American Visions: Place and Identity
Led by Anita Feldman, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, this lecture will look at the the narratives present in the Permanent Collection installation American Visions: Place and Identity.
Considering the gradual movement away from European traditions in painting, this lecture will look at the shift toward the formulation of a uniquely American art which redefined man’s relationship to his surroundings. Beginning with the sublime landscapes of the 19th Century that depict the country’s vast untamed wilderness in which nature is all powerful and the vulnerability of the human presence is made apparent, the discussion closes with Christo’s Running Fence 1976 in which a colossal curtain dissects the California landscape, asserting a new relationship to our environment.