Munson's new exhibition shows how art can transcend generations
A new exhibit aims to show how art can transcend generations.
The Munson Museum of Art unveiled its new exhibition, “Generations: Artists of Central New York,” on Friday, Nov. 3. The free show will run through Jan. 7.
The installation celebrates the vibrant visual art scene in the region. By exploring the careers of seven local artists the show points to the ways in which their work, across the span of three decades, shares connections.
Featured artists include Gregory Lawler, John Loy, May Gaylord Loy, Ken Marchione, Carlier Miller Sherry, Lynette Stevenson and Anita Welych.
"These works invite the greater community to join into an intergenerational artistic conversation, ensuring that the arts continue to thrive," said Munson Communication Manager Steve Howe.
Through paintings and print work the show aims to reveal new perspectives on what is both current and timeless — the environment, beauty, and the thrill of new experiences.
“In large museums, artwork is usually segregated by time period, which means different generations would be featured in different rooms,” explained Welych. “Here they are all together so we can appreciate what each artist has brought to the table and where we may be headed.”
Bird's-eye view of art
Welych has taught in the studio art program at Cazenovia College for over 30 years and is the executive art director of the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton.
Her contribution to the "Generations" exhibit took the form of two maps of the United States.
Affixed to each map are silk-screened images of 16 different species of birds, shown in the geographic areas they inhabit. She juxtaposed the bird populations from the mid-1960s to those in 2019.
“Each bird on the map stands in for 500,000 of that species,” explained Welych. “We have about one-third as many birds now as we did 60 years earlier.”
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Adjacent to the maps are colleges that function as the legend to the map. Each bird is represented by a collage that dictates the percentage of decline in the overall population: 50%. 73%. 97.9%.
According to Welych this work can be interpreted as either a call to action or an elegy to the world we are letting slip away.
Generation, as a multi-dimensional word
Welych was taken aback by the shift in her lifetime, from dozens of birds singing outdoors to now only a few.
“When I think about the name of this exhibition I think of the generations of our Earth,” said Welych. “People my age notice the difference in the weather from when we were young – we remember the cacophony of summer bird songs from our youth, contrasting that with the relative silence of our current time.”
She describes visual art as a language for communicating complicated and layered ideas.
“I make art to answer questions so in the past I’ve made art about my sense of self ... what it is like to be a Latina woman in the United States and about women’s experiences in domestic life,” said Welych.
“Once I realized that we are living in the thick of a human-generated mass extinction event, quickly losing the diversity of life on this planet, it became the theme of my work.”
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Munson Museum exhibition Generations: Artists of Central New York
