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Maya Lin at the Hudson River Museum

By Peggy Roalf   Wednesday October 10, 2018

Maya Lin: A River Is a Drawing, features new works and ambitious site-specific installations that will take over the Hudson River Museum, in Yonkers, both inside and out, all created along the theme of the Hudson River. Using materials such as pins, glass marbles, wire, bamboo, and silver, Lin explores the river's movement in time and space—how it flows, shapes, and is shaped by the land. This immersive installation draws from the artist’s commitment to environmental issues and the ongoing effects of climate change.

Maya Lin sees rivers as "fluid moving drawings—delineated and drawn out." While water as the critical, life-bestowing element of nature has been her recurring motif in her artworks, she has never before concentrated so deeply on one specific river as in this exhibition, which is so integral to the history and development of New York and the broader northeastern region of US. Using many different materials, Lin explores the Hudson River's movement in time and space—how it flows, shapes, and is shaped by the land. 

 
Maya Lin, Folding the Hudson, 2018; photo: Kris Graves, courtesy of HRM

The exhibition will be presented in seven sections, beginning in the lobby space with one of Maya Lin's signature use of material, stainless steel pins. Pin River—Hudson Watershed is one of the largest in the series of her pin-river sculptures to date, composed with nearly 20,000 pins. In the Museum's Courtyard, Lin has created a majestic and immersive installation from more than 700 bamboo reeds in the form of a 3D drawing of the Hudson River basin. The bamboo stalks are staked into the ground creating a complex and moving drawing that invites visitors to walk through the installation.

The exhibition also includes an open-ended and invitational question "What is Missing?", which is also the name of Maya Lin's ongoing interactive digital art project and environmental advocacy movement. A darkened gallery will be dedicated to a multi-channel video projection, Map of Memory: Hudson River Timeline, developed as part of this advocacy movement. In accompanying computer kiosks connected to the What is Missing? website, visitors will be invited to share and add personal memories of what they have witnessed disappear or be restored in the natural environment that they are familiar with, helping to build together "What is Missing?" as a global online resource—what Maya Lin calls her "last memorial."

 
Pin River, Hudson Watershed, Installation; photo: Kris Graves, courtesy of HRM

Maya Lin will be at the Hudson River Museum for An Evening with Maya Lin, a special lecture and discussion about her work and the exhibition on Wednesday, October 17, 6:30 pm. Tickets Discover how and why the exhibition came to be in the context of her commitment to environmental issues, and her uniquely aesthetic approach to data visualization in her sculptures, installations, land art, monuments, and architectural work.  This is the first lecture in a robust season of public programs that address issues such as climate change; the conservation, protection, and biodiversity of the Hudson River; environmental racism; and food justice.

Recognized as one of the most innovative artists working today, Maya Lin (born 1959) was first introduced to international audiences at age 21 with the 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. This seminal work stands as one of the most powerful memorials of our time and reveals the elements of art that have defined Lin’s remarkable career in sculpture and earthworks, architecture, and memorials. She has continued to produce works that create a seamless connection to the land and an intimate and emotional connection to the viewer.  Lin’s work has been the subject of solo museum exhibitions; she has created outdoor installations for public and private collections from New York to New Zealand. Many fine examples of her work have been presented at venues that include the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the Wanås Foundation, Sweden; and the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2009, the artist created a permanent site-specific work, Wavefield, at Storm King Art Center in the lower Hudson Valley.

Maya Lin: A River Is a Drawing opens Thursday, October 12 and continues through January 20, 2-19 at the Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, NY Info Directions

Select Programs will include an Artist Lecture with Maya Lin, a Gallery Tour with Guest Curator Miwako Tezuka, and Sunday Scholar Series lectures with leading art historians and environmental historians and advocates. The Museum will also be partnering with a variety of organizations such as RiverkeeperWave HillAlamo Drafthouse Cinema-Yonkers, and the Center for the Urban River at Beczak (Sarah Lawrence College) on education programs and art, design, and environmental activities. Unless otherwise noted, all events are free with Museum admission.

 


Photo courtesy of the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club

Sat, Oct 13, 1-4pm
The Hudson River Up Close: Kayaking Sponsored by the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club
Learn kayaking basics from experienced guides in the cove at JFK Marina next to the Hudson River Museum. Ages 6+; no experience is required. Sponsored by the Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club.
Rain date, Sun, Oct. 14.

Sun, Oct 14, 2pm
Curator’s Tour of Maya Lin: A River Is a Drawing with Miwako Tezuka
Get an in-depth look at Maya Lin: A River Is a Drawing with Guest Curator Miwako Tezuka who will guide you through the artist’s site-specific installations in a variety of media, from bamboo reeds to glass industrial marbles, all created in response to the Hudson River.

Wed, Oct 17, 1:30pm
Citizen Science: Cleaning Up Our Waterways
Dan Shapley
, Water Quality Program Director, Riverke eper, talks about the grassroots foundations of the Riverkeeper movement and its mission. Riverkeeper and dozens of community scientists are working to restore and protect our local waterways. Learn how this data is collected and ways you can contribute to improving water quality.

Sun, Nov 4, 2pm
Ecology in Action: Building Healthy Communities, Changing Environmental Racism
Peggy Shepard
, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT For Environmental Justice, located in West Harlem, talks about environmental racism, climate change, and food justice and how her organization empowers and organizes low-income people of color to build healthy communities for all.

Regular scheduling of programs continues through January 17, 2019 Info

Information courtesy HRM MP031019

 


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