We are excited to present AN ENVIRONMENT ENDURED curated by Adrienne Lee ’21 and Emilie Hoke ’21. This exhibition features works from the Van Every/Smith Galleries Permanent Art Collection that encompass “environment.” As curators of the exhibition, we sought to introduce a variety of works that narrate environmental issues that loom, whether seen or unseen. Together, the works situate human beings within an affected, changing climate, and offer an introspective moment to reevaluate one’s relationship to the environment.
AN ENVIRONMENT ENDURED is on view at the Hamilton W. McKay Atrium at E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center from August 17 – December 8, 2020. Buildings only allow entry to Davidson students, faculty, and staff. Safety protocols, including physical distancing and wearing masks, are required when viewing the exhibition.
Below we highlight two works featured in the exhibition, Clint Sleeper’s Teaching Capitalism to Nature and Naoya Hatakeyama’s Blast #11009. Keep reading to learn about these works on view in the exhibition.
In Teaching Capitalism to Nature, a performative piece documented through both video and photography, Clint Sleeper is physically reading excerpts from Adam Smith’s books on capitalism, projecting capitalist thought into the vastness of the natural world. In doing so, Sleeper presents an ironical satire on the limitations of nature to foster manmade structures, which stem from capitalist-driven motivation to seize ownership of lands. In his artist statement, Sleeper states, “[…] Perhaps if we could teach our environment about the prosperity of a capitalist model, then nature might surrender its unreasonable demands, which have up to this point inhibited economic growth. We certainly cannot teach environmentalism to capitalists.” [1]
Sleeper is an educator and artist based in Tallahassee, Florida. His works combine humor and tragedy to examine the collapse of an economic and political system. He earned his BA in Art from the University of Nevada at Reno and his MFA in Contemporary Art from Simon Fraser University. In addition to his work being exhibited and screened internationally, we have been fortunate to display Sleeper’s work twice at the Van Every/Smith Galleries. Sleeper was a prior Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Davidson. He currently teaches art at Florida State University.
Next up in this preview is Naoya Hatakeyama’s Blast #11009. Hatakeyama first began photographing limestone mining operations in the 1980s in his native Japan, where approximately 200 million tons of limestone is extracted each year. In the mid-1990’s, Hatakeyama began scrutinizing the detonation process, using remote-controlled cameras to capture detailed images of explosions which birthed his series Blast. From close-range views of detonation to wider landscape shots, the series as a whole records the grave destruction of the mining process that devastates landscapes through the entire removal of mountaintops. The mining process releases a slurry of innumerable toxins that pollute nearby water and increases the likelihood of flooding, impacting local citizens and miners.
Hatakeyama is a Japanese artist whose work explores human intervention in the environment. He graduated from School of Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba, where he later completed post-graduate studies. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the International Center of Photography. His work is found in many major public collections, including the National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka, Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. He has received the Kimura Ihei Memorial Photography Award and the Photographer of the Year Award from The Photographic Society of Japan, among others. He currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.
[1] Sleeper, Clint. “Teaching Capitalism to Nature.” Clint Sleeper, www.clintsleeper.com/portfolio/teaching-capitalism-to-nature/.
Adrienne Lee ’21 and Emilie Hoke ’21