Hillwood Art Museum on the C.W. Post Campus Presents
Archival to Contemporary: Six Decades of the Sculptors Guild
January 30 to April 8, 2006
Opening Reception with the Artists – Thursday, February 2, 5 to 8 p.m.
Panel Discussion & Lecture – Thursday, February 16, 7 p.m.

January 18, 2006 - Brookville, NY - For more than six decades, members of the Sculptors Guild have been enriching the cultural landscape of New York. In celebration of their contributions to the past, present and future of the New York art scene, Hillwood Art Museum on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University will host an exhibition from January 30 to April 8 of more than 30 indoor and outdoor sculptures created by Guild members. The display, titled Archival to Contemporary: Six Decades of the Sculptors Guild, represents the creations of historic sculptors, including Louise Bourgeois, David Smith, Chaim Gross and William Zorach and contemporary artists who are carrying on the legacy of the Guild. Works on display range from the small marble form of a newborn animal to a massive 900-pound structure comprised of 1,000 interactive light and sound modules.

Archival to Contemporary spans the magnificent gallery space of Hillwood Art Museum, as well as the grounds of the 307-acre C.W. Post Campus. It includes conceptual, figurative and installation art – some of which was created especially for this exhibition.  The works represent traditional and contemporary styles of sculpture in bronze, marble, plastics, wood and, in the case of one artist, masking tape.

This exhibition offers visitors a trip through the impressive history of the Sculptors Guild. Established in 1936, the Guild has developed a renown and rich membership of visionary and avant-garde artists with divergent aesthetics. Membership in the Sculptors Guild is by nomination only -- open to artists who have demonstrated professional excellence. This exhibition features the work of 30 such artists.

Jerelyn Hanrahan, guest curator and vice president of the Sculptors Guild, writes that the goal of the exhibition is to, “celebrate the past, present, and future of the Guild while exhibiting the evolution and consistent re-definition of the third dimension.” The Archival to Contemporary exhibition includes a work by Chaim Gross, a founding member of the Sculptors Guild and pioneers in non-traditional approaches to sculpture. The Guild’s membership now includes some of the most important American sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Louise Bourgeois who exhibited many of her early wood sculptures with the Guild. Bourgeois’ 1949 bronze sculpture Pregnant Woman will be included in the exhibition.

Sculpture based on the human figure is included in the exhibition. Local artist Leonda Finke contributes Woman on a Stool to the exhibition. She has been an active Guild member for more than 20 years, learning from the luminaries and inspiring new members. Once told that her figural sculptures were “too rough,” she found a group of artists who appreciated her trademark style. Woman on a Stool stands more than seven feet tall and describes the female form with a masterful synthesis of abstraction and realism. Other artists contribute work that interprets the human form, including Hal Buckner, Irene Gennaro, Chaim Gross, Jerelyn Hanrahan, Barbara Lekberg, Michael Rees, Mary Ellen Scherl and Vera Manzi Schacht.

Conceptual and constructivist artists who work with the communication of ideas through materials are also included in the exhibition. Marker (for C.W. Post), a work by Long Island based artist Cliff Baldwin, was created specifically for this exhibition. Mounted on the exterior of the Museum, it is a nod to the cereal empire created by Charles William Post, for whom the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University is named.

“In researching the history of the C.W. Post Campus, C.W. Post the man, and the evolution of breakfast cereal in America, it only seemed right to pay tribute to the father of Grape Nuts,” said Baldwin. “The sound of crunching cereal when mixed with the red Post cereal logo creates a hybrid mark that surely satisfies.”

Other conceptual and constructivist sculptors whose work appears in the exhibition include Hans Van De Bovemkamp, Lin Emery, James Greco, Kim Kimball, Julian La Verdiere, Clement Meadmore, David Morris, David Smith and Robert Michael Smith.

Adam Brown has created a technological sculpture, Bion, which was designed especially for the new soaring glass ceiling of the atrium at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts. The 900-pound sculpture, which is comprised of small plastic forms containing miniature computer processors, is suspended from the atrium ceiling where it hangs low enough to be just above people’s heads (about 8 feet from the floor). The sculpture – which is the largest robotic sculpture ever created – is set into motion whenever a viewer enters the space. The modules of Bion react to the presence of the viewer by creating sounds and filling the vast glass-enclosed space above the viewers’ heads with light. Bion, as well as two additional sculptures from the Archival to Contemporary exhibition,will surely enrich the experiences for thousands of Tilles Center patrons who will attend performances at the newly renovated venue during the exhibition.

Erik Guzman’s work Eclipse, created specifically for the space inside Hillwood Art Museum, uses sound and light combined with motion to convey its kinetic energy to the viewer. Several other artists, including Kathleen Vance and Peter Dudek, have also created site-specific projects for this exhibition.

Man’s relationship with nature is a topic often explored in the visual arts. Rune Olsen’s sculpture There's Something Deep Inside of Me deals with this relationship and is unique in that it is created from masking tape over a wire structure. Tension is created in the sculpture not only by the arrangement of a life-size man and wolf, but also by the line drawings on the surfaces of the masking tape sculpture.

Some sculptors are interested in the animal world and its relationship to humans, including Ann Chahbandour, Bryan Crockett and William Zorach. Others use elements of nature as their inspiration. For instance, the work of Markus Baenziger captures the motion of splashing water while Steve Ceraso and Robert Loebell use the inherent qualities of wood, allowing the medium to direct the sculpture.

Hanrahan said, “I recognized an inspired ebb and flow of influences in these contemporary sculptors, whose styles include traditional, contextual, conceptual and technological approaches that continue to redefine sculpture in the 21st century.”

Hillwood Art Museum presents a year-round schedule of temporary and permanent exhibitions that cover topics from antiquity to the cutting edge of contemporary art. The 4,500 square foot Museum boasts a beautiful curved gallery which Phyllis Braff of The New York Times has called “one of the Island’s most dramatic showcases for art.” Hillwood Art Museum’s impressive and eclectic Permanent Collection consists of objects dating from the earliest of man’s creative endeavors to contemporary art. The Museum conducts an active and well-attended Education Program that includes Family Day activities, a Thursday Evening Lecture and Performance Series, and extensive hands-on educational programs for local schools.

Admission to Hillwood Art Museum is free and open to the public. Museum hours are Monday to Friday 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursdays until 8 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hillwood Art Museum is located on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, 720 Northern Blvd. (Route 25A), Brookville. The Museum has ample free parking and is handicap accessible. For more information, call (516) 299-4073 or visit www.liu.edu/museum.

Images from the Museum