Going to the Meadow

September 15—December 26, 2021
ArtYard

“There’s an expression in classical music. It goes, ‘We went out to the meadow.’ It’s for those evenings that can only be described in that way: There were no walls, there were no music stands, there weren’t even any instruments. There was no ceiling, there was no floor, we all went out to the meadow. It describes a feeling. Usually someone will say it, but they’re probably reluctant to say it — you might be afraid that only you went out to the meadow last night. But it’s one of those things where you go as a group. It’s not like: ‘Last night was a really great show for me and it sucked for you.’ No. We all went out to the meadow. There’s something magical about it. And you can never plan on it.”

-Tom Waits, interview with Wyatt Mason, New York Times (2017)

Going to the Meadow is a living exhibition, staged in four parts, and borrows a musical term to examine the essence of collaboration at this moment in time. As we continue to navigate distinct and diverse challenges related to the pandemic, coupled with a renewed urgency to confront systems of oppression and racism that permeate our society, further compounded by the looming climate crisis, we are in a moment of necessary paradigm shifts in all aspects of our lives. This exhibition invites sixteen artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to be in residence at ArtYard while engaging in tactile, verbal, and conceptual dialogues with one another. They begin with the question: What is it we collectively care about?

ArtYard’s upper gallery becomes the artists’ studio and the surrounding landscape of the Delaware River Basin becomes an extended area of engagement. Through the recursive practice of replenishing the gallery with a curated set of materials in advance of each new cohort’s arrival every two weeks, the curators are staging an experiment in spontaneous making. As the artists explore multiple modes of exchange, perspectives shift and are collected, traded, and acted upon. The exhibition, unfolding in real-time, aspires to prioritize process over outcome, the collective over the individual, play over work, and to embrace success and failure equally. These are the driving forces of Going to the Meadow.

As curators, Hill and Warchol define their roles broadly to include facilitation, interpretation and translation of the artists’ visualizations. During the three-month span of the exhibition, visitors are welcome to observe the artists at work and at play in the upper gallery as well as to engage with a study-based installation, sourced from the artists’ individual practices, in the lower gallery. The work produced will culminate into one large-scale installation in November. Our wish is that you come to the meadow with us and come often.

Curators: Robin Hill and Ulla Warchol

Artist
Lisa Rybovich Crallé, SHENEQUA, Irish Cushing, Shayok Mukhopadhyay, Ramekon O’Arwisters, Hannah Chalew, Joanne Douglas, Andrew Sullivan, Carmen Argote, Milcah Bassel, Angela Willetts, Yvonne Shortt, Anna Mayer, Sophia Wang, Dahlia Elsayed, and Minoosh Zomorodinia

all images by Paul Warchol, unless otherwise noted.