"Intrepreting Utopia" on view at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art

Byrdcliffe's founders intended their colony to be a utopian environment in which artistic creativity would be nurtured both for its own sake and with the goal of creating actual works of art and design. Today, many artists continue to celebrate, examine, and take inspiration from this colony, just as many artists continue to explore the dynamics between isolation, community, and creativity through retreats, residencies, and colonies.

Kira Lynn Harris' delicately composed images of the play of light and shadow in Byrdcliffe's in-between spaces refer to the fundamentals of photography and, in a more coded way, to the works and lives of former Byrdcliffe artist residents such as Martin Puryear and Eva Hesse. Photographer and performer Isabelle Lumpkin's fabric and torn photo works document a performance she enacted on her first night at Byrdcliffe, alone in the large Villetta building with, as she imagined it, the spirits of past residents. Karina Aguilera Skvirsky's hermetically narrative panels and her meandering Polaroid studies capture her awareness of Byrdcliffe's intertwined artifice and intensity, an awareness heightened, perhaps, by the fact that this was her first residency. Continuing her investigation of links between the American landscape and the often-invisible presence of African-Americans in that landscape, Xaviera Simmons' lush but rigorous images lure the viewer into narrative minefield. Stephen Marc's more programmatic re-imagining of an African-American site is part of an ongoing series picturing the Underground Railroad through research, digital imaging, and photography. And Kwabena Slaughter conducted extensive research into the procedures and machineries of photography itself, bisecting and stretching the image of his own body against the architecture of Byrdcliffe.

The artists in this exhibition spent time at Byrdcliffe under the auspices of CPW's A-I-R program, a residency supporting artists of color working in photography and related media. Does the notion of self-exile - the act of defining oneself, however temporarily or provisionally, against the mainstream, carry extra resonance in this selection of works? The utopian impulse to hold oneself apart from the world finds a fundamental parallel in the artistic impulse to suspend engagement with the everyday world, whether the immediate goal is to escape the world or to better understand it, and whether the ultimate goal is to hone a craft for its own sake or to stockpile resources with which to change the world.

Co-curators Ariel Shanberg (CPW executive director) and Brian Wallace (SDMA curator) wish to thank the artists, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and SUNY New Paltz's Departments of Theatre Arts and Instructional Media Services.

Interpreting Utopia will be on view till December 9 at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New Paltz. For directions and museum hours click here.



*Interpreting Utopia*
*Interpreting Utopia* presents works by six of the Center for Photography at Woodstock's (CPW) artists-in-residence whose imagery celebrates, takes inspiration from, and offers new visions of the Byrdcliffe arts colony where they stayed as part of their Residency at CPW. Byrdcliffe's founders intended their colony to be a utopian environment in which artistic creativity would be nurtured both for its own sake and with the goal of creating actual works of art and design. Today, many artists continue to celebrate, examine, and take inspiration from this colony, just as many artists continue to explore the dynamics between isolation, community, and creativity through retreats, residencies, and colonies. Kira Lynn Harris' delicately composed images of the play of light and shadow in Byrdcliffe's in-between spaces refer to the fundamentals of photography and, in a more coded way, to the works and lives of former Byrdcliffe artist residents such as Martin Puryear and Eva Hesse. Photographer and performer Isabelle Lumpkin's fabric and torn photo works document a performance she enacted on her first night at Byrdcliffe, alone in the large Villetta building with, as she imagined it, the spirits of past residents. Karina Aguilera Skvirsky's hermetically narrative panels and her meandering Polaroid studies capture her awareness of Byrdcliffe's intertwined artifice and intensity, an awareness heightened, perhaps, by the fact that this was her first residency. Continuing her investigation of links between the American landscape and the often-invisible presence of African-Americans in that landscape, Xaviera Simmons' lush but rigorous images lure the viewer into narrative minefield. Stephen Marc's more programmatic re-imagining of an African-American site is part of an ongoing series picturing the Underground Railroad through research, digital imaging, and photography. And Kwabena Slaughter conducted extensive research into the procedures and machineries of photography itself, bisecting and stretching the image of his own body against the architecture of Byrdcliffe. The artists in this exhibition spent time at Byrdcliffe under the auspices of CPW's A-I-R program, a residency supporting artists of color working in photography and related media. Does the notion of self-exile - the act of defining oneself, however temporarily or provisionally, against the mainstream, carry extra resonance in this selection of works? The utopian impulse to hold oneself apart from the world finds a fundamental parallel in the artistic impulse to suspend engagement with the everyday world, whether the immediate goal is to escape the world or to better understand it, and whether the ultimate goal is to hone a craft for its own sake or to stockpile resources with which to change the world. Co-curators Ariel Shanberg (CPW executive director) and Brian Wallace (SDMA curator) wish to thank the artists, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and SUNY New Paltz's Departments of Theatre Arts and Instructional Media Services. Interpreting Utopia will be on view till December 9 at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New Paltz. For directions and museum hours click here.	© Xaviera Simmons, 2006
	© Kira Lynn Harris, 2004
	Isabelle Lumpkin, still from Performance held at McKenna Theater on June 23, 2007. Photo© Charise Isis