Processing Abstraction 

Pour, drip, splash, stain, soak and splatter — these words are often used to describe abstract artists’ experimental application of paint. The creative process of many abstract painters is highly visible in their finished artworks. Vigorous brushstrokes, saturated canvases, and atmospheric surfaces all demonstrate the expansive use of the medium. For over 100 years, abstraction has reigned as a major expressive form in painting with continuously changing techniques and styles. Abstract paintings are frequently interpreted according to their visual components, but their socio-political contexts are also vital for understanding. This exhibition features large-scale abstract paintings from the museum’s collection spanning the mid-1950s to the late 2000s by Gene Davis, Sam Francis, Sam Gilliam, Sheila Isham, Suzanne McClelland, Joan Mitchell, Larry Poons and Hedda Sterne. While not unified through a particular artistic movement or chronology, each artwork demonstrates the vast potential of paint.  

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Radioactive Inactives: Patrick Nagatani & Andrée Tracey presents a series of 11 fictional portraits depicting people in highly constructed sets resembling domestic interiors. Each subject or set of subjects is placed between a television and a large window frame through which we see a red mushroom cloud rising threateningly into the sky. Lamps, curtains, and other objects in the room are thrown askew, representing the impact from the nuclear explosion. Yet, this doesn’t appear to affect any of the sitters who remain transfixed by the television in front of them.

Artists Patrick Nagatani and Andrée Tracey made Radioactive Inactives during their prolific six-year collaboration. The series combines Nagatani’s narrative photography and Tracey’s vibrant paintings. The artists conceived of the project as social commentary using humor to explore the apathy of Americans in the face of nuclear destruction. This exhibition revisits Radioactive Inactives more than 30 years after its creation, inviting viewers to examine the series through the lens of late-stage capitalism and consider whether the (in)attention of the sitters is the result of their individual shortcomings or systemic design.

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N’DAKINNA LANDSCAPES ACKNOWLEDGED

In the 1850s many artists from Boston, New York and other eastern cities were established their reputations by painting landscapes of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Dedicated to capturing the natural beauty of Mount Washington and other regional high peaks, they rendered sweeping views of these rock formations from scenic vantage points such as the Intervale, or bottomlands, of North Conway and Lake Winnipesaukee. The rise of an American middle class with disposable income and the development of railroad travel during this period helped the region become a destination for artists and tourists who enjoyed the scenic charms of the White Mountains.

Though depicted as idyllic landscapes, the White Mountain terrain lays at the heart of N’Dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki (People of the Dawn Land). Starting in the 1600s, Dutch, French and English colonizers violently contended for the Abenaki homelands. After the American Revolution, Americans claimed these territories through farming and logging. Although Abenaki families were displaced from seasonal subsistence routes and gathering places, they adapted to the new, touristic economy.  Across the generations and still today, Abenaki people continue to call N’Dakinna their homeland.