It may be the middle of winter, but two exhibitions on view at ArtYard in Frenchtown connect us to the world of plants, living things, and the lightness of being. Kendall Buster: What Blooms is on view through January 21, and Lucia Monge: While a Leaf Breathes can be seen through January 28.
Both exhibitions are filled with surprises, both on the miniature level and on a grand scale. “In my drawings, I want to evoke at once a tiny plant and a massive high rise,” Buster told ArtYard Artistic Director/Curator Elsa Mora. (The interview will appear in an upcoming exhibition catalog.) “Like Alice in Wonderland, I imagine myself shrinking very tiny and going inside a little seashell. Or on the other hand, I imagine a small vessel expanding in size to elbow its way into architecture just on the edge of being a shelter.”
In her first-floor installation, Monge looks at plants up close, rendering the microscopic view on a grand scale. She is interested in the way plants breathe – it was during the pandemic, she says in a video from her Amherst studio, that she became aware of the importance of breathing together.
While a Leaf Breathes. Lucia Monge
All of the components of While a Leaf Breathes are made from compostable materials, such as kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), and invasive bamboo recovered in Frenchtown. She creates a bioplastic substance that gets its color from spirulina and turmeric. Beads are made from mycelium (the root-like structure of mushrooms), and a plaster-like material is made from eggshells she crushes in a mortar and pestle. Students, cover your ears: Shredded thesis papers that have been eco-dyed are another component.
“The materials in my works are prepared, fermented, cooked, and cultivated,” Monge says. “It is important for me to… have my practice be guided through their cycles, time, and urgencies.” Monge views the work as a collaboration with plants, mushrooms, bacteria, and other living organisms. Two enormous seed pods at either end suggest fertility – she is giving life to new forms.
“The exhibition is exploring plant tempo, time, urgencies, and how they are adapting,” says ArtYard Communications Manager Meghan Van Dyk. Even the lighting changes, coming up and going down, mimicking natural light from the sun.
In all my visits to ArtYard, this was the first time I was made aware of the teeny tiny galleries within the large spaces. Known as VSG – very small galleries – they are tucked into the wall behind what look like, for example, bronze mailbox doors from a prewar New York City apartment. Yet open the door, look inside, and there’s much more than a stack of bills.
For Monge’s exhibition, the VSG is a little screening room for a video of a leaf, emphasizing the need to slow down and look at nature.
A native of Peru and on the faculty at Amherst College, Monge has, for 13 years organized Plantón Móvil, a yearly walking forest performance that has led to the creation of public green spaces in cities such as Lima, London, Providence, Minneapolis, New York, and soon in Paris. "Plantón" is a Spanish word meaning both sapling and sit-in or peaceful protest. Participants create a walking forest, or other plant-based biome, by parading with plants attached to their bodies. The parade ends at a park or other site in which the sprouts are planted in the ground to grow. The goal is to not only plant plants but to learn from them. “In walking with and among the pieces of a soon-to-be prairie, we give the plants motion,” says Monge.
Plantón Móvil started in 2010 while she was walking around Lima, her hometown, and noticing “how many trees and plants had their leaves blackened with smog, were being treated as trash cans, or even used as bathrooms,” Monge continues. “I started to put myself in their place and thought I would have left town a long time ago. Instead, they are sort of forced to sit there and accept this abuse because of their planted ‘immobile’ state. I wondered what it would be like to encounter a walking forest that had taken to the streets like any other group of people would do, demanding respect.”
Other recent projects include what she describes as a “fungi broadcast” about deforestation in Peru, and sending potato seeds to space as messengers for non-colonial visions of space travel.
What Blooms. Kendall Buster
On the second floor, What Blooms also takes the micro and the macro view. Artist Kendall Buster studied microbiology and architecture before pursuing her sculptural practice. A grid of digital drawings on one wall suggests designs in nature: pods, seeds, cells, shells, domes, reproductive organs, and crystals.
The enormous space is balanced with two contrasting entities: a suspended white “floating city organism” and a dark, grounded fortress-like form. The subtitle of the first is “What Blooms in Weightless Dreams.” Visitors are invited to stand inside the structures – made from steel frames covered with a mesh-like cloth.
The heavier forms at the other end of the room are referred to as “What Blooms in Extreme Circumstances.” With their sharp angles and rivets, the shapes suggest Futurism, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, even Darth Vader. One can almost hear “Ride of the Valkyries.” The apocalypse is near.
These are closed forms; unlike “Weightless Dreams,” these cannot be entered. It’s almost as if “Extreme Circumstances” is the negative space from “Weightless Dreams.” Viewers are invited to ponder how the two relate.
In the VSG here – this one behind a brass port hole – we see a metal birdcage. It gets me thinking about being trapped, whether in an airy cage or a mausoleum.
You Come to Life. Ricky Bearghost
Also on view through January 28 is You Come to Life, featuring artwork by BJ Armour and Ricky Bearghost. It is curated by Studio Route 29, a Frenchtown-based progressive art studio for artists with disabilities that provides space, materials, and support.
ArtYard offers many surprises throughout in addition to live performances in its 162-seat theater, from which is suspended a chandelier by the artist Willie Cole made from upcycled plastic water bottles.
Frenchtown, NJ | Now through January 21 and 28, 2023
