Water Show @ Zimmerli

The Water Show at the Zimmerli was definitely full of works that I didn't initially expect to be connected to one another. However after the curator explained each room and why all of the pieces were put together and their connection to each other covered many different bases in the broad subject of water. I really liked how the pieces ranged from containers that carry water, landscapes, men and women in connection to water in art, pieces emerged in water, and water in different contexts that all portray water in very different ways. I think the space between works was perfect for the show because the pieces were somewhat close to one another that it forces you as a viewer to connect the pieces with one another as opposed to looking at them separately. It also makes the viewer notice not only the differences between the works but the similarities; why 2 works were next to one another when they look completely different from one another. I loved the area with the men in boats and women in the water because it relates to common themes in a lot of paintings with water that have people in them. Men are often portrayed in boats and women are often portrayed in the actual water. The notion of objects being "man-made" and "mother earth" and Venus being born in the water, assigning genders to things that don't have a gender in connection to water I thought was great seeing them all together in the same room. I think this connection might have been unintentional by the artists but it seems like a "natural" connection that is being made by assigning genders to objects.

The works I chose to curate and group together were Nancy Graves' Bottom of the Pacific Ocean Between California and the Hawaiin Islands-Sub Cable Survey 1891-92 1972, Maya Lin's Pin River - Hudson 2009, James Yohe's Every Cloud Engendrs Not a Storm May 18, 1986, and Amena Simeon's Mami Wata as a Serpent 1999. I chose these works because they all demonstrated and accomplished the fluidity of water through an entirely different texture. Creating the illusion of water through something that has the opposite texture I think is difficult to communicate but all of these works were successful in doing so. I really like Maya Lin's Pin River because the installation flowed like water even though it was made up of steel pins. Steel pins are the opposite texture of water. Steel is solid, hard, and demonstrates no movement whereas water is flowing and constantly changing shape. The way that the pins were aligned gave the illusion of movement and fluidity. Nancy Graves' work is made up of small dots on gouache paint on paper that creates a texture and pattern. Because of her range in the colors of the dots and the closeness of the dots she created the illusion of flowing water and depth. James Yohe's work has a lot of movement within his brushwork. The marks are aggressive and large which creates texture and I think that mimics the storm quality because there is a lot of movement. The blue paint is a more obvious connection to water. Amena Simeon's work does the same with her blue beads however she varies the blue tones and the way they are arranged creates this form of movement and ripples in the water. Even though she uses small solid beads, she still accomplishes the fluidity, movement, and depth ranges in water using her variations of colors and how the beads are sewn into the fabric in a contour-like way.