11/4/2007
Valerie Hegarty
Museum 52, London
View From Thanatopsis
View From Thanatopsis
Valerie Hegarty produces work that constructs and deconstructs experience. She explores the possibility of fabricating and altering objects with historical reference in order to highlight the past’s relation to the current American socio-political arena.
The exhibition’s title refers to a poem by William Cullen Bryant titled Scene From Thanatopsis and a subsequent painting by Asher B. Durand by the same title. The author, fearful of his own mortality, concludes that nature is not to be feared but instead is “the solemn decorations all/Of the great tomb of man”, and that death is not a solitary thing to be feared but a congregation of deceased, wonderful people. Hegarty follows Vincent Scully’s stance on the poem. He believed that it spoke to the needs of America; Americans wanted a landscape with a past and the graves of their fathers1. Thus, transcendence and history is sought from the surrounding sublimity found in the landscape, (as emphasised in Durand’s bucolic painting) and through the appointment of a patriarchal figure: George Washington, the first father of America.
The front space of the exhibition will be dominated by what appears to be a large 19th century armoire: Ches t of Drawer s (Early American) with Woodpecker, 2007. However, the armoire is constructed predominantly from paper, foam core and paint. Surrounding the item of furniture are images of the nation’s first father, and other items placed to resemble an American museum display. These are either completely fabricated by the artist, as with the armoire, or created by altering found items. Ches t of Drawer s (Early American) with Woodpecker exemplifies American period furniture; numerous styles are mixed to suggest something old and European but unquestionably American. This, combined with the other items, presents a room decorated with American history. However, the antique tranquillity is disrupted by holes that riddle the display and walls. The cause of the extensive damage is uncertain: this could be the work of the Woodpecker (a bird from the American landscape) that sits perched on the wall, or, due to the range of materials punctured, it is also reminiscent of media images of war damage.
As the viewer walks through the gallery, paintings of America’s picturesque and awesome landscape are seen to be in a state of self destruction: a painting of the Grand Canyon, Cracked Canyon, 2007 is displayed split in two. As we continue into the back room a large framed canvas of Niagara Falls is dramatically warping off the wall and spiralling onto the floor. As it reaches the ground the canvas seems to be rotting as the painting's stretcher bars and frame decay. It appears as if the painting itself had gone over the falls. Niagara Falls, 2007 portrays the sublime landscape swallowed by its own void and beginning to disappear.
Hegarty describes that the emphasis of her work ‘’is on the gesture of cracking, carving, making holes; I’m making the erasure, the subtraction”. She is not concerned with the fabrication of the pieces but with the nature of their alteration. The exhibition presents the viewer with a bizarre series of events that could not be connected, but combined give a sense that something is selfdestructing, that occurrences are forcing a return to nature. What we are witnessing is the retaliation of nature and history on the concept of America and art: it is as if America has shot itself in the foot and now, in response, the body is reclaiming itself.
Hegarty has exhibited extensively in America, including P.S.1/MoMA, New York; The Sculpture Center, New York; MCA Chicago, Drawing Center, New York. and the Bronx Museum of Art. She was the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant in 2004 and the Tiffany Foundation Grant in 2003. She recently had a solo show at Guild and Greyshkul, New York, her second exhibition with the gallery. This will be her first solo show in the UK.
Museum 52 is delighted to welcome Boo Ritson as this exhibition’s sign artist.
For more information and images please contact Melissa Emery: admin@museum52.com or call +442073665571.
Private View 12 April 2007
Museum 52
52 Redchurch Street E2 7DP London, United Kingdom
Wednesday-Saturday 11am - 6pm