Picturing Eden at George Eastman House

Exhibition of contemporary photographs explores the garden and paradise; opens Jan. 28

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — George Eastman House invites you to envision Eden and paradise, through 133 contemporary photographs in the exhibition Picturing Eden, on view Jan. 28 through June 18, 2006. Picturing Eden features the work of 37 artists from six countries – including well-known artists Mike and Doug Starn, Adam Fuss, Ruud van Empel, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Sally Mann, as well as emerging artists such as Jo Whaley, Alec Soth, and Lori Nix.

"As a mythic theme, Eden resonates across time and cultures, and is charged with both political and environmental concerns," explained guest curator Deborah Klochko, a Rochester native now living and working in California. "Many of these photographs deal with the idea of the garden as a metaphor for good and evil, heaven and hell. Picturing Eden focuses on the state of humankind after Eden – paradise is no longer available to us, but from that moment on we have attempted to regain it."

The contemporary artists featured in Picturing Eden examine the many facets of paradise, from a place of contemplation and restoration to a site of loneliness and despair. The exhibition is organized in four sections: Paradise Lost, Paradise Reconstructed, Despairing of Paradise, and Paradise Anew. The photographs explore the development and changing styles of the garden and concepts of paradise. By looking at the notion of paradise and the garden through the photographic lens, Picturing Eden highlights original lost innocence, the ongoing significance of a humanistic, culturally charged environment, and its place in the history of art. Eden or paradise, a place of great or perfect happiness and satisfaction, is an ideal still sought today.

An accompanying catalog, published by Steidl, will feature photographs from the exhibition; an introduction by Dr. Anthony Bannon, director of George Eastman House; an essay by Klochko; and a transcribed conversation about paradise and the visual image. The conversation participants are Merry Foresta, director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative; Louise Mozingo, associate professor, Department of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley; and award-winning author Rebecca Solnit.

"Gardens engage the large values of rhetoric and science. Their terms of engagement summon idealized compositions of unity, balance, and sequence," wrote Dr. Bannon in the catalog introduction. "Gardens are equally vain and self-centered. Shaped by the bold will of their makers, they take on the romance of humankind‘s desires for dominance. In the name of free expression, gardens share the arrogance of other arts, and their tropes – the tectonics of sculpture and architecture, the chronology of storytelling, the harmonies of music and poetry, even the memories of photography."

The Picturing Eden artists are:
Greta Anderson, Wayne Barrar, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, Binh Danh, Susan Derges, Ed Dimsdale Ruud van Empel, Adam Fuss, Sally Gall, Lyle Gomes, Gavin Hipkins, Matthias Hoch, Simen Johan, Izima Kaoru, Michael Kenna, Mark Kessell, Sally Mann, Lori Nix, Han Nguyen, Michael Parekowhai, John Pfahl, J. John Priola, Michael Rauner, Liz Rideal, David Robinson, Josephine Scabo, Vincent Serbin, Jiri Sigut, Camille Solyagua, Alec Soth, Mike and Doug Starn, Sun Hongbin, Maggie Taylor, JoAnn Verburg, Terri Weifenbach, Jo Whaley, Masao Yamamoto.

Picturing Eden has been organized by George Eastman House and will tour internationally. The exhibition is supported by the Comer Foundation, Mondriaan Stichting Foundation, and Creative New Zealand.

PICTURING EDEN LECTURES

Lectures with artists and photographers, most featured in the exhibition, will take place in March, April, and May. Each lecture will be held in the Curtis Theatre and included with museum admission.

6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 16
"John Burroughs and the Art of Seeing Things," presented by Charlotte Zoë Walker, professor of English, State University of New York at Oneonta. Naturalist John Burroughs (1837Ð1921) grew up in the Catskills and was immensely influential in his time, counting Whitman, Ford, Muir, and Roosevelt among his friends. This event is part of the New York Council on the Humanities‘ Speakers in the Humanities program.

6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6
"Pioneering Spirit: Landscape and Discontent in Recent Photographic Projects," presented by New Zealand-based artist Gavin Hipkins, a professor at the School of Fine Arts at Massey University Wellington. Hipkins has represented New Zealand in the 11th Biennale of Sydney in 1998 and in the 25th Biennale of Sao Paulo in 2002. Other group exhibitions include Flight Patterns at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and A Molecular History of Everything at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 13
"Why I Photograph," presented by photographer Sally Gall, who currently works in New York City as a commercial and fine-art photographer. Her work is in major museum collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Gall has earned several prestigious awards including the Moonhole Residency from the Englehard, a fellowship from the MacDowell Colony, and a Cultural Arts Council of Houston Grant.

6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 11
"It's No Picnic: The Constructed Landscapes of Lori Nix," presented by photographer Lori Nix, whose work was recently seen at Eastman House in the 2005 exhibition Vital Signs. In her images Nix subverts the traditions of landscape photography in order to create her own humorously dark world. Her photographs toy with romantic notions of landscape and her lush, rich color and theatrical lighting magnify a sense of isolation and melancholy while enhancing the enjoyment of the illusion. She has exhibited extensively and has received numerous photography honors, including the 2004 NYFA Individual Artist Grant, Light Work Artist-in-Residency, and Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant.

For more information about the exhibition or lectures, please call (585) 271-3361. Admission to George Eastman House is $8 for adults; $6 for senior citizens (60 and older); $5 for students; $3 for children (5 to 12); and free for children 4 and under and museum members.

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