Lia Chang: Nicholas Galanin is among nine Native Artists featured in “Dry Ice” Exhibit in Princeton

Wolf, felt, 6’ x 4’ x 2.5’, Native Artist Nicholas Galanin

Brian Adams, Susie Bevins-Ericsen, Perry Eaton, Nicholas Galanin, Anna Hoover, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Erica Lord, Da-ka-xeen Mehner, and Larry McNeil, are among the nine Alaska Native artists whose work is on display in the exhibition Dry Ice: Alaska Native Artists and the Landscape, at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts’ Taplin Gallery in Princeton, NJ, from October 1 through November 21, 2009.

Presented by the Arts Council of Princeton, the exhibition explores the multiple meanings of and associations with the Alaskan landscape. “ Dry Ice”—a term that denotes frozen carbon dioxide, which when taken out of a frigid environment rapidly dissolves from a solid form into a gaseous state—is meant to evoke the shifting significance of the Alaskan polar landscape in contemporary Native art. Given the central place of Alaska and its landscape in recent national debates surrounding the environment and the oil crisis, the subject of this exhibition is both timely and important to present outside of Alaska.

Each of the artists explores their relationship to the landscape, through a variety of interpretations and media, combining traditional and innovative forms from mask-making and skin sewing to photography and installation.

Dry Ice is curated by Julie Decker, Ph.D., of Anchorage, Alaska. Decker is the director of the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, a frequent guest curator of the Anchorage Museum and the author of numerous publications on art and architecture of Alaska.

The exhibition is presented as a collaborative project of the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, the Arts Council of Princeton and the Princeton University Art Museum.

The Taplin Gallery is located in the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts at 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. Meet the artists at the opening reception on Thursday, October 1st from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. Preceding the reception at 4 pm is a panel discussion with the curator and participating artists.

For more information call 609-924-8777 or visit http://www.artscouncilofprinceton.org/.

Nicholas Galanin Website


Lia Chang is an actor, performance and fine art botanical photographer, and a multimedia journalist. A former syndicated arts and entertainment columnist for KYODO News, Lia is the New York Bureau Chief for AsianConnections.com. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. She is currently working on several botanical portrait commissions for the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation Art Collection and on a book of portraits of her favorite Asian American men in the arts and space.

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