Four innovative artists are at the center of a new exhibit at the Renwick Gallery opening September 9, 2016. Visions and Revisions presents the work of Steven Young Lee, Kristen Morgin, Jennifer Trask, and Norwood Viviano. These artists work across numerous mediums, including raw clay, porcelain, metal, glass and gold. They take innovative approaches to their selected mediums and share a fascination with themes of transformation, ruin, and rebirth. Their visual sensibilities range from traditional Asian pottery to vintage Americana, and from the romance of the Victorian Era to the algorhythmic precision of the computer. Each is actively engaged in a dialogue with an idyllic past and in making sense of it for the present moment, investigating what we carry with us and what we leave behind as we remake ourselves time and again.
Norwood Viviano; “Mining Industries: Downtown Boston”; 2015; Rapid prototyped pattern kilncast glass, mirrored glass, fabricated steel and transparency.
Norwood Viviano explores American cities and industry through glass and metal sculptures. He combines data from LiDAR scan technology, antique maps, and historical census data, and employs techniques as varied as bronze casting, kiln-fusing, glass blowing, and 3-D printing to map fluctuations of growth and decline as industry and other forces exert pressure on populations. His work engages not only the geography but also the history of a place, imbuing each object with layers of information to tell stories of how urbanization, immigration, and industry shape both personal and shared histories.
The exhibition includes more than 70 objects showcasing a range of early and new works by each artist. The artists were selected by Nora Atkinson, the museum’s Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft; Suzanne Ramljak, curator of exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts and editor at Metalsmith; and Anna Walker, the Windgate Foundation Curatorial Fellow for Contemporary Craft at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Visions and Revisions is the seventh installment of the biennial Renwick Invitational.
Visions and Revisions: Renwick Invitational 2016
September 9, 2016 – January 8, 2017
Renwick Gallery
17th and Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC