‘A MONUMENT TO FUTURE RUINS’

A LOVE OF NATURE, across the centuries

In ‘A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco,’ an exhibition in two parts, a contemporary artist communes with the Hudson River School founder

CATSKILL, N.Y.

How do you walk through grief ?

How do you survive a melancholy that ebbs and flows, like waves beating on the shores of a distant future?

Artist Marc Swanson does not have all the answers. Those answers he does have are shared in a futuristic frozen landscape of catastrophic beauty — an exhibition in two parts; connected by subject and theme, yet distinct in space and conversation.

“Being an artist can be hard because you’re always questioning, ‘Why does anyone want to know what I think?’ But it’s what you do as an artist. For me, this is it. This is what I do. It’s the only thing I know how to do — respond,” Swanson said during a tour of “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.

There, in the second half of the two-part exhibition, his work exists in conversation with that of artist Thomas Cole, father of the Hudson River School art movement.

Cole, an early environmentalist, used his artwork and writing to spark conversations about the devastation he saw happening in the Hudson Valley, as the industrial revolution moved in, replacing bucolic landscapes filled with trees and fresh water with railroad tracks, tanneries and quarries.

"Cole is known for his romantic paintings,” Swanson said. “He was painting in an allegorical way. He was not painting what was, but what had been."

Swanson's connection with Cole began shortly after moving to Catskill from New York City. He was feeling "stuck" in his life, his work. He and his partner had purchased a house near the Cole site and attended an exhibit showcasing the works of Cole and his student, Frederic Edwin Church. It was then Swanson noticed a painting that seemed similar to a spot on his property. After confirming that it was indeed his backyard, he learned it happened to be one of Cole’s favorite painting locations.

Swanson would go on to dig deeper into Cole’s writing and painting finding more and more similarities, such as worries about the environment, the concern about deforestation and land destruction being done under the watch of President Andrew then Swanson noticed a painting that Jackson’s White House.

Part of Marc Swanson’s installation piece, “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco,” in Thomas Cole’s “Old Studio.”

PHOTOS BY JENNIFER HUBERDEAU

Swanson likened Jackson’s favoring of business over the environment to that of President Donald Trump dismissing the impact of climate change on the world.

And yet, Swanson’s work is not asking for political action or even political opinion. He only asks the viewer to contemplate how actions impact the world as a whole and how ignoring a pandemic can cause unspeakable loss.

The irony of his situation was not lost on him, he says, acknowledging that as he was “working on a show about AIDS, a pandemic that was ignored [by President Ronald Reagan], a pandemic came along and the president ignored it.”

DEAD DEER AT MASS MOCA

In the first part of “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” — which opened in March at Mass MoCA in North Adams — the high-ceiling second-floor gallery spaces are filled with motionless, stiff white curtains, reminiscent of the 30-foot icicles at Kaaterskill Falls in Catskill, which Cole described as “giant towers of ice that are as silent as death.” There are collections of photos, of those lost to AIDS, clustered in memorials among the frozen spaces — each its own diorama filled with broken mirrors, chains, plaster bandages and taxidermy mannequins of cats, snakes and, of course, deer.

There, a stage floats above the memorials, candles lighting the way to a performance space. In a corner, deer — stark white taxidermy models with rhinestone antlers — are frozen in moments of celebration and repose under nightclub-like lighting.

Over 70 miles away, at the Thomas Cole site, Swanson’s work is more subdued in scale, but not in detail or meaning.

DEAD DEER IN CATSKILL

At Mass MoCA, he says, the challenge was not to have the exhibition overwhelmed by the show. At the Cole site, the challenge was not to overwhelm the space with the exhibition.

Here, the bedazzled and sequined deer glitter in a corner in a first-floor room, out of place but a natural part of the room, re-created to appear as it did when Cole occupied the house in the 1840s. In an upstairs bedroom, a memorial of picture frames sits on a heavy wooden dresser, as part of a diorama. The shrine, while strikingly beautiful and poignant, blends seamlessly with the decor.

In the master bedroom, in an intentionally blocked-off entrance to a sleeping porch, a black sequined deer head hangs, illuminated and slowly spinning, a disco ball of another era.

Most haunting is a series of sculptures and wall hangings displayed in tandem with Cole’s works in a second-floor gallery. White plastic taxidermy deer heads crane their necks toward Cole’s paintings, straining to see the work of places no longer expected to exist as they had. On the walls, frames draped in plaster bandages, in beads and in fringe and dried flowers, are silent memorials to those we have lost. There is sadness, loss and grief in the air, but there is also hope. There is hope in the paintings of Cole, lush and green and overflowing with abundance, a promise that from the ruins will spring new life. ■

In a second-floor gallery, Swanson’s installation is juxtaposed with Cole’s paintings, which hang on the two walls opposite the sculptures.

If You Go …

What: “Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco”

Where: Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 218 Spring St., Catskill, N.Y.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Tuesday. Closed Wednesdays. Guided house tours for up to 12 people on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Self-guided tours, up to 25 people, on Saturday and Sunday.

Admission: $20, adults; $18, 62 and over, students with ID, active military and veterans with ID; free for children 15 and under. Advanced registration is suggested. Last tour begins at 4 p.m.

Tickets: 518-943-7465, thomascole.org

What: “Marc Swanson: A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco”

Where: Mass MoCA, 1080 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams

When: On view through Jan, 1, 2023

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. Closed Tuesday.

Admission: $20, adults; $18, seniors and veterans; $12, students with ID; $8, ages 6 to 16.

Tickets: 413-662-2111, tickets.massmoca.org