Selected Exhibition Views

Human / Nature

curated by Douglas Stapleton
​

Illinois State Museum:  Springfield  

July 31, 2021 through January 2022

Andrew Young
All This Land
 
Andrew Young’s artwork speaks to how we use and classify the materials we take from the earth, and how that reflects what we care about and understand about nature.  The work in All This Land speaks to consequence—how the well-being of the planet is affected by our actions. Young focuses on mineral extraction, using the waste created by mining to grind down into the pigments for his work. He also brings along the stories of the harm brought about in our actions on the earth.

Young sees us at a turning point in our relationship to the landscape.  No matter if one’s perception of nature is romantic, emotional, or practical, dramatic change is underway. All This Land uses a little humor, theater, abstraction, and recovered objects to address a more somber awareness that the Earth’s fragile systems and resources are not inexhaustible. - DS

All This Land was first presented at The Chicago Academy of Sciences / Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in 2018-2019. This current installation is comprised of seven wall pieces and five sculptures, roughly half of the artworks from the original exhibition.
  Two artworks from the Illinois State Museum's permanent collection: Untitled (left), 1989, egg tempera on panel: 30 x 23.5 in.         and Sky and Shade series (c-333), 2006, collage with gouache and hand-ground pigments on museum board: 19.5 x 15 in.
    Cartoon Box Trap (Kill the Wabbit) – 2018, disassembled and reassembled cardboard shipping container, hand-printed wood                    grain on rice paper, found cryptobiotic soil pigment (Utah), ashwood stick, and raw jute twine: 10.5 x 18 x 8 in.
                                     Actual Size - 2018, hand-painted papers with five-gallon bucket silhouette made of
                                                   pure cadmium orange pigment on museum board: 22.5 x 22.5 in. 
The River (Migrations) – 2018, water-tumbled “glacial erratic” stones encrusted with toxic mining sludge (Colorado): 6 x 26 x 14 in
                                          Coal Drawings 2 and 3 – 2018, ground coal, rust, and freshwater mussel shells
                                                       in gum arabic, zinc white, on soot-stained paper: 21.5 x 15 in.
 
​                    Tales of Adventure – 2018, stacked hardbound fiction and biography books caked in 285-million-year-old,
                      fossiliferous ocean sediments (Kansas), Atlantic dogwinkle snails, and silver nail polish: 30 x 18 x 15 in.
Horizons (Boundaries) 1 – found pigments (from Colorado and Arizona) on incised and stained museum board:  22.25 x 22.25 in. Horizons (Boundaries) 2 – 2018, found pigments (from Utah and Kansas) on incised and stained museum board: 22.25 x 22.25 in.
                           Work Clothes – 2018, decayed late-1800s coal-mining artifacts (Braceville, Illinois), folded cotton
                                         shirt and pants soaked in burnt, oxidized shale overburden: 31 x 20.5 x 10 in.
                           Constellations 1 and 2 – 2018, coal dust, crushed freshwater mussel shells, zinc-white pigment,
​                                                               and gum arabic on museum board: 20.75 x 14.5 in. 
                       Harbingers – 2018, two pounds of bituminous coal fragments, industrial coal mining canary cages,
​                           and Illinois State Museum Zoology Section bird specimens (#603716 and #603308): 14 x 38 x 15 in.
Featured in this installation are specimens of two Illinois bird species that are disappearing from environmental pressures, be they chemical pollutants, habitat destruction, invasive species, or climate change. The Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus,) and the Cerulean Warbler (Dendroica cerulean) are presently listed as endangered and threatened, respectively. Both specimens are from the Illinois State Museum's ornithology study collection and represent the vast number of plants and animals that are vanishing as a consequence of human activity.