Installation by Scotto Mycklebust
Opening Reception Tuesday August 4, 6-8 pm, Jefferson Market Library
Exhibition on view during Library hours through 8/31
Opening Reception Tuesday August 4, 6-8 pm, Jefferson Market Library
Exhibition on view during Library hours through 8/31
“Nothing
but Blue Skies”
Curator’s
essay for Scotto Mycklebust, “Everything in the Garden is Rosy”
Definition
of everything
in the garden is rosy in English:
British -- Everything is
satisfactory
-- Oxford Dictionaries
Everything in the garden is rosy.
Something that you say which means that there are
no problems in a situation (often negative): “But not everything in the garden is rosy. Sales may look
good but they're actually 10% down on last year.”
-- The Free Dictionary
Does art perfect experience? Does the experience
of art refine our perception of its subject, which, in the broadest sense, is
life?
We experience art and today, a considerable
amount of our human interaction, through an intervening frame, be it a picture
frame on the wall, a stage proscenium, or the edge of a digital screen.
Described by the artist as “an underworld
Flower-Power garden,” “Everything in the Garden is Rosy” has no frame. The
viewer enters into full immersion. When inside, you must decide where the art
stops and your world begins. The frame is an emotional boundary, a mental
device.
The Jefferson Market Garden -- it’s “double” -- co-existing just above,
is also without a concrete boundary. While its footprint is defined, sights and
sounds of city life intrude via the other 2 dimensions. The silhouette of an
iron fence reminds us which side we are on, but it is open and subject to the
elements all around. As well it must be, because a garden if a place where
plants grow. Close it off and there is no rain or sunlight, or fresh air, no
insects to pollinate.*
When inside, where do you wish to draw the line?
Rosy – no rain, bugs, street sounds, death. It can be colorful, beautiful, a
visual collaboration between artist and nature. But it is alive as a concept
and an environment for human interaction, not an assemblage of organisms.
In the outdoor garden we chose where to look
closely. In the installation the artist has chosen for us. He has also made us
smaller than the flowers, something we could conceptualize but not experience
without his inspiration and digital magic. It resembles a refinement of the
source material, however, if the skies were what we see in the installation
each and every day, a physical garden would wither for lack of water.
The growing garden is essential to our existence.
It feeds us by bringing the energy of the sun to the substance of the Earth,
and in process cycles the oxygen we need to breathe. It restores the spirit by
reminding us the we are natural beings – encountering a garden, we stop, we
observe, we set aside mental machinations and join the leaf, the flower, the
spider…in the natural world.
Our natural and digital experiences deliver mixed
messages. Walking among living plants and animals, we are awed by the beauty,
power and grandeur of nature, while we are reminded that so much of it is in
jeopardy due to the actions of our species. Our digital environment offers up
wonders we could not see anywhere else, alongside dire warnings of the
impending doom of everything. They cross connect – I just enjoyed a long,
lovely shower during which I recalled reading online that clean water is critically
rare in parts of our world, even the US, and choosing this luxury, without
paying for it, is something not to take for granted. One can only hope the flow
of information and emotion will lead to action.
Mycklebust’s work is an opportunity to consider
that we live in two indispensible worlds, and ponder and make choices based on
how we relate to them, and they to each other, even as human ingenuity brings
them closer and closer to one another, as it has with 3-D printing, robotics,
and artificial intelligence. Art feeds the human imagination, which in turn
generates innovation leading to the technological connectivity and ease without
which most of us can no longer imagine getting on with our lives at work or at
play. We can also hold out hope that it nurtures and teaches the soul to envision
a sustainable society based on a healthy planet.
* If you see a bee or monarch butterfly keep in
mind that we need to act now to save these important and iconic species.
Linda DiGusta
NYC, August 2015
NYC, August 2015
Press Release:
“Everything in the Garden is
Rosy” by Scotto Mycklebust on view August 1-31
Opening reception at Little Underground Gallery Tuesday,
August 4, 6-8 pm
The NYPL’s Little Underground Gallery is please to
announce the premiere exhibition of new work by New York artist and Greenwich
Village resident Scotto Mycklebust. “Everything in the Garden is Rosy,” curated
by Linda DiGusta, will be on view from August 1-31, 2015, with a reception for
the artist Tuesday August 4 from 6-8 pm. The Gallery is located in the
Jefferson Market Library at 425 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10011 and
is open during all public library hours.
“Everything in the Garden is Rosy” consists of a single,
full gallery installation. The artist will “transform the gallery into an
underworld flower-power garden” using digital and man-made materials of
variable scale and content. In counterpoint/dialogue with the planted landscape
of the Jefferson Market Garden above ground, the theme of immersion in a
reproduction reflects the dual nature of existence in today’s world, where we
are born into a material environment yet increasingly maintain a conscious presence
in a digital one.
The walk-in installation, covering the gallery’s brick
foundation walls, archways, and floor, represents a bridge between our 2 lives
and invites our examination of both, in relation to where we are, where we have
been, and where we are going as organic beings in an increasingly electronic
community. Visitors are encouraged to experience both gardens, below and above
ground.
Scotto Mycklebust was born in Minneapolis, MN, in 1954.
He studied art and humanities at the University of Minnesota, and obtained
bachelor's degrees in Studio Arts and Visual Communications from Augsburg
College. Mycklebust has long been a versatile and pioneering force in
multimedia art; his practice encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, sound,
video, and performance. His work scrutinizes contemporary attitudes towards
imperialism, commerce, globalization, and the body, challenging dominant
ideologies and conventional aesthetics. "Over time it has become very
clear to me that the medium is just a vehicle," he says. "I find that
limiting yourself as an artist or staying within one particular field of art
just does not cut it these days. As economic systems globalize and the media
landscape becomes more complex, it's important to expand your practice. Multitasking
is part of our nature today.”
Originally a courthouse —voted one of the ten most
beautiful buildings in America by a poll of architects in the 1880s— the
Jefferson Market Library has served the Greenwich Village community for over
forty years. The grounds also host another community treasure, the Jefferson
Market Garden. A program of the Library, the Little Underground Gallery is in
the midst of its inaugural season presenting an eclectic lineup of local
artists, with a new exhibition every month.
Artist’s website: http://www.scottomycklebust.com/html/about.htm
Library Website: http://www.nypl.org/locations/jefferson-market
