Media exhibition opens at Moreau galleries
By Sarah Nestor
Saint Mary's News Editor
Sarah Nestor
The Moreau Galleries opens its 2002-2003 season with a thought-provoking exhibit by artist Greg Pond, assistant professor of art at the University of the South.
"Beyond the Hedge" is a multimedia exhibit that merges nature with modern devices, such as DVD players, the hull of a car, and compact disc players.
"I am interested in American mythology and the related concepts of westward expansion, regeneration through violence, and cultural attitudes towards landscape," Pond explained in his artist statement. "It is the landscape that largely influences our collective mythology, creates its narrative and heroes such as John Wayne and Daniel Boone."
His piece "Crickets" is composed of an aluminum basket filled with grass and dirt connected to electronic sound boards that produce the sounds of crickets.
"Fox skinning" is among his more disturbing pieces, wherein a bowl of fox skins surrounds a small DVD player displaying the actual process of a fox skinning. The exhibit contrasts the image of the brutal nature of a fox being skinned against the gentleness of the soft skins placed in the bowl.
"The wilderness is seen as the place of the terrible unconsciousness and must necessarily be replaced by systems of order," Pond said. "Through compressing history and cultures, altering the pace of time and distorting the physical scale, I seek to portray a psychological rather than social or material realism."
This first display of the season will remain in the Moreau Galleries through Sept. 26, and the gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
All News Stories for Monday, September 2, 2002
