Installations

DATE:
July 2017

ABOUT THE EVENT:
Iván Gaete’s Muddy Waters is a body of work—part documentation, part installation, part metaphor—on the current political stage at large, a call to the wild.

Gaete (DH ALUMNI 2017) created the works during a month-long residency at Denniston Hill. Reflecting on the physical beauty of the Catskill mountains and his exchanges with local residents, the installation is a survey that offers alternative ways of thinking about the natural environment.
Aligning himself with the social renewal envisaged by philosopher and social reformer Rudolf Steiner and social sculptor Joseph Beuys, Gaete explored his inner capacity to make sense and connected deeply with place and community in this new body of work.
Local residents and members of Denniston Hill’s extended community were invited to activate some of the works installed through a series of collective actions that use drawing and sound as forms of recording. The purpose was to resonate and expand the ideas presented in the show.
Light refreshments and local produce were served. Guests were invited to bring a dish to share.
This work was produced in partnership with The Laundromat Project, a New York City-based arts organization that brings socially relevant and socially engaged arts programming to laundromats and other everyday community spaces.

Both TLP and Denniston Hill are committed to providing much-needed time and space for artists to explore the making of art, justice, and community.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Iván Gaete (born Santiago, Chile) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. He is the recipient of several awards, including a 2016 BRIO award from the Bronx Council on the Arts and a 2016 Create Change Fellow at The Laundromat Project. In 2016 he completed residencies at Artists Alliance LES Studio Program (NYC), Residency Unlimited (NYC) and The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY). Other residencies include Ace Hotel (NYC) and Expressiones Cultural Center (New London, CT). In New York, his work has been exhibited at Rooster Gallery, The Clemente, NurtureArt, Manhattan Graphics, Bronx Art Space among others. Upcoming shows include the 4th AIM Biennial at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. He is a BX200 featured artist.

DATE:
June 2016
ABOUT THE EVENT:
During his residence at Denniston Hill, Carlos Martiel (DH ALUMNI 2016) worked with staff members to transform a dying pear tree into stocks. On June 25, 2016, Martiel had his legs locked into the stocks for eight hours.

Martiel has said of Mulo (Mule): “This piece reflects on modern day slavery particularly as it affects immigrants from Latin America working in the United States’ agricultural sector.
The undocumented status of an overwhelming number of farm workers has given way to increasing injustice and abuse against them. Reports of exploitation include exclusion from labor laws, pesticide violations, and the use of minors as work force. Out of fear of unemployment or deportation, farmers often remain unable to report employer’s health and safety violations to state authorities. The lack of legal status sets the stage for their invisibility and vulnerability.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Carlos Martiel is an artist based in New York and Havana whose performance-based work is both physically rigorous and visually poignant. His work has been honored with awards from the Franklin Furnace Fund, the Cisneros Fontanal Art Foundation, and Arte Laguna. Martiel's work draws on the violent history of the Americas and its material and social transformation in the colonial encounter. In these performances, Martiel places his body in situations of duress and pain as a way of conjuring not only traumatic historical events but their legacy in shaping the contemporary reality of life in the Americas.

DATE:
July 2013 - January 2014
ABOUT THE INSTALLATION:
Moby Dick (for Oscar Wilde, Oscar Romero, y Oscar Grant), 2008-2013
Reclaimed police cruiser, wood, felt, found books, records and various personal items.
Interior design: Carlos Sandoval de León
The installation Moby Dick is a metaphor that originates from Moby Dick, the Herman Melville epic in which "the nihilist Ahab, drunk with power and crazed embodiment of an absolute will to dominate and conquer--fueled largely by wounded ego and worldly pride--leads his multiracial crew into the abyss of history, with the fetish of whiteness dangling before him."

This crew, like Ahab, pursues the symbolic white whale to their death, save for one--Ishmael--who survives drowning by holding on to a wooden coffin. Ishmael's trek transforms his expectations and assumptions of greed and grandeur into a deeper understanding of imperialism and destruction.

Cordova and De León's installation included a reclaimed police cruiser cut in half with the passenger side left intact. Text written on the exterior of the police cruiser referenced civil disobedience or subversive means of expression that evolved in New York in the early 1970s by Black and Latino youth who at the time called themselves writers using aerosol paint as a way to relate/connect during a period when there were few resources available for people living in lower-income communities. Young writers usually adapted monikers found in fantasy novels and comic books like Dondi, Lady Pink, Crash, Future 2000, and Rammellzee. All created and designed their own alphabets and unique styles of mark making. Similar styles of writing were selected for the exterior of the Moby Dick car project and applied as a way to acknowledge those pioneering artists. This time, "tagging" names of activists and literary writers like Edwige Danticat, Henry David Thoreau, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marvin Dunn, Jean Genet, Camilo Cienfuegos, Nicomedos Santa Cruz, Micaela Bastidas and others were selected to embellish the surface of the police car as a means of marking, reclaiming, transforming one symbol into another. The vehicle (Moby Dick) also invites viewers to reconsider how to consume and experience things in a manner that requires meditation in order to achieve a deeper sense of understanding.
Project originally commissioned by ARTPACE, San Antonio, Texas.

Thank you to our local co-sponsors: All Good Things, Aaron Burr cider, Brooklyn Brewery, Eminence Road Winery, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, M & S Goat Dairy, and Trussbridge Farm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
NEEDED!

DATE:
September 2011

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Participating Artists: John Andrew, Colby Bird, Shane Campbell, Sonja Engelhardt, Joe Graham Felsen, Amy Granat, Ethan Greenbaum, Jennie C. Jones, G. William Webb, JO-EY Tang, Elaine Cameron Weir

“Consider the formula of an exhibition, shift the variables so that they move towards fluidity and transparency. At the same time, acknowledge the impossibility of the endeavor. It is always only an attempt.” -- Carlos Reyes, Jo-ey Tang. Personal Conversation. October, 2011

"Trout Spots" opened up an aperture to examine the ways "site" has been re-defined by artists working in a variety of different media, including sculpture, sound, text, and painting. The project, at Denniston Hill, moved from specific works that deal with “landscape” into an entire exhibition coping with this idea.
As a starting point, works that use sound, not only as audible sonic emissions, but also as a concept constructed into their sculptural form were selected. The works were then placed throughout the 200 acre property at Denniston Hill in Woodridge, New York, population 847. (Rivers, porches, ticks) After some time and space, the same works will be brought back to New York City, population 8,175,133 and once again installed collectively in a project space or gallery. (“Excuse me”, urine, electricity
How do the works recalibrate themselves when moved from the openness of a “natural” settings to a space that we are conditioned to associate with our condition of hyper contemporary civic engagement. The transition might reveal something about how we construct our idea of landscape and art.

DATE:
Summer 2011

ABOUT THE INSTALLATION:
In the spring of 2011, artists Andy Ness and Matt Philips executed their first mural in the Denniston Hill pool. Andy had been one of Denniston Hill’s first residents and we were delighted that his first collaboration with Matt Phillips became a part of Denniston Hill’s growing landscape of permanent work.
Although Ness and Phillips had shared a studio together for years, this was their first collaboration. The two artists started their collaboration at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
About the mural, Ness wrote: It was our hope that by starting in the print shop it would allow a level of distance to exist between our initial ideas and images. On one of our first days I took an old copy of The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles and read my favorite chapter to Matt. I’m not sure why, but it seemed to me there was something in that chapter that could translate into a pool mural. And there were two sentences within that chapter that reverberated in my head. They are spoken by the protagonist Port to his wife Kit as they sit on a hill somewhere in Algeria at dusk staring at the expanse:
The sky here’s very strange. I often have the sensation when I look at it that it’s a solid thing up there, protecting us from what’s behind.
This idea of the sky being a solid protective encasement was enchanting to both of us. From there we started playing around with the idea of the sky being a reflection in the pool… this ever-changing backdrop that would bring new life to whatever we created. The notion that we could control this piece only so much and that it would ultimately end up doing whatever it wanted to do… live a new life… is very central to what charged our images. We referred to a star map of the night sky as it is aligned directly over the pool during the summer months. This map provided us with a common framework of points, lines, and constellations to riff on. We then extended upon this scaffolding in many drawings that we were generating simultaneously so that there was very little time to think. While our individual approaches were quite varied, this map allowed our working practices to have a shared point of intersection and our distinct approaches to ultimately merge within a single image. Very early in the collaboration it became apparent that Matt would primarily establish a mosaic of color while I free-associated line drawings. Images of airplanes, teeth, and tools emerged and intersected with his dynamic geometric combinations.
Ultimately the most rewarding part was confronting all of the elements that were not within our jurisdiction… the way the water makes the image undulate and the constant evolution that the piece undergoes in the reflection of the sky.

DATE:
Summer 2010

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
“The Secret Life of Plants” was a food literacy program that took place at Denniston Hill’s permaculture demonstration garden and greenhouse. This series explored what lies beneath the surface of what we consume sensually. Performances, lectures, workshops, and screenings underscored the connection between humans and their food sources by engaging audiences with issues that are at the heart of agriculture and consumption.

At the heart of “The Secret Life of Plants” was an interest in connecting people with the spaces and processes by which life in the 21st century is produced. Specifically, we wanted to put residents of Sullivan County in touch with their food sources and stimulate a community dialog about the personal, economic and social benefits of nutrition and agriculture. The series reflected Denniston Hill’s mission to explore new ideas about sustainable development that can be generated through artistic practice.
The programming included outdoor screenings of the documentary films “Fresh the Movie,” “Some Like It Raw,” “Our Daily Bread,” and, of course, "The Secret Life of Plants.”

Films were hosted by filmmakers and guest speakers who moderated discussions following the films, and matinees were directed at younger local residents. One matinee screened Catherine Gund’s What’s on Your Plate?, a film that is narrated by two young women of color as they ask questions and come to understand their place in the food system. The screening was followed by a children’s workshop that introduced young people to some of the social, political, and economic issues that underlie the production and consumption of food in Sullivan county.
Co-sponsorships with local farms, activist organizations, and food businesses exposed audiences to the diversity of food production in the Sullivan-Delaware-Otsego-Broome-Schoharie-Chenango-Greene-Ulster counties region.
The series directly addressed two main local problems, the dearth of local nutritional education and the fractured nature of community in the area. Although Sullivan county is a rural county with many working farms, most residents of the county are not aware of the quality of local produce or the benefits of supporting local agriculture. “The Secret Life of Plants” sought to educate local communities about the origin of the food they eat, how it is cultivated, and how many miles it travels from farm to fork. It introduced local communities to innovative sustainable food system practices like permaculture, home gardening, green markets, and community supported agriculture (CSA) programs. It showed how these practices are good for the environment, help struggling farmers survive, and provide healthy, affordable, locally grown food to communities, especially lower-income families.
Co-sponsored by the O'Connor Foundation.

DATE:
September 2009

ABOUT THE EVENT:
The sonic artist Juliana Snapper has staged operas that take shape around the material tension between water and air and the parallel spectors of drought and drowned, or ruined, cities. Maximizing bone conduction and controlling bubble output as part of a new vocal fabric, Snapper sings directly into the water, probing our shifting relationship to water and to each other in moments of crisis and emotional overwhelm.
Snapper presented Dress Rehearsal for the End of Time: Swan Song Chorale (with ballet intermezzo), an underwater opera on September 6, 2009, in the pool of Denniston Hill. The opera performance was preceded by a short workshop in which audience members were instructed in how to perform as a chorale. At the beginning of the performance, Snapper, attended by two other performers (Laurie Weeks and Jeanine Oleson) descended from the hill behind the pool while the audience/chorale members gathered around. The performers entered the pool and began singing underwater using a “snorkelabra.” As the underwater opera unfolded, Oleson’s character enacted a drama of violence by trying to drown Snapper while at the same time supporting her.
The performance was recorded by the Outlier Inn. Video documentation was made by kara lynch (DH ALUMNI).
Co-sponsored by The New York State Council on the Arts and the Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY.

DATE:
September 2009

ABOUT THE EVENT:
Curated by kara lynch and Joshua Druckman, "Swim Drink Eat Camp Listen" was Denniston Hill's first public exhibition project. Over 30 sound artists and musicians, including Sabrina Artel, Sanford Biggers, free103point9, Kenta Nagai, and Stephen Vitiello, transformed the landscape through installations, performances, and recorded walks. Visitors dined on food from the Denniston Hill garden, swam in the pool, and camped out overnight. The exhibition was an opportunity to re-imagine the intersections between experience and appearance, land and landscape, and art and agriculture.
Co-sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery

Artists and curators connect with Denniston Hill’s campus as a site for installations and exhibitions that explore thematics of nature and human relationships.