WATER MILL, NY.- In the third iteration of its Platform series, the
Parrish Art Museum presents artist Maya Lin, whose ecologically inspired works exist at the intersection of art, architecture, and environmental science. Platform: Maya Lin, on view through through October 13, 2014, reveals the artists exploration of how humans experience and influence the landscape.
Platform: Maya Lin features Lins Pin RiverSandy (2013), an intricate geographical installation depicting the boundaries of Hurricane Sandys flood plain, composed of thousands of straight pins. Installed on the east wall of the Norman and Liliane Peck/The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation Lobby, the work has a span of 12 feet. Lins three marble sculptures, Arctic Circle (2013), Latitude New York City (2013), and Equator (2014), representing the typographies at each of these positions on the globe, have been installed in concentric rings in the center of the lobby floor. Three new, recycled silver works, Accabonac Harbor, (2014), Georgica Pond, (2014), and Mecox Bay (2014), are particularly relevant to the location of the Museum on Long Islands East End, and have been installed on the wall opposite Pin RiverSandy. In the outdoor Wassong Family Gallery, two additional marble works, 74° West Meridian and 106° East Meridian run in a straight line along the gallery floor and are the first works visitors see on approaching the main entrance to the Museum.
Organized by Curator of Special Projects Andrea Grover, Platform is the Parrish Museums ongoing series of artist-driven projects that embrace experimentation and unconventional approaches to exhibition and programming, exploring art-making as a way of understanding the world and creating new information about how we live in it.
Maya Lin was invited to be our 2014 Platform artist because her timely and exquisite works make palpable the changes to the environment that deeply affect coastal communities everywhere, ours included, said Grover. Lin's passionate commitment to advancing knowledge and awareness about the effects of climate change permeates her works and has even prompted her to launch What is Missing? a non-profit entity that raises awareness about decreasing biodiversity and is described by the artist as her last memorial. Related public programs, co-organized with The Nature Conservancy, will invite further discussion on critical environmental issues."
Through works of extraordinary beauty, Lin reveals aspects of the natural world that are normally invisible, and emphasizes the interconnectedness of all regions of the planet. Lin takes macro and micro views of the Earth using technological methods including sonar resonance scans, and aerial and satellite mapping devices, to study and visualize the natural world, and translates that information into expressive sculptures, drawings, and sited installations.
Maya Lin is one of the most important public artists of our time. Her acclaimed work encompasses large- scale environmental installations, intimate studio artworks, architectural works, and memorials. Her artwork interprets the world through a 21st-century lens, using technological methods to study and visualize the natural environment. Through sculpture and drawing, Lin merges rational order with notions of beauty. Blurring the boundaries between two- and three-dimensional space, Lin sets up a systematic ordering of the landscape tied to history, time, science and language.
Born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, Lin graduated from Yale University and the Yale School of Architecture. Lin has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums worldwide, and has also created permanent outdoor installations for public and private collections from New York to New Zealand. She is at work on her final memorial, What is Missing?, a project that raises awareness about the crisis surrounding biodiversity and habitat loss.