 17 16 close-range observation at odds with “solve.” And the indiscriminate eradica- the contrary it is the sine qua non of general comprehension of the long term tion required to see through the trees growth. No noble, well-grown tree and the large scale. Taken as a negative RAMP 35 (i.e., clear-cutting) has unknown conse- ever disowned its dark roots, for it expression, one’s lack of ability to “see quences for us and for our environment. grows not only upward but down- the forest for the trees” implies a sense ward as well. W.C. While deforestation inevitably continues, 54 of disorientation with regard to greater how can we perceive the macroscopic, C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944 principles or overarching goals, even as it slips away from view?2 48 those held in common. The cultural The ambition of TREES IN THE understanding of this phrase, howev- But during the last century it came FOREST is to locate a substantive 32 er, presumes first of all that there are to be realized that society itself is perspective within a series of problems extant (figurative) forests in which we a force of nature, as blind as the and recent practices that may offer 34 22 might find ourselves wandering or lost; others, as dangerous for man if he alternative models for contemporary 45 23 47 and second, that the current system of 49 24 does not succeed in mastering it. At concerns, and to open up a generous 20 21 contemporary social life has a clear, the present time this force weighs 50 field of reference for the rich commingling 18 19 25 recognizable, and agreed-upon form upon us more cruelly than water, of styles, approaches, and conventions. that would simply telegraph our pitiable earth, air and fire; all the more so Here, density, depth, and decomposition position to us, much like a compass since it holds in its own grasp, as are paradigms, counter to an aesthet- would, if only we could attain a less a result of technical progress, the ics of the context-less and the digitally 10 9 constrained point-of-view. But seeing control of water, earth, air, and fire. diffuse. By carefully examining the the forest in this monolithic fashion—as 44 Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty, 1958 remaining “trees” sheltering our era— 2 29 a minimally graded canopy, its form and by carefully extending the meta- 1 inseparable from the landscape, a 33 This question, and the inverted idiom phor—what indigenous “forest” (or its dark biomass defining the very face with which we began, form the concep- ruins) might we find? ELEVATOR 26 of the terrain—eschews postmodern tual basis for the complex constellation particularism; or in ecological terms, of interdisciplinary and intergenerational The artworks on view here share a the species diversity that results from 7 artworks in TREES IN THE FOREST. unique sensitivity to physical, natural and complex evolution over millennia, and Upon closer examination, what evidence cultural surroundings. More important- other regional or seasonal adaptations can finer detail convey about past or ly, they provide studied, material, and 5 6 necessary for survival. future circumstances, or the so-called multiple perspectives on the world at bigger picture that is culturally implied? large that together challenge a straight 8 Located within the Cascadia bioregion, Historical objects, films, paintings, skills, (Western) view of ecology, and the false which stretches from southern Alaska to and competencies that have survived consciousness of neoliberal environ- northern California, the Pacific North- the late modern period in relative isola- mentalism in the continued service of west is home to the largest temperate tion—outside the latest market boom consumer capitalism. The exhibition 27 rainforest on the planet, including the and the hegemonic critical discourse ecology of TREES IN THE FOREST three tallest species of trees: Coast of New York City—are often taken to considers what might constitute new 31 Redwood, Coast Douglas-Fir, Sitka be regionally or temporally marked, as forms of environmental art practice 28 Spruce. Anthropologist Anna Lowen- material or aesthetic outliers characteris- today, beyond mere spatial immersion, haupt Tsing has written about the impact tic of a particular time and place (e.g., the or romantic projections of the apocalyptic of forest plantations on local social and rural South, or Venice Beach in the late and the Arcadian. environmental ecosystems, and the 1960s). Or else they are relegated to the GALLERY ENTRANCE modern transformation of our ancient radical fringe, as a short-lived sub-cul- Won’t you come and see forests, as a process of industrial tural trend or topical identity. While these loneliness? Just one leaf management: from the kiri tree. 1. “Meanwhile, loggers were eager to take out the ponderosa pines that so impressed white pioneers in the eastern Cascades. Matsuo Bashō, 17th Century Oregon’s forests played a key The great ponderosa stands were logged out by the 1980s. It turned out that they could not reproduce without the periodic fires 3. “[M]ulticulturalist trends in the American art world came and 30 role in the U.S. Forest Service’s the Forest Service had stopped. But firs and spindly lodgepole went, flourishing in New York for a brief period between the late early twentieth-century forma- pines were flourishing with fire exclusion—at least if flourishing 1980s and the early 1990s and all but collapsing after the 1993 43 means spreading in ever denser and more flammable thickets Whitney Biennial,” Elaine H. Kim, Margo Machida, Sharon Mizota, tion, during which foresters of live, dead, and dying trees.” See: Tsing, The Mushroom at the eds. Fresh Talk, Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American 53 End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Art. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, worked to find kinds of conser- Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015, p. 30. 2003, p. ix. 2. From 2000 to 2010, global forest cover disappeared at an esti- 4. “To question our cultures is to question our own existence, our vation that timber barons would mated rate of 13 million hectares per year. See the report: Remi human reality.” In Ana Mendieta, Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibi- support. Fire suppression was D’Annunzio, et al., State of the World’s Forests. Rome, Italy: Food tion of Third World Women of the United States, (exh. cat.). and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2011. New York: A.I.R. Gallery, 1980: n.p. In an essay on his mentor and some- video production. These intricate twig, es and its expansion across the scenic saver, an ideologically perverse estuaries of Washington and Oregon, and prolong—or even collapse—inher- time collaborator, Mike Kelley compared branch, and dried palm structures echo landscape. Watkins was the first person symbolic metonymy. members of the Duwamish Tribe and ent decision-making processes as a David Askevold’s fascination for the the log-frame walls captured in Beverly to photograph the Pacific Northwest, and others indigenous to the region were particular form of conceptual endurance American landscape to that of Hudson Buchanan’s photograph of Mary Lou his strikingly composed images capture As comparatively dry visual composi- able to precisely confirm, from stories at times only partially related to the final River School painter Frederick Edwin Furcron’s (1989–90), and the organic, a wilder, pre-industrial moment as it was tions, the sharply distilled character of passed down through oral traditions, structural, literary, or formal qualities Church, who sought to capture on post-minimalist hemp and wood sculp- disappearing.6 Art historian Elizabeth Charles Gaines’s gridwork and Trisha the date of the most recent Cascadia of a work. The background staging canvas a metaphysical sense of the tures by Jackie Winsor that first engaged Hutchinson has described the conflicting Brown’s early vernacular choreogra- subduction zone (CSZ) earthquake.9 scenery of Fireman’s Conflict Resolu- heavens through an especially expres- the coastal landscape of Halifax, Nova conservationist and touristic tendencies phies strategically disappoint viewer tion has featured, in various iterations, sive rendering of lofty sky, color, and river Scotia in 1971 (30 to 1 Bound Trees, that inspired East Coast collectors of expectations of spectacle. Much of The painting and performance work hand-drawn wall- paper and multiple valley.5 Askevold’s short performative film destroyed 1972). If Vitruvius, Marc-An- Watkins’s impressive stereoviews of the Brown’s early gestural (dance) language of Carlos Villa incorporates invented layers of black, white, and red paint Nova Scotia Fires (1969) in fact sets a toine Laugier, Henry David Thoreau, and Mariposa Grove, Half Dome, El Capitan, derives from habits and practices local indigenous elements that belong to an rolled, splashed, or brushed onto the Technicolor blaze raging along the titular Martin Heidegger all theorized the origins and the Yosemite Valley (photographs for to the Northwest region. Gaines began inaccessible cultural history, partially wall behind the sculptural elements to timber-dotted coastline, although the of architecture in the “primitive hut”— which he eventually became famous).7 Walnut Tree Orchard (1975–2014)—his lost through migration and assimilation. indicate various (psychological, meta- tight frame of his camera’s perspective and to a certain extent, liberalism as it These popular stereoviews effectively first series to include photographs, let Eventually recast through the Bay Area phorical) intensities of heat, smoke, or belies the miniature scale of the flame’s pertains to the social isolation of the indi- transmitted the symbolic iconicity and alone figurative representations—in abstract expressionist school of painting flame.Fireman’s Conflict Resolution controlled, combustible path. His spooky vidual (man)—it is worthwhile to consider spectacular beauty of their sites, culti- the agricultural lands of Fresno, in the in which Villa was trained, in the late #6 here includes a facsimile of the rear scored soundtrack—synthesizer, tuning the people who still practice such forms vating a consumer audience for the California Central Valley. Within his 1960s the artist began to explore the wall, at the Everson Museum, as the forks, and voice processed through a of organic habitation or process-based, splendors of the American West and highly structured triptych systems (for cosmic materialism of the shamanistic, artist recalls it, providing an opportunity homemade distortion chamber—invokes one-to-one making today, and their ultimately contributing to its more rapid Walnut Tree, numbering 26 in total), the as well as patterns and rituals practiced to renegotiate figure-ground relations a defamiliarizing, ritualistic confrontation strained relations with industry and the development. spindly cultivar functions as a standard by aboriginals in the South Pacific. With with respect to this particular version of with(in) nature that counters the rationali- legacies of post-Enlightenment thought. linguistic symbol,8 first flattened by the addition of substances such as the piece, and the haunting, unintend- ty of filmic documentary. Two other narra- Elise Duryee-Browner’s stained glass the camera’s single-point perspective bone, feathers, blood, urine, and semen, ed “cooling effect” of the blue hallway tive films by Askevold demonstrate the Buchanan’s major work of Land Art, pane, GovtOS (2016), is a loosely and afterwards subjected to numerical Villa’s canvases soon transformed into that once led into the gallery where the artist’s development of the experimental Marsh Ruins (1981), rigorously extended rendered depiction of Half Dome viewed translation, then composite overlay in powerfully expressive, wing-like mantles, sculpture was installed. For Yale Union, genre throughout his career, and ongoing her interest in structural (historical and from Olmsted Point, modeled after an subsequent drawings. In this more or or garments, that could be worn as Fried’s newest ladder sculpture, The existential engagement with place. My social) decay, demolition, and memory image found online. The title of the piece less arbitrary system of representation robes. The series of hanging sculptures Edge of the Forest: Keystone 1 (2016), Recall of an Imprint from a Hypothetical as a critical form within suppressed and is taken from the name for the Apple defined by the artist, subtractive and exhibited here, or caged “monkeys,” as abandons the struggle with referential Jungle (1973) layers excerpted interviews subaltern—specifically Black Amer- operating system allegedly created to additive progressions together alienate the artist referred to them, present the fire-fighting tendencies of earlier works with Vietnam War veterans over the ican—experience. Her permanent allow U.S. government access to the or “atomize” the ultimate legibility of the primate’s deconstructed form, adorned in the series to enter a more purely sounds of charging electrical equipment installation on a cluster of three large 2015 San Bernardino shooters’ locked symbol. Attempting to grasp the visual with feathers, as a series of trickster-av- formal sculptural condition for which no and a live slow-motion performance rocks partially submerged in the Marsh- iPhones. Despite the privacy para- world through non-pictorial means, atars silently rehearsing the coerced script, no background, and no tested captured via densely shaded camera- es of Glynn, in Brunswick, Georgia, can digm of the post-9/11 environment, Gaines’s use of the grid in Walnut Tree performativity typically required of both psychological approach is a given. work. Don’t Eat Crow (1994) features be seen in a handful of contempora- Apple’s successful legal negotiation Orchard reveals both the irrationali- artistic and minority positions. unpublished novelist Katherine Grevatt neous photographs, and a typewritten with the U.S. government indicates an ty of its practical application and the Figurative language emerged early in reading a series of letters to her friend report showing the work in process that eerie transfer of citizen policing from resistance of even a highly controlled Howard Fried’s large-scale sculpture the paintings of Bernice Bing, a contem- Norma Ready describing her increasing Buchanan completed in fulfillment of the courts of the state to the databas- industrial subject to accurate reflection Fireman’s Conflict Resolution #6 is a porary of Joan Brown whose first solo financial and creative despair, as Askev- her Guggenheim Fellowship grant. The es of the technology sector, where in its rigid formal code. new reconstruction of a previous work exhibition took place in San Francisco at old’s camera trains on a pair of birds work remains on view in public today, biopolitical information is increasingly (Fireman’s Conflict Resolution #2, Bruce Conner’s Batman Gallery in 1961. feeding indifferently outside her window. although the tabby surface that Buchan- stored and exploited. Considering the Martha Rosler’s series of one-min- 1978) originally made by the artist at the From abstraction through calligraphy, an once applied has been left to degrade ramifications of this potential threat to ute public service announcements, Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, Bing later studied both the linguistic and The films of Nina Könnemann, by in obscurity. The visibility of her Ruins humans’ social existence, the compa- together titled Seattle: Hidden Histories New York.10 It consists of two ladders formal character of the Chinese ideo- contrast, are distinctively nonnarrative, continues to wax and wane concurrent- ny has cynically named its operating (1991–1995), was originally produced placed at opposing angles alongside gram: “an inclusive gestalt not an analyt- and not exactly choreographed. M.U.D. ly with the tides, a littoral metaphor for systems after iconic locations in Cali- for the Seattle Arts Commission’s a greased pole, and three “scripts” or ic dissociation of senses and functions (2000), was shot on the morning after the marginal within collective histori- fornia (Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capi- city-wide exhibition “In Public: Seattle potential scenarios for entering and exit- like phonetic writing.”11 She attended an impromptu meet-up at a nature cal memory. An organic construction tan, Sierra). Additional trademarks are 1991,” although the spots never aired ing the pole-and-timber system based the first class of the Esalen Institute preserve near Stuttgart, Germany for material widespread in the coastal held on Redwood, Mammoth, Califor- on broadcast television as planned. on three basic types of psychological and later became interested in descrip- participants in real-time fantasy fictions American South, often used in place of nia, Big Sur, Pacific, Diablo, Miramar, Rosler’s interviews with local indige- conflict (approach-approach, avoid- tions of form and material from quantum known as “multi-user dungeon” games. more expensive brick, tabby is a type of Rincon, Redtail, Condor, Grizzly, nous persons, as well as historians, ance-avoidance, approach-avoidance). theories of particle physics, and the Könnemann’s camera observes the concrete made by crushing and burning Farallon, Tiburon, Monterey, Skyline, linguists, and tribal leaders touch on the Fried’s deceptively minimal yet phys- interrelations of light, color and energy real and virtual outward effects of this oyster shells to create quicklime, which Shasta, Sierra, Mojave, Sequoia, preservation of Salish languages and ically precise site-specific sculptures for both perception and painting.12 Her alternate world on the otherwise serene is then hydrated and mixed together with Ventura, and Sonoma, as if to some- traditional stories, the proper pronunci- in fact structure complex pathways Lotus Sutra 1 (early to mid-1980s) and local environment. Through meticulous sand, ash, and broken shells. The inten- how naturalize a monumental corpo- ation of the name “Seattle,” the politics intentionally designed to both defer the late ink on paper studies displayed recording, her animations Early Morn- sive production process depended on rate presence through softly lit screen of tribal recognition, and urban life. More 9. “A story from Vancouver Island says that all creation rests on here trace the cultural, natural, and phil- 6. “At the time of initial European contact, Cascadia native groups the back of a mammoth whale, and that Thunderbird causes thun- ing Lessons (2004), and The Fence slave labor, a fact that accounted for its spoke more than a dozen distinct languages (Thompson and recently, when cross-referenced with der by moving even a feather and carries a large lake on his back osophical influences on Bing’s underex- (2008), reconstruct forms of shelter falling into general disuse after 1865. Kinkade, 1990) and lived in a complex social landscape with the seismological record and dendro- from which water pours in thunderstorms (Carmichael, 1922). amined practice, only hinting at the bold both similarities and differences between groups. Collection and Shaking and ocean surges can be inferred from the story of Thun- on the island of Madagascar, and are recording of native stories began in the 1860s … almost 100 years chronological analysis of “ghost forests” derbird driving his talons deeply into Whale’s back, and Whale brushwork and impressive scale of the after initial contact in Cascadia, and nearly 50 years after Europe- diving and dragging the struggling Thunderbird to the bottom of stitched together from a series of In July of 1868, at the invitation of the an settlement began. As a result, as much as 95% of native oral (dead stands of cedar trees) in coastal the ocean.” In R.S. Ludwin, et al., op. cit.,” p. 144. room-sized canvases she once painted. individually exposed stills, partly due Oregon Steam Navigation Company, traditions may have been lost (Jacobs, 1962)”. In R.S. Ludwin, 10. Fried’s first iteration of the sculpture was installed by Vito 11. Bing, diary entry. c. 1960. Estate of Bernice Bing. R. Dennis, D. Carver, A.D. McMillan, R. Losey, J. Clague, and K. 8. Here, art historian Howard Singerman notes the particular influ- Acconci in the exhibition “Performance Spaces” (1972) held at 12. “As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any to the lack of available electricity for self-taught photographer Carleton E. James, “Dating the 1700 Cascadia Earthquake: Great Coastal ence of Ferdinand de Saussure in the mid-1970s: “The tree was the art gallery of the School of Visual Arts, New York. Fireman’s isolated ‘building blocks,’ but rather appears as a complicated web Earthquakes in Native Stories.” Seismological Research Letters, … the very emblem of the sign and the autonomy of language, its Conflict Resolution #3 (1979) was made for the University Art of relations between the various parts of the whole . . . In atomic 5. Mike Kelley, “David Askevold: The California Years.” David Watkins spent four months traveling by 57:2 (March/April 2005), p. 140. rule-bound arbitrariness in relation to the world.” Howard Singer- Museum, UC Santa Barbara; #4 (1982) at the University Art Muse- physics, we can never speak about nature without, at the same Askevold: Cultural Geographies and Other Works, (exh. cat.). train up and down the Columbia River, 7. Hutchinson, “They Might Be Giants: Carleton Watkins, Galen man, “Charles Gaines’s Fresno.” In Naima J. Keith, ed. Charles um of UC Berkeley, although its black painted background was time, speaking about ourselves.” In Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Phys- Charlottetown, CA: Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Muse- Clark, and the Big Tree,” October, Vol. 109 (Summer, 2004): pp. Gaines: Gridwork, 1974–1989, (exh. cat.), New York: The Studio ultimately eliminated prior to exhibition so that only #5 (1982) was ics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and um, 1998. pp. 61-68 documenting the company’s rail portag- 46–63. Museum in Harlem, 2014, p. 95. publicly shown there. Eastern Mysticism. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1975, p. 68.