EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
66˚ 33' is the latitude of the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, and this exhibition considers these geographic areas as inspiration for the visual arts. In addition, it utilizes the visual arts as a mode by which to encourage viewers to more deeply engage with the planet’s most northerly and southerly regions. It considers the issues, history and environment of the regions, spanning media, process and subject – from the figural to the abstract, tactile to sound, analog to digital.
This exhibition was a collaboration with the Augustana Center for Polar Studies.
#ArtAbove66
ARTISTS:
Michael Bartalos
Cape Dorset Prints from the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art collections
Lisa Goren
Jonathan Harris
Morten Hilmer
Ben Huff
Andrea Polli
Oona Stern
William Stout
PROGRAMMING: LECTURES
MORTEN HILMER LECTURE
Morten Hilmer’s photographic practice was catalyzed by his two-year and two-month tour of Greenland, as a member of the Slædepatruljen Sirius (Sirius Sled Patrol), Denmark’s elite navy dog sled unit that patrols the coast of Greenland. This lecture will look at how that experience laid the groundwork for his photographic practice. Focusing on nature photography, Hilmer’s work has been featured by BBC Earth, and he is a freelance photographer for the World Wildlife Federation and a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
WILLIAM STOUT LECTURE
William Stout is an artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleontological art. He has worked on over thirty-one feature films, from storyboarding to production design, and his paintings have been shown in over seventy exhibitions throughout his career. In 1992, Stout participated in the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, which provided the opportunity for him to expand his interest in the Antarctic to encapsulate wildlife that is part of the long history of the area – from prehistory to the contemporary moment.
Designed by Oona Stern
PROGRAMMING: PERFORMANCE
POLAR SOUNDSCAPES: CHERYL E. LEONARD + OONA STERN
Cheryl E. Leonard and Oona Stern traveled to the Antarctic Peninsula in the austral summer of 2008-2009. They lived and worked at the Palmer Research Station on individual grants from the NSF Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Leonard searched out and recorded natural soundscapes featuring ice, animals, weather, and the sea. She also collected stones, shells, and penguin bones to use as musical instruments. From these elements, she developed "Antarctica: Music from Ice," a set of compositions about the peninsula's environments and ecosystems. Stern conducted a study of structure and pattern in Antarctic ice, which became the foundation fro drawings, photographs, sculptures, and installations (some of which are on view in Centennial Galleries, as part of the exhibition Art above 66° 33'). Their collaboration, Polar Soundscapes, is a series of multimedia pieces which collectively form portraits of the wild, remote, and increasingly endangered polar regions.
Polar Soundscapes - Program Notes (designed by Oona Stern)
INTERPRETIVE MATERIALS
Introductory panel
Gallery booklets (We created two versions of a booklet with the same content. One features the Arctic on the cover, with the Antarctic on the back cover. The other is the inverse.)
Arctic booklet
Antarctic booklet