{"id":2718,"date":"2018-04-29T15:39:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T15:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/?page_id=2718"},"modified":"2019-09-05T20:31:15","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T20:31:15","slug":"schuylkill-river-champions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/jlmcelhinney\/schuylkill-river-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"O.T.W. (On The Water): THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER"},"content":{"rendered":"

A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE INSTALLATION AT INDEPENDENCE SEAPORT MUSEUM<\/a> (On view through September 2019)<\/p>\n

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O.T.W. On the Water:The Schuylkill River<\/em>, an installation by James Lancel McElhinney at Independence Seaport Museum. Now on view through September 2019, the exhibit features works by Patrick Connors<\/a>, Tom Judd<\/a>, Edmund Darch Lewis<\/a>, Stacy Levy<\/a>, Johann Georg Martini<\/a>, James Lancel McElhinney<\/a>, Deirdre Murphy<\/a>, Granville Perkins<\/a>, Jacob Rivkin<\/a>, Joseph Sweeney<\/a> and Graham White<\/a>. Living artists working in a variety of media, from intaglio printmaking<\/a> and painting, to video and installation, together with picturesque engravings by historical artists celebrate a river in transition, inviting visitors to explore its banks and waters, perhaps to become part of its reclamation. <\/p>\n

The exhibition includes a series of podcasts<\/a> that will be unpacked monthly, during the show’s run.<\/p>\n

O.T.W. On the Water: The Schuylkill River<\/a><\/em>, an installation at Independence Seaport Museum<\/a> in Philadelphia, was conceived as a monographic show about my 2018 journal-painting project that explores a three-mile stretch of Philadelphia’s historic Schuylkill River, as it passes through Fairmount Park from East Falls to Fairmount Waterworks<\/a>, beside the Philadelphia Museum of Art<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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As the work developed, my research deepened. I realized that there was no way for me to do justice to my subject–the river–without bringing more artists into the conversation. Chief curator Craig Bruns<\/a> was a terrific thought-partner, open to letting the process unfold, leading us beyond conventional paradigms to a gesamtkunstwerk<\/em>–a visual conversation around an historic waterway.<\/p>\n

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\nView of the space, prior to resurfacing the wall and installing the exhibition<\/p>\n

The result is the surprising use of a challenging surface. Reaching across time and media, from oil painting, digital and intaglio printmaking, to documentary film and video animation, the exhibition design by Daniel Kennedy<\/a> brings together works by historic and living artists, across a wide range of styles and media. When the curtain rose, revealing the new River Alive!<\/a><\/em> galleries across the corridor, it all made sense. It is a great privilege to collaborate with so much talent. Let\u2019s take a virtual tour of the exhibition:<\/p>\n

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The space was challenging. We were not working with a conventional white box. As my work progressed and the vision took shape, I would joke with Craig Bruns<\/a> and Daniel Kennedy<\/a> that the exhibition would be something like figuring out what to do with a basket of secret ingredients on a competitive cooking show. Located opposite the galleries being readied for River Alive!<\/a>, the wall flanked a grand staircase leading up through a glass atrium to the second floor displays. I had seen a similar configuration before, on an even grander scale at Museum of Fine Art Houston<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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\nView of the lobby, Museum of Fine Arts Houston<\/p>\n

The planning process was embraced with a collaborative spirit. Craig and Dan knew the space. They worked with it on a daily basis. The one decision In which I participated concerned the placement of my prints on the wall. Hanging them in a straight line allowed for insufficient room to accommodate two video monitors, a vitrine and the necessary text-panels.I suggested a way of stacking the images to suggest waves, which echoed in reverse the ascending diagonals of the atrium stairway.<\/p>\n

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\nNotepad with print-hanging scheme<\/p>\n

Sketches emailed back and forth. Dan developed the grand plan incorporating my suggestions, not because it was the will of the artist, but because they solved a problem with design sense. The only thing I insisted on was for Dan to be credited as one of the artists in the show, for his imaginative transformation of a difficult space. (below)<\/p>\n

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\nDan Kennedy’s<\/a> grand plan<\/p>\n

In preparing the language to accompany the exhibition, I asked Craig how I should be identified. This was no longer a one-person show, but a thematic exhibition curated by an artist. Should I be identified as a guest curator? No, Craig replied. That would be too confusing. He was the chief curator. You’re the artist, he told me. Other artists are in it, but this is your show. His solution was to call it an installation by James Lancel McElhinney. I thought about that for a minute, and then asked if if that meant I was now an installation artist. We both laughed. What’s in a name? More important to me was the sentiment expressed by Stacy Levy, inaugural artist for Art@Bartrams<\/a>. On view in our exhibition is a film<\/a> produced by Bartram’s Garden<\/a> and Mural Arts Philadelphia<\/a>, documenting the installation of Levy’s Tide Field<\/a><\/em> project. In it Levy states,<\/p>\n

“Im trying to make a work that brings people down to meet the river, see the changes, so they might get to known it, and then they’ll get to love it, and then they’ll want to preserve it”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Moving from right to left, as one would upon entering the building, is an introductory text-panel, to the left of which is a wall-monitor displaying a digital animation of my Schuylkill River sketchbook. Click on the arrow to view the animation.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.mcelhinneyart.com\/jlmcelhinney\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/otw_mcelhinney_102218_final.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Continuing leftward are seven framed archival pigment prints, unpacked from my new book (O.T.W. The Schuylkill River. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018), hung according the plan already described. Above them, from right to left, is a painting in oil by Patrick Connors, followed by 1830 engraving of the Colossus (Spring Garden Street) Bridge by Johann Georg Martini, enlarged and applied directly to the wall. Below and to the left is a similar enlargement of a nineteenth-century view of the Schuylkill River by Edmund Darch Lewis. Above it is an intaglio print by Joseph Sweeney. <\/p>\n

The following images are taken from O.T.W. The Schuylkill River<\/em>, a suite of seven archival pigment prints, published in 2018 by Needlewatcher Editions, in a limited edition of fifty, with handmade Solander (clamshell) box, title-page, colophon and chapbook (PDF below)<\/p>\n