ON VIEW NOW

COLOR IN TWELVE PARTS will be included in Nancy Lowry: Colour in place exhibition exploring the intersection of abstraction and landscape

at the remai modern in saskatoon, sk October 19, 2024 – April 6, 2025

WHEN ONE SEES A RAINBOW ON VIEW NOW

at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco through December 15, 2024

When One Sees A Rainbow opened @jewseum last month, featuring 36 colors that find their way into the windows, onto 36 custom stools, a wall + table. The once white cube, now a kaleidoscope of luminous projections, w/ 36 implicit invitations to sit, rest, look, question, spend time. The first mention of the idea to turn this space into a rainbow of color was in August 2014. The world was a different place then. Now, there is no way to avoid the question, “How can you pursue a project meant to encourage slow, thoughtful reflection, given the horrors being perpetrated in Gaza and the urgency of this moment?” My only answer is that I think deep reflection is crucially needed to have any hope of repair.

Rainbows are a powerful symbol (w/ varied interpretations) in Judaism. The one I like is that a rainbow is in fact a complete circle; the arc we see is only half of the story. We’re offered the visible half circle “as a symbol of hope for our survival from God” (as it was written at the end of the story of Noah) but that the other half is a reminder that we need to do our part in caring for the world to complete the circle. I know it might seem a frivolous pursuit in a world engulfed in war to ask you to sit down, look up, pause, contemplate color, get grounded + imagine, in the face of a most urgent, excruciating time. I know art alone won’t stop the violence, but I don’t believe there’s any limit to what those who are engaged w/ art ( and w/ all the thinking art generates) – might achieve when we do make spaces to try to imagine what we can do to care for eachother.

In the first stages of exhibition planning, this installation was intended to be a place of respite + contemplation. It can still be that, but it’s also a place to hold the complexity, the devastation of the time, to reflect on each of our roles moving forward. It’s a reminder that we can’t stop looking for beauty in a world that is ugly if we want to evolve in the direction of justice + change. I hope this exhibition is a place to think about what you will do now, and that the next time you encounter a rainbow, you don’t just receive it as a beautiful moment, but take it as a call to action.