2019 Exhibitions​

Picture
photograph by Rodney Smith
Curated by Leslie Smolan
​
December 6, 2019 – March 8, 2020
Members Opening & Reception: Friday, December 6, 2019

​Every few years a photographer emerges on the world stage with a unique voice and vision that immediately sets their work apart from anyone else. Cartier Bresson, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Annie Leibovitz, …. each has a style and approach that defines their era and distinguishes them from other talented but more predictable image makers. Rodney Smith’s extraordinary photographs are destined to join the ranks of these masters. ​

Thanks to our sponsors for their support of this exhibition: 

Hopper Through Photography

Alongside the "Human In Nature: The Art & Wit of Rodney Smith" exhibition, Edward Hopper House is pleased to present intimate glimpses of Hopper’s life captured in photos from the Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive. This exhibition is on view all winter 2019-2020 as we celebrate the powerful art of photography.

The advent of the camera in the mid-19th century materialized a complex view on whether photography was an art or a science, yet by the turn of the century, photography advanced in its production and photographers were able to control the composition. IN all its resulting aesthetic and documentarian use, one cannot imagine the field of art without the power of photography. Each of these photographs in the Sanborn Gallery are pictorial as they capture the artist in his youth and throughout his lifetime. 

JohN MORTON: PLace of Origin

September 6, 2019 – March 8, 2020
Members Opening & Reception: Thursday, September 5, 6:30-8:30 PM2019
Place of Origin weaves together the diverse cultural fabric of Rockland County with a unique and creative approach to listening, interacting, and responding to personal oral histories. Composer and sound artist John Morton gathered stories from the residents of Rockland County towns responding to the question "Where did you grow up?" This idea encompasses the notion that everyone grows up "somewhere" and that those stories can be shared and enriched by the musical and creative use of sound.

HOPPER/HAMMERSHØI: ​
​PAINTINGS BY MICHAEL BANNING

Curated by Kirsten Jensen
​
September 6, 2019 – December 1, 2019
Exploring the shared elements of the work of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi and Edward Hopper, Banning’s paintings visualize the affinity between these two artists and their influence on his own work. Banning’s project concentrates on those works of both artists that specifically use interior space devoid of figures, where contemplation of the shapes of sunlight within the room becomes the main subject of the work.

ALASTAIR NOBLE:
​Message in a Bo(a)ttle

June 14 - August 25, 2019  
Edward Hopper House presents an immersive multi-media exhibition curated by Richard Kendall featuring installation artist Alastair Noble and complemented by Hudson River School luminist Sanford Robinson Gifford, early drawings on loan by Edward Hopper, a community boat build with Jonathan Richer, and sculptures in the Garden curated by Eric David Laxman: Andranik Aroutionian, Eliza Evans, David Herbert, Simone Kestelman, Chris Plaisted, Megumu Tagami, and Kathy Bruce. 

HOLLY ZAUSNER: UNSETTLED MATTER
& 
MOTT HUPFEL: DREAMS TO REALITY

Curated by Kristina Burns
​
March 1 - June 2, 2019


Holly Zausner's 2015 film “Unsettled Matter” will be screened along with stills from the film printed on aluminum. The films have a distinctly Hopperesque feel in their sense of isolation, ambiguity, and quietude. Also for consideration are Mott Hupfel’s photographs, which were inspired by his work as cinematographer for Unsettled Matter. Hupfel is also an established cinematographer in his own right, with works on feature films and in television. 

“Zausner passes through New York as a ghost - purposefully marching through empty streets, lobbies and stations, sometimes no more than a flicker, but just as often stopping to contemplate: a book in the basement of the Strand, the mangled visage of Queen Hatshepsut at the Metropolitan Museum, or us, the viewer, at the center of the swirling maelstrom of Times Square (the only time in which we see other human beings). Though she interacts with no one, she is performing for us, right up until the possible endpoint of the film, when she comes physically crashing down onto her workbench strewn with stills from her last work — death by art...”​ - Gregory Volk.
 
Mott Hupfel uses composition and, usually to a greater extent, lighting, to subtly lead the viewer through the world he creates. Hopper was a consummate student of light, sayingg, “I was more interested in the sunlight on the buildings and on the figures than any symbolism.”  Hupfel's study of light is the nexus of the growing series of images presented in relation to Zausner's work which also inspired him. In his career as a cinematographer Hupfel returns again and again to Hopper’s work for inspiration and often for explication when trying to elucidate an idea or a mood to a director during pre-production.  Hopper’s use of light and color in works such as Automat, Summer Evening, Morning Sun and, of course Nighthawks is a starting point for a series of photographs he has been working on for the last few years. These images, which he thinks of as the nuclei, or maybe the aftermath, of scenes he may capture for films, tend to have very dramatic, classically cinematic lighting and some element of human existence, if not a human itself, which Hupfel hopes will trigger questions in the viewer’s mind about what might happen - or has happened  there. These empty, or almost empty frames are, like many of Hopper’s works, infused with a sense of isolation and melancholy.  Like Hopper, the use of light, or lack of light in some of Hupfel's images, serves to transform the familiar into something mysterious and strange. 


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