Curator Tour: Plastic Reef and Cycles of Nature

Take a tour with Laura Vookles, Chair of the HRM’s Curatorial Department, through the exhibitions Federico Uribe: Plastic Reef  and Cycles of Nature to experience the cyclical essence of nature on grand and small scales.

Plastic Reef, by Federico Uribe, weaves everyday objects like bottles, bottle caps, plastic cutlery, and flip flops, in curious ways to recreate a marine ecosystem. In his work, Uribe addresses the life cycles of oceans, their life-giving properties, how they are being transformed by pollution and climate change, and what we can do to protect them.

George Bellows’ powerful Evening Swell, 1911, on loan from Art Bridges, gives us a sense of the day-to-day, season-by-season struggles of fishermen who make their living from the sea. Lee Krasner’s Re-Echo, also on loan from Art Bridges, is part of the artist’s Earth Green series, which she produced after the sudden death of her husband, artist Jackson Pollock, in 1956. In both works, sustenance and hope coexist with struggle and loss.

Image: Federico Uribe (Colombian, b. 1962). Plastic Reef, 2019. Plastic. Courtesy of the artist.