water life
Installation view: (detail) water life/time in the series, memories spaces time
The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, 1998
water life / time in the series, memories spaces time
water life, the combination of photographs and shells evokes Mecox Bay, a site of harmonious reconciliation between people and nature, and a place of personal healing for the artist. Despite the apparent contradiction between the world of nature represented in Sandrow's art and the overtly urban environment of the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, the artist draws connections between the two realms. Reading about the history of midtown Manhattan, she discovered that the area was once a marshy meadowland, with rocky bluffs and streams. A river ran northwest from Kips Bay past where the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris currently stands. There was, moreover, an abundance of shellfish in the area. A third element of the installation, the sound of running water, audible in some parts of the gallery, evokes this river that might still run through the depths beneath the Museum. With this recording, Sandrow invites us to imagine what Manhattan was like in the past, when its flora and fauna resembled that of present-day Mecox Bay.
— Eugenie Tsai, Curator, Whitney Museum, water life, (1998)
Hope Sandrow, water life, Installation view: (detail) water life/time in the series, memories spaces time. The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, 1998
While walking on the Atlantic Ocean beach at the Mecox Inlet, I encountered by chance thousands of beached Moon Snail Shells whose bodies inside were dead or dying. I wanted to make a story of their life on the eroding shoreline. In response, I mounted them
Hope Sandrow, 1998
Of the many thousands of shells, over six month’s time, Sandrow carefully extricated 9,997 of the dead bodies, washed, oiled, hand numbered, and sorted the shells by size and color in paper boxes for the exhibition, water life. Twenty-four, (inspired by Duchamp’s Roto Reliefs) were mounted, and photographed spinning for the series, Within a Golden Rectangle: Moon Snail Shell (spinning).
Catalogue publication, The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC.
We know that the island is no longer young; that the laughing streams and smiling valleys which once dimpled its face have given place to the countless hard wrinkles, called streets; but...the memory of its rippling waters is still an everflowing spring of pleasure.
(Passage quoted from George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr., "Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan," 1899.)
Sound recording, continuous loop. 1998. Sound engineer: Ulf Skogsbergh,
Catalogue: water life / time in the series, memories spaces time (link)
See exhibition and press list below.
"Three Clouds," 1998, 40-1/2 x 26-3/4," Collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art
"Clouds Trees Water," 1998, 40-1/2 x 26-3/4" Collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art
"Water" 1998, 26-3/4 x 40-1/2" Private Collection
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selected)
1998. *Hope Sandrow water life, Whitney Museum of American Art Altria /Philip Morris, curated by Eugenie Tsai, NYC
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selected)
2001 *Notion of Motion curated by Karen Shaw, Islip Art Museum, NY.
1999 Souvenirs: Collecting, Memory and Material Culture curated by Ruth Appelhof, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY
1998 Bodies in Flux curated by Nancy Doll, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, North Carolina.
NOTE: An asterisk denotes that a catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
PRESS: (selected)
Roberta Smith, Weekend Art in Review, Hope Sandrow, Water Life, New York Times September 11, 1998. p E38:
Erica-Lynn Gambino, Installation's Imagery Informed by Tidal Drama, Southampton Press, Sept.10, 1998.repo's B1-6:
Walter Robinson, Cool Water, ARTNET, August 13, 1998 cover color repro;
Jeffrey Kastner, Branching Out, ART News November 1998. p. 140, repro;
New Yorker, Goings On About Town. August 24 & 31, 1998. p 32