Event Horizon: Economies of Scale, (detail of installation), 2013, microplastic, plastic, oil, hydrocarbons, steel, gouache, acrylic, pigment on cyanotype over wood, 22″ x 18″ x 230″
SANDLER HUDSON GALLERY
ENDLESS by Pam Longobardi
November 1- December 14, 2013
Reception: Friday, November 1, 2013 7:00-9:00pm
Artist Talk and Film Screening: Saturday, November 23, 2:00pm
Sandler Hudson Gallery is pleased to present Pam Longobardi, the 2013 winner of the prestigious Hudgens Prize, one of the largest art awards given in the entire nation, in a solo exhibition entitled ENDLESS. This show combines new sculptural work from vagrant plastic removed from the ocean, sea caves and beaches of the world, along with Longobardi’s recent paintings on copper and paper. Collectively, these two modes of production explore the current condition of the earth and its inhabitants as humans embark on a new geological era, the Anthropocene.
After discovering the mountainous piles of plastic debris the ocean was depositing on the remote shores of Hawaii, Longobardi began collecting and utilizing this plastic as her primary sculptural material, and founded the Drifters Project. Since 2006, Longobardi has made scores of interventions, cleaning beaches and making collections from all over the world, removing thousands of pounds of material from the natural environment and re-situating it in exhibition context for examination. Longobardi’s original and ongoing site is Hawaii, but to date she has worked directly through local sponsorship, small grant support and personal expenditure with communities in Beijing, China (NY Arts Beijing, 2008); in Atlanta, Georgia (New Genre Landscape, 2008); in Nicoya, Costa Rica (Chorotega Sede/Universidad Nacional, 2009); in Samothraki, Greece (EVROS Cultural Association and PAI 2010); in Monaco (Nouveau Museé National de Monaco 2011); in Seward, Alaska (Alaska SeaLife Center 2011); In Berlin, Germany (Savvy Contemporary, 2012); in Kefalonia, Greece (Ionion Center for Art and Culture, 2011, 2012, 2013). Longobardi approaches each site as a forensic scientist, examining and documenting the deposition as it lay, collecting and identifying the evidence of this crime against nature.
As an antidote to the physically and emotionally difficult Drifters work, Longobardi makes paintings. Mixing natural processes like copper oxidation from patinas with artificial man-made acrylics and oil paints, these paintings document the battle being waged between human-caused change and nature’s attempts adapt and to dispel their toxins, reflections on the immense changes occurring in the natural world in response the heavy hand of humanity.
Longobardi’s artwork involves painting, photography, and installation and addresses the psychological relationship of humans to the natural world. Presently she drifts with her ongoing Drifters Project, following the world ocean currents. With the Drifters Project, she collects, documents and transforms oceanic plastic into installations and photography. The work provides a visual statement about the engine of global consumption and the vast amounts of plastic objects and their impact on the world’s most remote places and its creatures. Longobardi’s work is framed within a conversation about globalism and conservation.
Longobardi participated in the 2013 GYRE expedition to remote coastal areas of Alaska and will create project-specific works for the exhibition at the Anchorage Museum February 2014. Longobardi was featured in a National Geographic film on the GYRE expedition and her Drifters Project was featured in National Geographic magazine. Also in 2013, Longobardi created a site-specific installation for a special project of the Venice cultural association Ministero di Beni Culturali (MiBAC) and the Ministry of Culture of Rome for the 55th Venice Biennale, on the Island of San Francesco del Deserto in the Venetian Lagoon, a work made from plastic water bottles, mirrors and a satellite dish that signaled an apology to St. Francis across the lagoon to the island of Burano. She recently exhibited photography in Seescape at George Adams Gallery in New York,
Longobardi received her MFA from Montana State University and her BFA from the University of Georgia. She is currently a Professor of Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking at Georgia State University. Since 1990, she has shown her work extensively in galleries and museums across the US and in Greece, Monaco, Germany, Finland, Slovakia, China, Japan, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Poland. Her work is in numerous private and corporate collections worldwide.
Gallery hours: T – F 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday: 12pm – 5 pm and by appointment
NEW LOCATION:
1000 Marietta St. NW
Suite 116
Atlanta GA 30318
404.817.3300