516 crosspollinationcatalog

exhibition catalog

CROSS POLLINAT I ON ...............................................................

516 ARTS Contemporary Art for Everyone 516 ARTS is an independent, nonprofit, contemporary artspace in the center of Downtown Albuquerque that celebrates thought-provoking art in the here and now. Our exhibitions and programs feature local, national and international artists and inspire curiosity, risktaking and creative experimentation. 516 ARTS offers fresh perspectives on relevant issues and cultivates engagement between diverse artists and communities.

COVER: Top: USGS Native Bee Monitoring Program, Wild bee, Agapostemon texanus angelicus, 2016; Bottom: Ren Ri, Yuansu VII, Bee Hand, video still, 2015

CROSS POLLINATION An exhibition at the intersection of art and science, emphasizing the importance of bees and other pollinators August 19 – November 11, 2017

CONTENTS Cross Pollination 4

by Valerie Roybal

Artists 13

Site Projects 32

Artist Biographies 36

Thank You 40

Jennifer Angus, 2017, A Case of Interruption and Disruption, digital sketch

CROSS POLLINATION: ART, SCIENCE, PROCESS, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF POLLINATORS

by Valerie Roybal

As a backyard beekeeper for a number of years, my interest in honeybees goes beyond strong to obsessive. Stacks of books, including: a vintage copy of The ABCs and XYZs of Bee Culture, The Bees in Your Backyard, The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a Superorganism, Bee Time, and many more, sit on a bench not far from my bed. I need these books close to where I read and sleep, not in another room sitting neatly filed on shelves. These books are teachers and companions. I imagine that the knowledge, instruction, and stories from their pages, and their nearness to my sleeping self could somehow, through some strange transference, fire my neurons and inform my memories and dreams.

I am the person at a dinner party who brings a jar of honey to be sampled and then waxes on about the miraculous nature of honey and the amazing creatures that make something so profoundly delicious, complex, and healthful. I can tell endless anecdotes about bee behavior and the colony haps and mishaps I term “bee drama.”

“Beekeeping and honey do that, attracting friends and family around the table to reflect on the mystique embodied in food given to us by honeybees, a species that existed on Earth almost forty million years before humankind arrived.” Bee Time, Mark L. Winston Despite my obsession, what I know seems merely to be a grain in a vast field of knowledge of what there is to know about bees. There is always so much more to discover. What was so close to me at the beginning of this process, the activity of beekeeping, is small in scale. While researching and developing ideas for this exhibition, I quickly realized the need to go beyond what we most commonly think of, the honeybee, and consider the vast array of other pollinators, including wild and native bees, butterflies, moths, other insects, some species of birds, bats, and even wind and water.

Right: Lily Hunter Green, artist and composer, works with recording bees in a piano.

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While not every possibility could be covered, I strove to provide a strong representation of pollinators and pollination, merging art, science and an exchange of ideas, with a profound reverence for the natural world of which we are a part. Additionally, it was important to acknowledge the significant perils facing more than 20,000 bee species that exist worldwide. These species, along with their fellow pollinators, are responsible for pollinating an estimated 75 percent of the leading food crops worldwide. Pollinators also aid in the reproduction of around 90 percent of flowering plant species in the wild. Acknowledging that human actions can and do harm to all these species, means acknowledging that our actions towards these species can harm us too.

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When thinking about “bee art,� the first artists that came to mind were Aganetha Dyck and Ren Ri. These are two artist who have worked with honeybees as collaborators.

Collaborating with bees, incredible as it is, is not an easy task. Aganetha is known for putting objects, such as vintage or antique ceramic statues, into a hive and letting the bees go to work. The results are enchanting hybrid sculptures, both natural and unnatural. I was thrilled when Aganetha agreed to my inquiries to show her work.

She suggested exhibiting a body of work that was unknown to me—Hive Scans. These are very different from her object-based works, and are photographic in nature. With this work, Aganetha collaborated with her son, photographer Richard Dyck. They put scanning equipment directly into beehives, creating images that are dark, mysterious, and chaotic, These images visually capture the experience of potential disaster facing many bee species.

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Chinese artist Ren Ri is a magical person, a bee whisperer. He is both artist and scientist. His work with bees profoundly and beautifully reveals the architectural skills of honeybees. He encourages his bees to build comb in natural ways, but within the confines of plexiglass boxes, creating gorgeous forms, lines, and structures, visible and stunning. He is also a performance artist, and through videos he reveals his relationship with bees. He aims to create a contemplative and informed connection with his collaborators. In the video Yuansu VII, Ri patiently interacts with bees over the course of several days, and the result is bee comb built directly onto his hand.

I decided to included some images from the USGS Native Bee Monitoring Program to raise awareness of wild bees and their diversity and beauty. There are an estimated 4,000 wild and native bee species in the United States and Canada, and the Program photographs and documents many of these species for scientific study. Native bees exist all around us, pollinating flowering plants, fruits, and vegetables in our backyard gardens, on farms, and in public and open spaces. I believe that if we become more aware of these bee species and we recognize and admire them, just as we admire and identify birds, we may develop a deeper connection and sense of protection towards them. Unfortunately, wild bees are in great peril through the use of pesticides and other human actions.

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Kelly Eckel melds a scientific and artistic viewpoint. She photographs patterns in nature and microscopic elements of insects. She plays with scale, deconstructs, and reconstructs the pieces of parts and patterns into fantastical shapes and hybrid-like images that are then carefully printed by hand through the process of photo-polymer etching. Some of her shapes are reminiscent of cocoons and chrysalises that are in the process of transformation. With her work I imagine a future in which insects become something beyond themselves, and adapt and morph into hybrid creatures in order to survive.

Pollen is often thought of as miniscule airborne irritants. What we don’t necessarily know or think about is that these particles are interesting in shape and form, and are essential to the process of reproduction in plants. UK artist Jo Golesworthy recreates these tiny specks, enlarging them and sculpting them in limestone, thus showing the true beauty of form in nature.

Jennifer Angus approaches design in, and from, nature in a different way. Using the beauty and symmetry of actual insects, she creates fantastical patterns that are both geometrically balanced and stunning. Her installation on 516 ART’s largest wall is sure to be enchanting while offering viewers the opportunity to experience the beauty and diversity of insect forms creating a setting that is otherworldly.

Facing page, left: Aganetha and Richard Dyck, Hive Scan 13, archival photo print, top right: USGS Native Bee Monitoring Program, Nomia foxii, photograph, bottom: Kelly Eckel, Bee Eye, microscope photograph. This page: Ren Ri, Yuansi Series, sculpture, honeybee comb and plexiglass.

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The work of Talia Greene is made of prints from antique cabinet card portraits with clustered insects. These images take on multiple meanings in the context of bees swarming and physically covering humans, who ultimately cannot control nature despite their their best efforts.

Bryan Konefsky takes on wind pollination and the idea of wind and change through his video installation titled Vildgroz, which is Yiddish for weed. Konefsky has this wonderful ability to approach an idea, such as pollination, and turn it on it’s head, providing us with an experience, that is both direct and humorous.

I first saw Steve Barry’s works, Common Sense and Common Cents, at the University of New Mexico Art Museum about a decade ago. Atop a sarcophagus-like structure sat a looming, oversized, bronze bee on one end, and at the other end a bronze lotus. On the body of the structure was a matrix with pennies, spelling out “We” as in “We the People.” I have thought of this piece through the years, as it reminds me of several ideas: one being that certain honeybee behaviors within the colony are considered “democratic;” and also, within our current political climate, there may be a sense of certain death in our democracy for some people. I tend to think that from the darkness comes light, and cross pollination of art and ideas is an act that can have a profound impact on our immediate surroundings, our planet, and our culture.

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Artist Hilary Lorenz is a printmaker who works with imagery from nature. Upon seeing her work, I thought that she might be interested in creating images of moths. Many species of moths are night pollinators. She took the moth idea and ran with it, creating a crowdsourced project called The Moth Migration Project. She invited people from all over the world to create images of moths representing their specific geographic regions. This project fostered creativity, connections, and new opportunities to learn about moths across the globe.

Pastel, aka Francisco Díaz, also has a worldwide reach. For over a decade, he has created murals of flora native to the place in which each mural resides. He sees mural work as being a visual intervention of sorts and seeks to elevate common flowers to monumental status. In addition to tapping into the story of place, he creates stories of color, form, and line that are glorious and unique.

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Mary Judge’s Pop Flower series, created with pure pigments, saturates the eye with lovely and vivid forms. These pieces make me think of what a bee or other pollinator may see when searching for flowers from which to collect pollen and nectar. Like giant floral targets, they attract and demand a closer look, a hunt for nourishment.

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As an artist myself, I am always interested in process. “How is something made?” is a question I frequently ask myself when looking at art. What are the parts, what goes into this? As a curator one of the greatest joys is to consult with and visit artists in their workspaces.

Mary Judge, Pop Flower 44, 2017, powdered pigment on paper

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Kristin Diener creates elaborate metal-smithed objects, many of them wearable, using just about any small found object imaginable. Her works are full of juju. We talked about the ideas of bee charming and bee protecting. Bearing witness to her process is magical. All the parts layed out are equally as remarkable as the actual finished works that come about from the parts.

Chris Collins is also an artist who works with found objects. For Cross Pollination, he cast found seed pods and chrysalises, transforming delicate natural objects into seemingly indestructible forms. His works allude to the ideas of alchemy, transformation, and survival.

Daisy Patton finds forgotten vintage photos and imagines an entirely new and different life for them. She blows them up large, and paints over them with vibrant color and pattern, assigning them a story that is powerful and mysterious. She documents the mesmerizing process of transmutation via social media platforms. For her painting Untitled (Gardener), the gardener takes on the role of wizard, creating a strange and wondrous environment, providing potential for pollinators to thrive.

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Stephanie Lerma’s work takes on an almost tactile quality with her monarch butterfly installation. She has created thousands of monarchs out of cast paper and has carefully painted each one to reflect both her own hand and the hand of nature. Presented in cluster formation, one can imagine encountering these works in nature, and feeling the quiver of beauty and fragility they evoke.

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In the Prologue in the book Bee Time, Mark L. Winston writes:

“Walking into an Apiary is intellectually challenging and emotionally rich, sensual and riveting. Time Slows Down. Focus increases, awareness heightens, all senses captivated...These moments of understanding, penetrating the complexity of usually unfathomable natural world, still take my breath away.”

The new media work of Susanna Carlisle and Bruce Hamilton aims to create the kind of apiary experience that Winston describes. They spent a significant amount of time filming honeybees in action. They present this work in a multi-dimensional format, projecting specially processed bee images onto the wall and into hanging glass spheres, providing an experience akin to being with bees. They also present their video work in virtual reality, where viewers can don special viewing equipment to see bees and experience their magic without danger, real or imagined.

UK artist Lily Hunter Green’s video and sound installation, Bee Composed Live, incorporates performance, beekeeping, and the auditory aspects of bee life. Hunter Green creates music by attaching a hive to a piano. She works with other musicians, dancers, projection, and scientific theory of bee behavior to create her version of “hive mind,” or immersion into the lives of honeybees. She presents bee situations such as the “waggle dance,” which is a special movement that scout bees do when they return to the hive to orient, direct, and alert other bees to sources of food. Hunter Green’s multi-dimensional work is informative and engaging.

Opposite: Kristin Diener, Detail, Talisman: Pectoral Reliquary, 2017, in progress

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Resonant Nest is another incredible experiential work. Los Angeles-based Jessica Rath created a human-sized cluster of bumblebee cups. Additionally, she collaborated with composer and sound-designer Robert Hoehn, who musically interpreted the sounds and activities of a bumblebee colony. Bumblebees live in small colonies, mostly underground, and the work captures the intimacy and beauty of this interaction.

Honeybees and other pollinators are responsible for a significant portion of the human food supply. Without these beneficial insects, certain foods would become rare and expensive while others would disappear altogether. There is no question that bee populations are in danger. Whether or not the bees have an impact on the longevity of the human species is an ongoing debate. Regardless of whether or not we could survive without bees and other pollinators, without them, the world as we know it would be immeasurably less beautiful, altered, and perhaps uninhabitable.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I felt excited and nervous when asked by 516 ARTS director Suzanne Sbarge if I had any ideas or artists to suggest for a possible exhibition about bees. I feel very fortunate to have my passion for this subject matter materialize into the this exhibition. The project as a whole has truly been a labor of love. I have immense gratitude for this opportunity.

Early on, Aimee Gwynne Franklin, an independent curator based in Santa Fe, was part of the curatorial process. I thank her for her input and recommendation of a few of the artists who are part of this exhibition. Claude Smith, exhibitions manager at 516 ARTS, was a great sounding board, and provided much needed feedback on curatorial decisions. Thank you Claude! I also thank the staff and volunteers of 516 ARTS for the helpfulness and dedication.

I am in awe of all the wonderful work and artists that are a part of this exhibition. I am so very thankful to them all. I am also thankful to everyone and everything that has made a contribution to this exhibition.

Valerie Roybal is an artist, designer, and sometimes curator. She lives and works in Albuquerque, and spends much time making art, enjoying nature, and hunting for materials and inspiration. She has shown her work in a number of exhibitions, and her work can be seen in the books Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage (Gestalten, 2011) and CUT and PASTE, 21st Century Collage (Laurence King Publishers, 2011). She is a recipient of a 2015 Pollock-Krasner Artist Grant.

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JENNIFER ANGUS

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Wisconsin

“I am best known for creating elaborate installations in which real insects, albeit dead and dried, are pinned directly to the wall in order to create patterns which reference wallpaper. When viewers enter one of my installations, they are greeted with something they initially think they know, that is, a patterned wallpaper. However, upon closer examination, one discovers that it is entirely made up of insects. Emotions range and rapidly fluctuate from fear to awe, to distaste to wonder. The pattern I have created for Cross Pollination is broken. A kind of whirlwind exists within it that eventually erupts, creating disorder and chaos. I am referencing man’s fragility and the ephemeral state of this planet. We need insects to survive. They pollinate flowers that in turn produce fruit. The world is starting to wake up to the devastating tragedy that awaits us all if colony collapse, the death of millions and millions of honeybees, goes on unabated.

The role of insects in decomposing matter is not to be underestimated either. Our world would become a massive trash heap without insects and the human race would no longer exist.�

Cryptozoology (detail), 2016, installation, insects on wall

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STEVE BARRY .......................

New Mexico

“Immanuel Kant refers to the ‘Universal Understanding’ produced by purely aesthetic objects as our ‘Common Sense.’ Thomas Paine used these words to title his pamphlet urging the necessity for American revolution. Between the poles of consensus and anarchy resides the formation of a republic and process of a democracy. With the sculptural piece, the viewer may add or remove pennies beyond the surface of the work to generate signs or words of their own values or alter those of others. No pattern is immune to change. Although some may endure. For the duration of the exhibition the matrix becomes a field of cultural expression. In this way, our aesthetic is frequently altered.”

Common Cents, 2006, Epson archival print

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SUSANNA CARLISLE & BRUCE HAMILTON

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New Mexico

“Our installation, Vanishing II, is about honeybees. Bees evolved from carnivorous wasps over 100 million years ago along with the appearance of flowering plants. Since that time, bees have become a primary pollinator of the plant kingdom. Worldwide, about one third of the human diet comes from pollinated plants. Today bees are challenged by colony collapse resulting from habitat loss, deadly disease, pesticides, commercial beekeeping, and other interventions by man. These challenges threaten not only bees and other pollinators, but humans and all the other creatures that rely on nourishment from pollinated plants.�

Vanishing II, 2017, multi-media video installation and glass globes

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CHRIS COLLINS

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New Mexico

“This installation focuses on the relationship of the Datura plant and the Sphinx moth.

Datura stramonium, commonly referred to as Jimson weed or Thornapple, is a plant native to North America which has had a profound impact on human consciousness as a entheogen. The large fragrant nocturnal blooms are primarily pollinated by the Sphinx moth. The frenzied hovering of the moths amongst the elegantly curled flowers seem to suggest that there is something more about this plant than meets the eye. The large thorny seed pods appear daunting and tough, yet delicate and ordered inside, like that of the transformative lifecycle of the moth from a horned caterpillar.

In this work, these pod forms are cast in bronze and center to a swarm of moth chrysalises cast in aluminum, making physical reference to metamorphosis and ordered structure. As above, So Below, refers to both the physical lifecycle of these interdependent life forms, and the likeness of the macro and micro, the cosmic and the atomic.�

As Above, So Below, 2017, datura pods cast in bronze

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KRISTIN DIENER

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New Mexico

“I jumped on the opportunity to participate in this exhibition. The idea made me cry! For as long as I can remember, I have found such joy in the abundance of forms, functions, and beauty that reveal themselves in pollinators. The plethora of designs awe me. In the act of pollination there is no single connection made that does not benefit a multitude of other life forms. This truth remains central to all that I make.”

Pollinator: The Queen’s Honey Drops, 2017, necklace/amulet with handmade chain, sterling and fine silver, 24k gold in glass, S. Frank enameled head pin, brass accents, found object, paper, mica, rainbow moonstones, Ethiopian opals, pearls, glass and shell buttons, and eyeglass frame fragment, photo by Margo Geist

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AGANETHA DYCK & RICHARD DYCK .............................................................

Canada

Aganetha Dyck is interested in environmental issues, specifically the decline of honeybees. She deems the incredible of these creatures the “power of the small.�

From 2001-2003, Aganetha and her son Richard collaborated on Hive Scans, a series of photographs created by placing a flatbed scanner inside of a beehive. These scans captured the frenzied bee activity inside, as well as non-bee objects that we see (salt and pepper shakers, lace, drawings), which are other artworks in-progress. The bees move as the scan head moves creating compressing and smearing, and capturing various moods, dark and light.

Hive Scan 13, 2001-2003, archival photo print

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KELLY ECKEL .......................

New Mexico

“Over a year and a half ago, curator Valerie Roybal asked me to be part of an exhibition on pollinators. Throughout this period of time, I have been photographing and researching the role of pollinators. In doing so, I have come to see their diversity: bats, moths, bees, wasps, birds, beetles, mammals, and reptiles, and to see their varied relationships with plants.

I try to create images that reflect a deeper understanding that started by looking closely at plants to see what was buzzing inside a flower, as well as looking at pollen and insects through a microscope. This led me to ask questions about what is needed for the survival of each plant and animal. What are the relationships that they have formed, and how have they evolved over time?

The artworks displayed in Cross Pollination are photopolymer etchings that I made from collaging photographs that I have taken. Instead of isolating one thing, I wish to blend the relationships into one organic ever-evolving form that has the potential to grow into the empty space that surrounds it.�

Morphogenic Series (Bilateral-Modification), 2017, photopolymer etching, photo by Margo Geist

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JO GOLESWORTHY

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United Kingdom

“I began producing pollen sculptures some years ago when by chance, I found a grainy black and white scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image in an old copy of National Geographic. The image of miscellaneous pollen grains of diverse dynamic forms and textures, too small to see with the naked eye, presented an irresistible impulse to recreate them 3D, and on a human scale. Individual pollen ‘grains’ made visible in detail

by SEM show the exine caskets which convey the male reproductive cells of flowering plants by wind, insects and mammals. (I was delighted to discover that Agave is pollinated by bats and moths.) The exine material is light, flexible and translucent— opposing qualities of the limestone compound with which I build the sculpture.

The tension between the disciplines of botanic illustration and the manipulation of the architectural material is a challenging study and, I hope, the sculptures emerge as unique forms in their own right.

I had great fun researching local flora and pollen of New Mexico for Cross Pollination and reflecting on the source of my inspiration.” .

Daisy, 2016, lime fondue

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LILY HUNTER GREEN

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United Kingdom

“The video project of Bee Composed Live is from a multi-discipline performative installation that blends art and science. It is the natural evolution of Bee Composed (2014): an interactive, site-specific installation that involved converting two pianos into an interactive working beehive installation as a means to explore new ways of raising awareness of the declining population of the bees. Following a residency with violinist Tom Moore, and contemporary dance company Neon Dance, Bee Composed Live has evolved significantly. I am now working with musicians, digital coders, opera singers, scientists, and dancers to create a multi-layered live choreographed performance piece that will integrate the sound and visual recordings harvested from my working piano hive with original new compositions and dance. The intention is to create a simulation of a ‘hive mind’—that is, a unique microcosmic space that enables audience members to experience the inner dynamics and scientific happenings of the hive. This includes: the fight to the death of the competing queen bees over ‘territory;’ the ‘waggle dance’ that alerts the hive to the best ‘feeding fields;’ and the drone bees ‘servicing’ their queen. This is done as a means to depict how the hive resonates with human society, and beyond that, the intricate weave that binds together the natural world.”

Bee Composed Live, 2016-2017, video still

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TALIA GREENE ..........................

New York

“The group of prints exhibited in Cross Pollination pairs altered portraits of 19th century Westerners with Orientalist postcards taken and traded by Westerners in the Colonial era. The themes of sensuality, concealment, and exposure, already implicit in Victorian and Orientalist imagery, are taken to an absurd degree. Shown together, the comparisons play with assumptions regarding the colonizer and subject. Here, the insects are the invaders, modestly cloaking the body, or burying a Victorian man in the chaotic swarm of his own beard.

The insects seem to become part of the people, yet at the same time are alien and uncontrollable. Here the swarms grow; run wild; start to conform; then run wild once more. Even as we attempt to impose our will on nature, these insects impose their anarchy on us.�

Bostwick, 2010, archival pigment print

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MARY JUDGE

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New York/Wisconsin

“The Pop Flower series has its origin in the geometric motifs found on buildings in Cappadocia, Turkey, where I had a residency in 2010. The imagery seeks to fuse the mystical with rational divisions of a circle. From these first drawings, I expanded this series towards a more botanical source but always with the forms themselves, not flowers per se, in mind. The drawings are made using stencils on rag paper and pouncing the open spaces with a sack of powdered pigment. My approach to the color is intuitive so that harmonies are spontaneous and evolve over the course of the drawing process. I am interested also in the presence of accumulated debris or the unplanned, casual things that happen during the making of a work. The best things are never planned, they just happen.�

Pop Flower 43, 2017, powdered pigment on paper

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BRYAN KONEFSKY / BASEMENT FILMS

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New Mexico

“Vildgroz—which means Yiddish for weed—is a video installation that invites viewers to evaluate ‘the winds of change’, and a cross pollination of ideas, as a metaphoric phenomenon that sometimes delivers unexpected, unwanted and, now and again, uncalled for results.”

Basement Films explores new and unique ways of sharing their vintage archive of educational films. For Cross Pollination, they have selected films focusing on pollination from their vast archive of over 8,000 films.

Vildgroz, 2017, video still

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STEPHANIE LERMA

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New Mexico

“Sanctuary is my dialogue about how we connect and respond to phenomena in nature. Monarchs migrate to several different locations as temperatures cool, one of which is Pacific Grove, California. I was able to visit this overwintering site a few years ago and that experience inspired this work. Every year, thousands of butterflies travel hundreds of miles to find the perfect sanctuary for survival. I’ve been pondering that journey...”

Sanctuary (detail), 2017, watercolor on handmade paper, branches

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HILARY LORENZ

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New York/New Mexico

The Moth Migration Project is a crowd-sourced installation of hand printed, drawn, and cut paper moths. Lorenz put out a call for participation on social media, inviting people to create paper moths native to their geographic location. Through social media and personal relationships, the moths became a symbol of community as the project branched into satellite exhibitions, printmaking workshops, school art projects, and family and community gatherings.

The project has fostered an international cross-pollination of ideas and community building. As facilitator, Lorenz cataloged each submission into a database. In addition, she created and continues to moderate a Facebook Moth Migration Group, where people cultivate relationships and share photographs of their moths and personal experience. Pollination is reciprocal with Lorenz mailing each participant a specifically-designed postcard recognizing their contribution and acknowledging the value of their collaboration.

For the installation, each paper moth’s placement represents how the project digitally pollinated. The visual effect of the massive installation is a migration map representing artists from twenty-four countries and their connection with the project.

The Moth Migration Project, 2016-2017, crowd-sourced printed, drawn, and cut paper moths

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PASTEL

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Argentina

“Far away from conventional architecture, I understand work on the street as a urban acupuncture. I try to base my work on experiences. My work is informed by consideration of the space where I get to create my work, be it a city, a rural space, an open space, or a closed space. First, I try to understand the conditions that the environment offers and try not to impose an already established concept for the space. Working with flora as social symbolism, the pieces begin a dialogue about the nature of man and his surroundings—the existential, real, pure and tragic, and almost forgotten in modern society.”

Lethal Gasp (detail), 2016, serigraph

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DAISY PATTON

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Colorado

“With the series Forgetting is so Long, I collect abandoned, anonymous family photographs, enlarge them past their familiar size, and paint over them. I paint to disrupt, to re-imagine, to re-enliven these individuals until I can either no longer recognize them, or their presence is too piercing to continue. Family photographs are sacred relics to their loved ones, but unmoored, the images become hauntingly absent. Anthropologist Michael Taussig states that defacing these types of objects forces a ‘shock into being;’ suddenly we perceive them as present, revered, and piercing. By mixing painting with photography, I lengthen Roland Barthes’ Moment of Death (the photograph) into some semblance of purgatory. Not alive but not quite dead, each person’s newly imagined and altered portrait straddles the lines between memory, identity, and death. They are monuments to the forgotten.

For Cross Pollination, I explore our relationship with nature through photographs of a beekeeper and a gardener. Each painting shows human interventions into the environment with these figures, but the landscape disrupts any sense that we control the natural world. We are unbalancing our symbiotic relationship, and consequently the flora erupts in protest to underscore this fraught connection.”

Untitled (The Gardener), 2017, oil on archival print mounted to panel

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JESSICA RATH & ROBERT HOEHN ..........................................................

California

Resonant Nest is a human-scaled native bumblebee nest sculpture that emanates human voice interpretations of bee communication.

The 6-part score is composed by Venice-based sound designer Robert Hoehn and performed by the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music 40 person Chamber Choir at California State University, Long Beach’s (CSULB), one of the most prestigious choral departments of the West Coast. Bee sounds are inspired by research from the Leonard Bee Lab, University of Nevada, Reno and recordings by Dr. Stephen Buchmann, University of Arizona, Tucson. An internal plug mold, made in collaboration with Ian Schneller of Specimen Products, Chicago, was used to create the nest’s modular units, each embedded with speakers whose score shifts with sensory inputs based on current weather, time, and gallery viewer closeness to the nest. The resonance of the nest ebbs and flows with feeds from the National Weather Service report on local conditions and Arduino Uno inputs from the proximity sensors in the nest. MAX composing program translates this information to shift and layer emitting scores—languid wander, afternoon forage, quiet sleep, cold huddle, too close, and single voice pollinators— from the nest. Data illustration by artist Vivian Sming displays these shifts and names score changes through the day.

Resonant Nest (detail), 2014, fiberglass sculptures with sound

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REN RI

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China

“I have collaborated with bees to create sculptural works and performance art. Yuansu VII is performance work in which my body interacted with bees. At the beginning of the 7 days, I washed my right hand with honey and pollen and then kept my hand deep into the beehive day and night. After a while, the bees began to build their honeycomb on my hand. I consider the bees to be co-creators of my works. With my work, human consciousness combined with bee consciousness is the key point. I believe my sculptures and performance represent the truth of how humans interact with nature, which involves harmony, destruction, molding, and interference—which can result in unpredictable, sometimes volatile, but often wondrous results.”

Yuansu VII (Bee Hand), 2016-2017, video still

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USGS NATIVE BEE MONITORING PROGRAM

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Maryland

The USGS Native Bee Monitoring Program designs and develops large and small scale surveys for native bees. As part of that program they also develop identification tools and keys for native bee species. One aspect of creating those tools is creating accurate and detailed pictures of native bees and the plants and insects they interact with.

Anthophora californica, 2016, photograph

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SITE PROJECT: HOTEL FOR NATIVE BEES AND POLLINATORS

by Sheri Crider and Valerie Roybal LOCATION: City of Albuqueruqe Open Space 6500 Coors NW, Albuquerque

The Bee Hotel is made possible by City of Albuquerque Open Space.

Artists Sheri Crider and Valerie Roybal, along with many volunteers, built a Bee Hotel which is permanently installed at the City of Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center near the Perennial Marsh. Both a sculpture and a functional object, the Bee Hotel provides housing for wild solitary bees and other native pollinators, and educates visitors about these important insect populations.

There are hundreds of wild bee species in New Mexico. These species not only pollinate wildflowers, shrubs, and trees, but also edible plants, fruits, and vegetables from local farms and backyard gardens. Insect hotels provide safe lodging for pollinators, especially during the winter, when populations can die due to weather and exposure.

The Bee Hotel is made possible by City of Albuquerque Open Space.

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SITE PROJECT: BOTANICAL MURAL PROJECT

by Pastel

LOCATIONS: Sanitary Tortilla Factory 401 2nd St. SW, Albuquerque Tower Building 510 2nd St. NW, Albuquerque

The Botanical Mural Project is made possible by: J.J. Mahoney & Associates, the Sanitary Tortilla Factory, The City of Albuquerque Public Art Program, Sherwinn-Williams, and Benjamin Moore Paints / Coronado Paint and Decorating, Santa Fe, NM.

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The Botanical Mural Project, features two new murals in Downtown Albuquerque by renowned artist Pastel (a.k.a. Francisco Diaz) from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Pastel, who is both an architect and a muralist, has created murals in places all over the world, most recently: France, Norway, Belgium, Ukraine, and the Philippines.

Using his distinct visual language, he fills wall surfaces with patterns based on the local flora of the region. His botanical references address history, geography, and society, while exploring the relationships between urban art, architecture, and city life.

Pastel describes his street art as “urban acupuncture,” saying: “Modern cities are full of ‘non places’ because of irregular and non-inclusive master-planning... Working with symbolism of local flora, the murals create a dialogue about the nature of human beings and our surroundings.”

In consultation with Cross Pollination exhibition curator Valerie Roybal, Pastel chose to work with and interpret images of the following native plants: Arbutus xalapensis, Verbena neomexicana, Clematis drummondii, Cercocarpus breviflorus, Artemisia tridentata, Aloysia gratissima, Amorpha fruticosa, and Mahonia trifoliolata.

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ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES JENNIFER ANGUS is a professor in the Design Studies department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She received her education at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). Angus has exhibited her work internationally including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Spain. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Wisconsin Arts Board grants. The Ontario Association of Art Galleries selected her exhibition A Terrible Beauty at the Textile Museum of Canada as “Exhibition of the Year” in 2006.

STEVE BARRY was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, lived in New York City, and now resides in Corrales New Mexico. He received his BFA at the School of Visual Arts 1979 and MFA at Hunter College in 1984. He taught at Hunter College from 1984-1989 and accepted a tenure track position at the University of New Mexico in 1989. Barry has exhibited his work at The Hirshhorn Museum, Santa Barbara Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, PS1 Long Island City, Site Santa Fe, and Center for Contemporary Art Santa Fe. His work is reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, and New Art Examiner.

SUSANNA CARLISLE AND BRUCE HAMILTON are a team based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Bruce Hamilton received a Master of Communication from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Susanna Carlisle received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Their work combines video, sculpture, and architecture. By bringing moving images into threedimensional environments, they hope to address movement through time and space while magnifying concern for the planet. They have worked together for many years and their works have been exhibited in the US, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

CHRIS COLLINS is a sculptor and found object artist. Born and raised in Alabama, he has a BFA in painting from University of Montevallo and an MFA from Memphis College of Art. For the last decade, he has been primarily engaged with the metal casting process, working in several foundries, and becoming a highly skilled foundry artisan. His current work deals with themes of technology, science, nature, and the passage of time.

KRISTIN DIENER is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University in Jewelry/Metalsmithing. Diener’s work has been exhibited widely, including: Public Selects: Crowdsourced Exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum; On Body and Soul, Contemporary Armor to Amulets, Tacoma Art Museum and National Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee; and a year-long traveling exhibition in conjunction with the publication, On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets (Curator/Author, Suzanne Ramljak).

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AGANETHA DYCK is best known for her work with live honeybees with which she collaborated between 1991 to 2010. Dyck won the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council Arts Award of Distinction in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across Canada and in England, France, and the Netherlands. Her work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Glenbow Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Britain.

KELLY ECKEL was born in Long Island, New York. and currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received an Associate Degree in photography from Palomar College in California and has a BFA and a Masters in Art Education from the University of New Mexico. Her work was published in View Camera, she was a Key Holder at the Lower East Side Print Shop and she gave a Salon presentation at Photo Eye. Most recently she received a stipend for an artist residency in Spain. She currently works as an art educator in the public schools.

LILY HUNTER GREEN is a London-based contemporary composer and visual artist. She holds a degree from University of Brighton. Green has developed original commissions for a variety of exhibitions, festivals and organizations in the UK, most recently, Bee Composed (Aldeburgh: 2014), Harvest (Village Green, Southend-on-Sea, 2015), and Sea Change (Felixstowe Book Festival, 2016). She has recently been engaged as Artistin-Residence at Birkbeck College, University of London (2017/2018) where she will continue to develop her ongoing multi-discipline installation Bee Composed Live, an evolution of her earlier work which was exhibited by Aldeburgh Music, as part of its annual visual art exhibition SNAP. TALIA GREENE received her BA from Wesleyan University, and her MFA from Mills College.

She has created site specific wallpaper installations at Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York City, The American University Museum in Washington DC, and The Print Center, Philadelphia, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Glen Foerd Historic Mansion.

Her work has been funded by several awards including an Independence Foundation Fellowship Grant, and the Peter Benoliel Fellowship from the Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Greene is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at University of the Arts, and is a member of the Philadelphia collective Grizzly Grizzly.

JO GOLESWORTHY was born in 1962 in Devonshire, South West England where she now lives. From 1980 she attended Exeter College of Art and Design and Brighton Polytechnic graduating in 1984 with a BA Degree in Fine Art. Her influences and interests include Assyrian wall carvings, Gregor Mendel, Mary Anning - Palaeontologist, man-made habitats reclaimed by nature, Portland Quarries, and forensic science. She exhibits and sells work widely, recently to horticulturalists and beekeeping organizations as 37

educational material. Golesworthy hopes to raise awareness of pollinators and their conservation.

MARY JUDGE was raised in rural New Jersey and attended Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Maine and Tyler School of Art, earning an MFA. Her artistic development has been affected by her frequent travels to Italy, where she built a deep relationship with contemporary Italian art and local artisans of the Umbria region. Judge’s works are included in the collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Fogg Art Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The British Museum and The Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Cassino, Italy.

BRYAN KONEFSKY is the director of Experiments in Cinema, an international film festival, and is the president of Basement Films. Konefsky has lectured about alternative cinematic practices in countries such as Argentina, Cuba, Germany, Korea, Morocco, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Spain, and the UK. His work has been presented internationally at museums, film festivals, and universities. Konefsky’s work has been supported by New Mexico Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The New Mexico Humanities Council, The McCune Charitable Foundation, The Albuquerque Community Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

STEPHANIE LERMA is a New Mexico native who returned home in the early 1990’s after living in upstate New York for several years. She attended school in Paris, France, where she received her teaching certification in piano pedagogue from L’Ecole Normale de Musique, and holds degrees from the University of New York at Albany. Lerma is a mixed media artist who specializes in working with and creating paper. She has exhibited her works throughout the United States, and in Japan, South Korea, and China. A permanent installation, The Blank Page was recently commissioned for the Albuquerque Main Public Library.

HILARY LORENZ is a NY-based multidisciplinary artist who explores intersections of running, nature, and solitude in printed and cut paper installations. Lorenz received an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Birding, Brooklyn Bridge Park, NY (2016); Lean-to-Me, Lake George Courthouse Gallery, NY (2015); and Nomadic Geography, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2014). Lorenz was an artist-in-residence at LMCC Governors Island, NY, (2016), National Seashore C-Scape, Provincetown, MA (2008, 2016), and is the US representative for the Chilkoot Trail Residency, Parks Canada and Yukon Arts Center 2018. She is an NEA and Fulbright Fellow.

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PASTEL, aka Francisco DĂ­az, is artist and architect from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has created murals and has shown his paintings on almost every continent and in major cities such as: Oslo, Paris, Moscow, Kiev, Manila, Brussels, Berlin and his home city. His work has been extensively documented and has been published several books, including: Make Your Mark, Nuevo Mundo: Latin American Street Art, and Graffiti Argentina.

DAISY PATTON is based in Aurora, Colorado. She has a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Oklahoma. Her MFA is from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/ Tufts University. Patton’s work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Create Magazine, The Jealous Curator, and Vasari21. She has completed residencies at RedLine Denver, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and Eastside International in Los Angeles. She will be in residence at Anderson Ranch in the Fall of 2017. Her work is widely exhibited in solo and group shows nationally, and she is represented by K Contemporary in Denver.

JESSICA RATH received her B.A. in Sociology from University of Missouri and her M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts. She currently teaches at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. In 2014, she received the California Community Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship and grants from the Reed Foundation, Metabolic Studios, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation for her solo exhibition A Better Nectar at the University Art Museum, California State University-Long Beach, CA. Recent exhibitions include The Oscelots of Foothill Boulevard with Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood (Pitzer College Galleries, 2016). Rath partnered with ROBERT HOEHN for the Resonant Nest component of A Better Nectar. Hoehn created music and interactive systems for the work. The California-based musician, trained composer, and keyboardist who works in music and sound also builds interactive electronic sound systems for galleries and experimental mechanical acoustical sound sculptures that travel to festivals.

REN RI was born in 1984 in Harbin, China. He studied Fine Art at Tsinghua University, before receiving his Masters at Saint-Petersburg Herzen State University in Russia. He also holds a PhD in Fine Art from Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. In 2015, Ri was awarded the Kaiserring prize in Germany for young artist of the year. Ri is known for his unique artistic collaboration with honey bees.

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THANK YOU! FUNDERS

PROGRAM PARTNERS

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Bernalillo County Julie Morgas Baca, County Manager Commissioner Maggie Hart-Stebbins Commissioner Debbie O’Malley Center for Educational Initiatives City of Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry & City Council Cultural Services Department The FUNd at Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation National Endowment for the Arts New Mexico Arts New Mexico Humanities Council PNM Fund UNM College of Fine Arts

City of Albuquerque Open Space Exhibit 208 The Guild Cinema Sanitary Tortilla Factory SHIFT DANCE UNM ARTS Lab Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge

SPONSORS Farm & Table Friends of Valle de Oro Goodman Realty J.J. Mahoney & Associates New Mexico Orthopaedics RMKM Architecture

CONTRIBUTOR & DONOR MEMBERS Seanetta Allsass Anonymous Reid Cramer, in honor of Sonya Cohen Cramer Craig Eaves Gary Goodman Ohad Jehassi Patricia & Rob Kurz Rick Rennie & Sandy Hill Alan Marks Tim Price Arturo Sandoval Strell Design Paula Thomas Dr. Mark Unverzagt & Laura Fashing David Vogel & Marietta Patricia Leis Clint Wells Dr. Dean Yannias

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SPECIAL THANKS Albuquerque Art Business Association ABQ Convention & Visitors Bureau Albuquerque Museum The Artichoke Café, Farina & Farina Alto Bella Roma B&B Beyond Poetry, LLC Burque Bakehouse City of Albuquerque Public Art Program Downtown Arts & Cultural District Heritage Hotels & Resorts Historic District Improvement Company Hotel Andaluz Hyatt Regency Downtown Don Mickey Designs Felicity More & Mark Owen Sam Droege Screen Images, Inc. Stubblefield Print & Signs Noor-un-Nisa Touchon Turner Carroll Gallery

MEDIA PARTNERS Albuquerque Journal, Lead Media Partner Field & Frame KUNM Radio 89.9 FM New Mexico PBS / KNME-TV Parallax Vision Films Pyragraph.com

SITE PROJECT SUPPORT Mick Burson, Jessica Bell Crider, Elena Baca Erin De Rosa, Nichole Johnson, Jill Mahoney & Dillon Mahoney, Linda Skye, Kent Swanson

516 ARTS GOVERNING BOARD Danny López, Chair Suzanne Sbarge, President Hakim Bellamy, Vice President Joshua Edwards, Treasurer Tim Price, Secretary Manny Juárez Dr. Kymberly Pinder Mark Rohde Sommer Smith Tonya Turner Carroll

ADVISORY BOARD Juan Abeyta

STAFF

Michael Berman David Campbell

Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Director

Andrew Connors

Claude Smith, Exhibitions/Fulcrum Fund Manager

Debi Dodge

Dr. Josie Lopez, Curator

Idris Goodwin

Erin De Rosa, Development Coordinator

Tom Guralnick

Nichole Johnson, Marketing Coordinator

Allen Hrynick

Daryl Lucero, Outreach Coordinator

Ohad Jehassi

CONSULTANTS

Deborah Jojola Jane Kennedy

Jane Kennedy, Development Associate

Arif Khan

Emilie De Angelis, Fundraising Consultant

Brian McMath

Shelle Sanchez, Planning Consultant

Jenny McMath

Don McIver, Literary Arts Coordinator

Elsa Menéndez

Mandy Funchess, Schlenker & Cantwell, Auditor

Rhiannon Mercer

Annamarie Bernard, Gately Accounting

Dr. Andrea Polli

Melody Mock, Website Designer

Henry Rael

M. Paige Taylor, Special Projects

Mary Anne Redding

Evan Dent Fine Art Services

Rick Rennie

CATALOG

Augustine Romero Dr. Shelle Sanchez

Printing: Don Mickey Designs

Arturo Sandoval

Design: Valerie Roybal

Rob Strell

Editing: Dr. Josie Lopez

Dr. Paula Thomas