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The Singing & The Silence
Birds in Contemporary Art
"When an individual [bird] is seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer, it passes like a thought, and on trying to see it again, the eye searches in vain; the bird is gone."
-- John James Audubon, 1840
Birds have long been a source of mystery and awe. Today, their magic endures amidst an increasingly fragile landscape. The steady rise in environmental consciousness has fostered a growing desire to connect with the natural world and a resurgence of interest in the winged wonders that surround us daily. The Singing and the Silence dovetails with two significant environmental anniversaries -- the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1914 and the establishment of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Separated by a mere fifty years, these two events serve as mileposts in our journey from conquest of the land to conservation of it. Although human activity has affected many species, birds in particular embody these competing impulses.
Audubon's prescient description of a passenger pigeon in flight suggests the ephemeral nature of all birds. Darting from one perch to the next, they hover between earth and sky, city and wilderness, abundance and extinction. They are at once familiar yet foreign, sharing our world but always out of reach. Their flight, their feathers, their singing, and their silence have inspired artists for centuries. This exhibition brings together a dozen artists who explore the complex interplay between human and avian life from the ecological and ornithological to the allegorical and spiritual. |