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. Visit Meghan Gordon's website to learn more about her work.
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*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).
Public Programs
Meet the Artist, SUN, April 10, 1:30PM
Family Art Project, SAT & SUN, April 16 & 17, 10AM—1PM
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