Jaime Ramiro Diaz. 'Bayou Metairie / Drainage Infrastructure.'
Proteus Gowanus Launches its new yearlong theme: WATER
Beginning in September, 2013, the yearlong theme at Proteus
Gowanus is Water. Once a sacred substance, water is often taken for
granted now. We in the developed world were told that engineers had
mastered its flow to meet our every need, from drinking water and
irrigation to water parks and fish tanks. We lost our respect for this
strange elixir that has shaped our world and dictates how and where we
live. Now, it seems we are paying for our disregard. Last fall,
Hurricane Sandy punished Brooklyn and the East Coast. Across the globe,
we hear almost daily of drought, deluge and flood. A sense of foreboding
permeates the atmosphere.
Our guiding spirit, Proteus, Greek sea god of change, encourages us
to dive in and explore these murky waters to see what answers we can
find over the next nine months.
Joy Garnett: River 10 (2009) oil on canvas. 26 x 32 inches. China Three Gorges Dam series.
First Exhibition:
September 15-December 28, 2013
Opening reception: Sunday, September 15, 6-9pm
Proteus Gowanus
www.proteusgowanus.org
543 Union Street (down the alley off Nevins)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.427-2200
Gallery Hours
Thursday & Friday, 3–6 pm
Saturday & Sunday, 12–6 pm
Study Hall Hours
Monday–Friday, 10–6 pm
Our first exhibition of the Water year is Containment,
exploring our increasingly troubled relationship with water. Containment
suggests antithetical meanings: on the one hand, the act of holding and
enclosing, as you might a rare treasure; on the other, a defensive act,
as in restraining a hostile power. With respect to water, both meanings
apply: we cannot live without it and yet we know it has the power to
destroy us. Fear and desire circulate through our relationship with
water. Bottles, cisterns, reservoirs and baths; sewers, levees, dikes
and dams: all seek to contain and control water, the source of all that
is liquid. And somehow the more we seek to control, the more out of
control it all becomes…
In this exhibition, the containment of water is depicted in systems
ranging from underground tunnels that contain once vibrant surface water
bodies (Diaz) to bowls and buckets capturing furtively invasive water
(Cogswell and Phunsombatlert). We see structures designed to hold
floodwater back (Diaz) as well as the rivers that resist containment
(Garnett). Goldfinch portrays the liquid exchange that keeps our brains
alive. Saucedo portrays everyday containers as pure form while Tannen
goes for functionality, containing a river in a simple jug. Damon
portrays the biodynamic movement contained within a single drop of water
– movement replicated throughout the living world. Gagic records the
musical sound of the sea contained in organ pipes and Sturman simply
sails away, happily contained. Containment also includes a special installation on our Proteus Shelves.
Break/Remake
In the gallery’s big shelves, we present Break/Remake, a Containment
installation alluding to the problematic nature of big dams around the
world. Big dams now girdle most of the world’s major river basins,
creating “staircases of reservoirs” that have inundated vast tracts of
land worldwide, causing massive population dislocation, species
extinction, ecosystem degradation and even climate change. The world’s
rivers are at risk and big dams are a major reason why. They ‘break’
rivers and then ‘remake’ them to serve our needs for drinking water,
energy and crop irrigation with little regard for the massive
disruptions that result. When you break and remake a form, you alter its
function, posing the question: What is gained from such changes and
what is lost? Artists were invited by the curator to break and remake a
container for this installation.
Containment and Break/Remake were curated by Proteus Gowanus’ Tammy Pittman. Amy Lipton and Tom Miller served as Containment correspondents and Charles Caesar, intern, provided design and general support.
Containment Participants:
Margaret Cogswell
Betsy Damon
Jaime Ramiro Diaz
Bojan Gagic
Joy Garnett
Jessica Goldfinch
Bundith Phunsombatlert
Christopher Saucedo
Sally Mara Sturman
Break/Remake Participants:
Rosaire Appel
Diane Bertolo
Stella Chasteen
Ellen Driscoll
Makalé Faber-Cullen
Jessica Goldfinch
Charles Goldman
Melita Greenleaf
Molly Heron
Eva Melas
Janice Movson
Tony Stanzione
Tani Takagi
Robert Tannen
Barbara Westermann
