Berkshire Museum Opens 2011 with Escher, KlimowiczBy Nichole Dupont, iBerkshires Staff
02:40PM / Thursday, January 20, 2011 | |
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'Disk II/Bright Star,' a 20-foot cardboard construction by Henry Klimowicz, is on display in the museum's Crane Room. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It may seem that art and nature exist in different worlds, one within the confines of the frame the other in the world’s wilderness.
Yet bringing the two together seems to be a perfect fit, particularly for the upcoming "MC Escher: Seeing the Unseen"(sponsored by TD Bank) exhibit set to open at the Berkshire Museum on Saturday, Jan. 22.
The world premiere exhibition includes woodcuts, sketches and 120 original prints of graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), best known for his "impossible structures" inspired by science, math and pure fantasy. Yet, it is Escher's lesser-known works which first caught director of interpretation Maria Mingalone’s eye.
"I was at a dinner party when a friend showed me this book with some of Escher's watercolors in it. They were just gorgeous," she said. "I went to do some research at the Boston Public Library and I was sold. Even as I was looking at the prints there, people were gathered around me. It was really and unveiling of the wonder of the unknown aspect of this artist. It's so funny because a year and half ago, I would have never looked at Escher."
Indeed, the 20th-century master's works are impossible to ignore, especially the vibrant, highly detailed woodblock prints that seem to go beyond the eye into infinity. According to Jeremy Goodwin, director of communications, it is this effect that the entire exhibition hopes to encompass.
"This is designed to be an immersive experience where you're a part of this landscape," he said. "Escher is sort of this monolithic figure and people don't know much about the artist himself. You can see the flow of how his work develops. You can start to see the obsessive detail that he develops as they crowd their way into the frame."
The exhibition, much like Escher's work as a whole, is dizzying in its compulsion toward detail and patterns. In addition to the prints themselves, the exhibition also includes some of the artist's preliminary sketches (many of which are done on minute graph paper) as well as several interactive stations where younger visitors to the museum can experiment with interlocking pieces, printmaking and other elements which Escher used, including animals.
'Sky and Water 1.' See more of Escher's work on the museum's Flickr site. |
"His images are so familiar; good and evil, sea and sky. From a technical perspective he is in the tradition of the European printmakers," Goodwin said. "His work supports the idea that there is an overlap between natural science and fine art."
This overlap is exactly what Director Stuart Chase has been pursuing over the last six years. That and making renowned art and artists accessible to all visitors.
"Academia is kind of what has put up these separate silos of math, science, engineering and art," he said. "But that's not the way the world works. They all have different interrelationships. Art makes science accessible and science makes art accessible. We're really striving to allow these things to come together."
Escher's work is not the only display of the collaboration between natural science and art. Also on exhibition is "Henry Klimowicz: Constructs," a collection of large-scale pieces constructed out of cardboard and indicative of the work of bees and spiders. The exhibit also includes a massive 20-foot disc titled "Disk II/Bright Star," which is suspended from the ceiling of the Crane Room. This, too, according to Chase, is a perfect example of accessibility in art.
"It's just cardboard; we have to deal with it all the time," he said. "Yet in this context, it is beautiful and easily understood; it has an ethereal quality."
As for future exhibitions, Chase said, visitors can be looking for geckos and cutting-edge modern art.
"A lot of our inspiration comes from the collection that we have," he said. "It's nice for us to be nimble and present things as we find them."
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