DAYTON — The Dayton Art Institute will open its next major exhibit, “The Antarctic Sublime & Elements of Nature: Water,” July 16.
The large-scale photography, cutting-edge video art, and a display of 450 mechanized, interactive penguins will be on view through Oct.16.
The first installation of the summer suite presents “Penguins Mirror (2015)” by Daniel Rozin. A colony of 450 mechanized penguins designed by Rozin provides an interactive installation that responds to visitors. As creatures of the Antarctic terrain, and highly adaptive to life in water, the inclusion of the penguins fits the series thematically, providing an immersive and responsive environment for viewers, and offering an opportunity to further explore the polar regions and their climate shifts, ideas of natural selection and the randomness of genetic drift.
In the second part of the special exhibitions, two distinct installations will examine the concept of water in various forms.
In traditional Japanese painting and in Japanese woodblock prints, oceans, rivers, and bodies of water are expressed as a curvilinear series of lines. These lines give the impression of life, as though water itself were a living creature. It is from this premise that the contemporary Japanese ultra-technologist group teamLab drew inspiration for “Universe of Water Particles,” a 10-foot digital waterfall rendered at five times that of full high definition. This digital work will be on display alongside Edo-period (1603–1868) ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
In another gallery, a single, monumental photograph by contemporary Berlin-based artist Frank Thiel, of the Perito Moreno glacier, will be on display. Located in the Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, Argentina, this glacier is part of the third-largest ice cap in the world. Thiel has created large-format images to capture the immense scale of the 18-mile-long by three-mile-wide formation, which is one of the few glaciers in the world that is actually growing.
The exhibitions are organized and curated by The Dayton Art Institute’s Chief Curator and Curator of European Art, Dr. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan.
