‘Assembly’ redefines ecology with artwork old and new

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For Professor Mike Goode, the title of Syracuse University Art Museum’s latest ecological exhibit, “Assembly,” has two meanings. The show assembles with its pieces of artwork and with the group of people it brings together.

“Ecological thought really emphasizes human interconnectedness,” Goode said. “The exhibit tries to raise awareness of that in different ways, by juxtaposing old and new artworks that open each other up.”

“Assembly” places art from SU faculty alongside pieces from the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibit aims to emphasize the idea that humans are part of the environment, not separate from it.

The exhibit was developed with a separate endeavor for the museum – 15 “e-museums,” or virtual exhibits. The e-museums have similar themes to “Assembly,” and pieces were selected and curated for the two projects together as part of the upcoming Art Ecology and Climate project.

“Assembly” was primarily developed by Ed Morris and Susanna Sayler, the co-directors of SU’s Canary Lab, along with the current William P. Tolley Professor Goode. This is the first exhibit Goode has ever developed.

SU Art Museum interim chief curator Melissa Yuen said the exhibit differs from other exhibits because of its interdisciplinary quality, and how it demonstrates faculty’s robust interest in the issue of climate change.

“Each of these exhibiting artists in their practice has shown a new and interesting and innovative approach to engaging with ideas relating to ecology,” Yuen said. “All of these ideas are juxtaposed against this very traditional notion of nature (where it is) untouched.”

One example of two pieces in conversation with each other is the work of SU professor Rebecca Chu and 1900s artist Chaim Koppelman. Chu’s piece is a visual representation of the flight of a single bird over 3,000 miles, and Koppelman’s piece is a print of a crowd at Coney Island
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The combination of the two pieces is meant to evoke ideas about crowd behavior, Goode said. It compares the migration of birds to crowd movement in other species, like humans at Coney Island.

“It’s producing those kinds of juxtapositions of objects and dialogues that get people – hopefully — thinking in different ways. about what it means,” Goode said. “Not just the natural world, but their own embeddedness in it.”

Kate Holohan, the curator of education at the SU Art Museum, said the exhibit is a “fruitful dialogue.” She said the exhibit is well thought out and dynamic for viewers.

“It’s an interesting thing to see an exhibition once it’s installed, versus imagining what it’s going to look like when it’s in formation,” Holohan said. “It’s really visually stunning. There’s really interesting visual interconnections and dialogues that happen in the galleries.”

More than an exhibit, she says the show is a forum for discussion about ecology and climate change. She said the museum is a place where people from any academic and personal background can come together and connect with the work.

SU Junior Abi Greenfield was a research assistant on the summer project to curate “Assembly.” She helped identify works in the archive related to climate change.

Greenfield said the experience allowed her to take a more human view on climate change, rather than a scientific perspective. As an art history minor, she had a background in art as activism, but this exhibit showed her new ways that art can be seen.

“For students, climate is something that’s such a major issue for our generation,” Greenfield said. “Some of the works in the exhibition are 100, 200 years old, and it’s not a new phenomenon. We’re just dealing with it coming to a head now.”

For Goode, the process of curating this exhibit changed his perspective by demonstrating how all art can be seen as ecological. He said it became more of a question of how, not if, something could be related to ecological ideas.

“Trying to make decisions about what to include and what not to include in this collection of things that were regarding ecological – at a certain level, the boundary is arbitrary,” Goode said. “(That was) the most eye-opening thing.”

Goode said that right now is a crucial time for climate issues, where the science is no longer being argued. The world needs to adapt to grapple with climate change, and new cultural perspectives are a key component of what needs to happen.

“I’m not under the illusion that this one exhibit in the Syracuse University Art Museum was going to make that change,” Goode said. “But it does something. And I think that that is an important thing for everybody to be doing.”