‘Ant Girls’ triumphantly take over USM art gallery in Lewiston
Dorothy Schwartz, Rebecca Goodale, Vivien Russe and Colleen
Kinsella have loosed their artistic depictions of leafcutter ants all
over the Atrium.
By Daniel Kany
The sign for the Atrium Art Gallery at the University of Southern
Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College has been pirated by a large
woodcut-printed paper ant so that it now reads “Ant” instead of “Art.”
Inside, hang three huge scrolls of white paper covered in many thousands
of printed leafcutter ants who, unlike their insurrectionist colleague,
are going about their well-organized business of carrying bits of
leaves.
click image to enlarge
Leafcutter ants cover hanging paper walls, scrolls and framed works on paper in “Ant Farm” at USM’s Lewiston-Auburn College.
Courtesy photo
click image to enlarge
"Ant Farm: At the Nexus of Art and Science" opens at the Atrium Art Gallery at the University of Southern Maine.
Courtesy photos
art review
“ANT FARM: AT THE NEXUS OF ART AND SCIENCE” – A collaborative exhibition by Dorothy Schwartz, Rebecca Goodale, Vivien Russe and Colleen Kinsella.
WHERE: Atrium Art Gallery, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston-Auburn College, 51 Westminster St., Lewiston
WHEN: Through June 6; gallery hours 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Monday to Thursday; 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday; 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Saturday through May 3
HOW MUCH: Free
INFO: 753-6500 or
usm.maine.edu/atriumgallery,
http://antgirlsmaine.blogspot.com/
SEE ALSO: http://bit.ly/1lB0asc
The scrolls offer a first glimpse, but it’s immediately clear there is a huge show installed in the gallery.
To
the left is a wall of about 30 framed works on paper. To the right is a
pair of giant, accordioned hanging paper walls exploding with color.
Works of art are everywhere -- hanging from the ceiling, mounding up on
pedestals and filling vitrines.
Much of the work is thick with
pulsing colors while the black forms of ants gather in appealingly
rhythmic bunches everywhere throughout the space, from pictures on the
wall to a cylindrical web of winged male suitors flying after a queen
soaring 20 feet and more above the U-shaped atrium.
“Ant Farm: At
the Nexus of Art and Science” is another extraordinary exhibition in
the unique flavor of curator Robyn Holman’s shows featuring Maine
artists taking on subjects of the natural world. Equal parts art and
didactic science, these smart shows move fluently in both directions.
“Art
Farm” is a gigantic exhibition both in terms of the number of works and
the depth of its content. But despite its symphonic complexity, it’s a
fun and welcoming show.
“Ant Farm” was made by a group of Maine
artists who call themselves the “Ant Girls” – Dorothy Schwartz, Rebecca
Goodale, Vivien Russe and Colleen Kinsella.
Schwartz died of
lymphoma in March, just before “Ant Farm” opened in April. She was a
beloved artist, professor and leader in the Maine arts scene who was the
executive director of the Maine Humanities Council for 25 years. Rather
than using “Ant Farm” to remember Schwartz, I think it should be seen
for what it is: a great collaborative exhibition. I see “Ant Farm” as
Schwartz’s triumph – not her memorial.
Schwartz’s touch sets the
tone for “Ant Farm,” with images that reflect the draftsmanship and
powerful aesthetic of her teacher, Leonard Baskin, arguably America’s
greatest and most emotive printmaker.
That said, the idea of
individual authorship of the works quickly dissolves. If you are a
contemporary art fan, this might be the most interesting aspect of the
show. Our post-war American view of art is so dedicated to the marketing
and recognizability of any artist that we have lost the idea of
movements and collaborations, the very stuff that made all those “isms”
of art so exciting: impressionism, cubism, surrealism, expressionism and
so on. It’s unusually interesting here because the society of
leafcutter ants creates a complex cultural context for comparison. In
fact, leafcutter ant societies are second only to humanity as the most
complex animal societies on Earth.
Leafcutter ants live in
tropical areas, including in the United States, and are notable for
cutting and gathering leaves that they use as nutritional substrates on
which they grow their food – a fungus. The ant girls show this alongside
mating and communication practices among leafcutters, all of which they
present in ways that echo or comment on the creative processes of art
in our culture.
In the Surrealist game “exquisite corpse,”
artists would fold paper so they couldn’t see the parts of a figure
drawn by the other artists, dividing head, torso and lower body. The Ant
Girls, in an intriguing meld of architecture, surrealism and “women’s
work,” made conjoined drawings on paper and then printed them on sewn
patches of fabric treated with cyanotype emulsion (blueprint), creating
large pictures of ants that are literal versions of exquisite corpse.
The
40 or so works on the opposite wall were passed from artist to artist
until someone decided they were done. It was an apt process for these
artists; while they look great together, virtually any of these works is
quite excellent on its own.
The show also includes examples of
handmade books in a series of vitrines. This is a particularly
successful part of the show because these works are so accessible and
anyone can imagine handling a book. These reflect a hands-on feel to the
pair of hanging walls that are made of folded and notched paper. They
are richly printed with Matisse-cutout-inspired tropical imagery
featuring cool colors on the outside and warm tones on the inside. The
two walls form a sort of tunnel that snakes along parallel to gallery’s
long walkway ramp.
An extension of the show features works by
each of the separate artists. However, this has the opposite effect from
what I expected: Instead of giving us sufficient information to
distinguish each artist’s contributions to the collaborations, they
underscore that the work cannot be completely parsed.
Another
unexpected quality is that the more you learn about leafcutter ant
society (by reading the excellent label copy), the more impressive and
deep the show becomes – particularly in its modeling of non-verbal
social communication.
“Ant Farm” also features a beautiful (in
the sense of Alban Berg’s “Wozzek”) soundtrack written and performed by
Elliott Schwarz (husband of the late “Deedee”) in collaboration with
Caleb Mulkerin and Kinsella.
Hidden in plain view among the
exhibition’s deep conceptual insights about collaboration is what
amounts to the most ambitious presentation of paper media I have ever
seen: sculptures, prints, drawings, scrolls, books, installations,
signage, paintings, puppetry, origami and more all brilliantly
orchestrated as a single entity somewhere between an exhibition, an
installation and a hive.
Because of its heavy pass-through
traffic, it’s counterintuitive that the Atrium Art Gallery would
routinely mount complex and conceptually challenging exhibitions. But it
specializes in such shows, and I have seen none more ambitious or more
impressive than “Ant Farm.”
Freelance writer Daniel Kany is an art historian who lives in Cumberland. Contact him at:
dankany@gmail.com
