Meghan Gordon

meghangordonstudio.com

Sunroom Project Space 2011
Sunroom Project Space | April 3—May 8, 2011

Meghan Gordon investigates the merits of the cultural institution as an authoritative source for retelling the past. Gordon’s newest project, created during her Winter Workspace residency, merges marginal fragments of Wave Hill history and reconfigures them through the lens of narrative projection. The crux of Gordon’s Sunroom Project is the artist and explorer Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh (1853-1935), who, at age 17, joined Major John Wesley Powell’s second expedition through the last uncharted segment of the Colorado River. As the expedition’s artist, Dellenbaugh made a continuous drawing of the river’s left bank and helped prepare the first map of the Grand Canyon. Gordon first learned of the artist/explorer while researching the mural in Wave Hill’s Ecology Building, which has been attributed to Dellenbaugh.*

While naming the unknown landforms to be mapped, Dellenbaugh proclaimed that one butte resembled an art gallery, an anecdote that inspired Gordon to create a butte art gallery within the gallery. The interior of this structure recalls the defunct underground tunnel connecting Glyndor House to the Ecology building. Gordon has installed paper tiles that mimic the Guastavino tiles that once lined the tunnel, suggesting the physical connection between the gallery and the mural, the notion of lost or missing history and the institutional desire to fill in the gaps. The structure houses a video that partially retells Dellenbaugh’s adventure. Gordon assumes the role of Edith, a misguided tour guide who uses the Hudson River as an inadequate substitute for the Colorado. On the walls of the Sunroom is Gordon’s recreation of period wallpaper, c. 1865. The painted vignettes are free-hand interpretations of Dellenbaugh’s drawings, which contrast the rigidity of the pattern. The wallpaper highlights the containment of the wilderness and acknowledges the creation of a mediated view of nature.

Born in New York City, Gordon is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. She has been awarded numerous residencies, including Art342 in Fort Collins, CO; the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH; The Seven Below Arts Initiative in Burlington, VT; and has twice been a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Gordon is currently a Dieu Donné Workspace Program Artist, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Resident, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. Gordon would like to thank Richard Maurer for invaluable contributions, as well as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Materials for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts for supporting her work.  

*The unsigned mural was attributed to Dellenbaugh by William Stiles (1912–80), former curator of the Museum of the American Indian, who analyzed the mural and identified its scenes of Native American life. However, descendants of George W. Perkins, who commissioned the mural in 1909, believe that it was painted by Howard McCormick (1875–1943).

The following three images are installation views of Meghan Gordon's Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh would have liked to explore the Palisades, 2011.

Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh would have liked to explore the Palisades, 2011 Production still; photo by Craig Gordon. 

Winter Workspace Program 2011
Glyndor Gallery | February 15 – March 27, 2011

Meghan Gordon’s work investigates the merits of the museum as an authoritative source. She is conducting research on the artist and explorer Frederick S. Dellenbaugh (1853–1935) to whom the historic mural in Wave Hill’s Ecology Building is attributed. Gordon was born in New York and is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. She has been awarded residencies at several programs around the country including, a 2010 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency; Art 342 in Colorado (2010); the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire (2009); The Seven Below Arts Initiative in Vermont (2008), and has twice been a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA (2007, 2008). She is the recipient of a 2010 Dieu Donné Workspace Program Award, a 2010 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a 2010 Leon Levy Foundation Grant, and a 2007 Florence Leif Award. 

Replacement Wood-Burning Stove for Edwin Dickinson’s Studio
Installation view
Paper, glue, graphite, flocking, spray paint, foam board
Dimensions variable

Salvatore Scibona’s Typewriter (on which he wrote his highly acclaimed novel, THE END), 2009
Photocopies, glue, 5” x 13” x 11”