Events include a special film series, artists in conversation with Skidmore professors, and curator’s tours

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (September 5, 2024) — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College announces a slate of events held in conjunction with the monumental exhibition Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld.

Among the conversations, screenings, and tours will be two nights of events featuring the exhibiting artists. On Monday, September 30, at 6 pm, the artist Alexis Rockman will introduce a screening of the acclaimed feature film Life of Pi (2012) and talk about his experiences working on it. The screening is part of the Nature’s Underworld Film Series (the other films are listed below).

Mark Dion and Rockman will take part in a conversation on Tuesday, October 1, at 6 p.m. as part of the Tang’s Dunkerley Dialogue series. The artists will be joined by Skidmore College professors Heather Hurst, Associate Chair and Professor of Anthropology, and AJ Schneller, Associate Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences. Together they will discuss the intersections of art, the environment, and the human impact on the natural world.

Dunkerley Dialogues pair Skidmore professors with artists in a conversation format, which is often a catalyst for new connections and understandings across disciplines, and can spark new ideas for all participants. Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele Dunkerley ’80. This Dunkerley Dialogue is co-presented with the American Federation of Arts, who organized the exhibition. The program will include ASL interpretation.

The Nature’s Underworld Film Series features both popular Hollywood cinema and experimental works that examine humankind’s strained relationship with the environment. Dion and Rockman, both film lovers, have cited many of these films as sources of inspiration.

Nature’s Underworld Film Series Screenings

• Thursday, September 12, 6 pm: The Birds (1963)
  
• Tuesday, September 17, 6 pm: A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)
  
• Monday, September 30, 6 pm: Life of Pi (2012)
  
• Thursday, October 17, 6 pm: Night of the Hunter (1955)
  
• Thursday, October 24, 6 pm: La Jetée (1962) and Weekend (1967)
  
• Thursday, November 14, 6 pm: Silent Running (1972)
  
• Thursday, November 21, 6 pm: Last Things (2022)
  

Tours

Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator, who organized the exhibition with the artists at the Tang, will lead two curator’s tours of the exhibition.

• Saturday, October 19, 12:15 pm

• Thursday, November 7, noon

About the Exhibition

Journey to Nature’s Underworld, which surveys 30 years of both artists’ work, invites visitors on a voyage of discovery into the depths of our threatened natural world through large-scale painted and sculptural works in the Tang’s two largest galleries. Dion and Rockman have, for decades, been addressing humankind’s strained relationship with the environment and its vast ecological consequences.

Although working in different media, both artists engage similar approaches and strategies, informed by intensive research and fieldwork, borrowing from scientific methodology and models, and using allegory, dark humor, and references to popular culture. Both artists employ methods of display found in museums of art and natural history, which they slyly subvert to interrogate how audiences have traditionally experienced the environment within constructed spaces. Uniting some twenty-five sculptures and paintings by both artists as well as selected works on paper and a major new collaborative piece, this exhibition will offer an absorbing journey into the depths of the threatened natural world.

Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld is organized by the American Federation of Arts and curated by Suzanne Ramljak, Chief Curator at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park and former curator at the American Federation of Arts. Support for the exhibition has been provided by Elizabeth Belfer and Victoria E. Triplett. The exhibition is organized for the Tang Teaching Museum by Rachel Seligman, Malloy Curator, and is supported at the Tang Teaching Museum by the Friends of the Tang and the Mellon Foundation.

Admission to the museum and all events are free. For more information, contact the Tang Visitors Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or visit https://tang.skidmore.edu.

About the Artists

Mark Dion is a conceptual artist whose works have been shown at numerous institutions, including the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018), the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (2017), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004), among others. His awards include the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2007), and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucida Art Award (2008). He has created large-scale public projects internationally, including at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, and at the Bienal de Montevideo in Uruguay. He is a graduate of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, the School of Visual Arts, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. He is currently the co-director of Mildred’s Lane, an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania.

Alexis Rockman is a cinematic oil painter who has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2022), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2010), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1990). His work is held in numerous collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1987) and Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence (2008) awards. Rockman is a graduate of the Art Students League, Rhode Island School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts, New York.

About the American Federation of Arts

The American Federation of Arts is the leader in traveling exhibitions internationally. A nonprofit organization founded in 1909, the AFA is dedicated to enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishing exhibition catalogues featuring important scholarly research, and developing educational programs.

About the Tang Teaching Museum

The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York’s Capital Region, the Tang’s approach has become a model for college and university art museums across the country—with exhibition programs that bring together visual and performing arts with interdisciplinary ideas from history, economics, biology, dance, and physics, to name just a few. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, and a robust publication and touring exhibition program that extends the museum’s reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum’s award-winning building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of art and ideas. The Museum is open to the public Tuesday–Sunday, noon–5 pm, with extended hours until 9 pm Thursday. https://tang.skidmore.edu