Area Attractions: Boca Raton Museum of Art

Clifford Ross, Wood Wave LIV, 2017. Triptych UV cured ink on maple veneer. 

The power of nature is unleashed with two timely, powerful exhibitions at the Boca Raton Museum of Art for the new season. Both of these original shows ─ Maren Hassinger: Tree of Knowledge and Clifford Ross: Waves ─ will kick off the museum’s 70th anniversary season (on view November 5th - March 1st).

The museum is presenting both exhibitions together because the two shows sound a clarion call for environmental awareness. These shows also remind viewers that the beauty of nature can still inspire us, despite the over-saturation of society by hand-held devices and screens. The two exhibitions are presented side-by-side in adjoining galleries.

The Clifford Ross exhibition features a new approach to his monumental depictions of ocean waves that the artist captures during extreme weather. The result is the most comprehensive survey of his process ever shown in a museum.

Ross dramatically presents the monstrous power of the seas in his new exhibition at a crucial moment in time for our planet: the United Nations recently issued a major new report warning that the dangerous effects of climate change on our oceans is much worse than previously thought.

The new findings warn about warming oceans and damaged ecosystems. Sea levels are rising faster than previously predicted, glaciers and ice sheets melting more rapidly than expected, shrinking the fisheries that feed millions.  The new report warns that many cities around the world will experience annual flooding events by 2050 that previously occurred only once per century. The world's oceans have been warming since 1970 and have absorbed 90 percent of the planet's excess heat, killing off vast stretches of coral reefs. Absorbing massive amounts of carbon has made the ocean more acidic and inhospitable to corals that millions of species depend on for survival.

“When I first began photographing these hurricane waves 30 years ago, most of us were unaware that global warming was seriously damaging our oceans,” said Clifford Ross. “Now, as I look back on my work, it takes on a whole new meaning.”

Renowned sculptor and performance artist Maren Hassinger was commissioned by the museum for a residency that explored the staying power of nearby Pearl City, Boca Raton’s historic African-American neighborhood.

This is the largest installation that Hassinger has ever created in her long and celebrated career. Her new site-specific installation is based on Pearl City’s landmark, the “Tree of Knowledge." This majestic, 100-year-old banyan tree still stands today and is protected by the Historic Preservation laws. The tree has served the people of Pearl City since the dawn of the 20th century, as a gathering place for sharing stories and communal spirit.

Hassinger vigorously engaged the public to recreate the tree’s aerial roots by gathering many groups over several months. People from the community and visitors to the museum spent hundreds of hours twisting by hand thousands of recycled newspapers.

These banyan “branches” will be suspended from the ceiling of the main gallery, representing the community-based “Creation-Stations.” The participants’ names will be incorporated into the monumental new work.

“I want visitors to the museum to think about the endurance of the tree and the endurance of the people who live beside it,” said Maren Hassinger. “I hope they realize it’s possible to build a world in which, like this installation, people work together side by side. Both the tree and the residents have inspired me with their mutual endurance.”

In new reports, the United Nations warns that fires such as those causing de-forestation in the Amazon elevate concerns for the planet’s natural life support systems. This global call to action urges countries, companies and consumers to build a new relationship with nature.

The destruction of the world’s largest rainforest calls attention to the need to prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity. This year, the leading scientists of the world warned that civilization was in jeopardy due to forest clearance, over-usage of land, climate change, and pollution, putting a million species at risk of extinction.

Paper is a natural material, made from trees, and throughout the installation there will be fans that

Love, by Maren Hassinger.

evoke the wind blowing gently through nature, as opposed to the hurricane winds of Ross’s work.

Hassinger’s new exhibition will also feature the installation Love - an experiential portal for visitors to walk through. As the entranceway into the museum’s main galleries, it will surround visitors with hundreds of recycled pink plastic bags that will completely cover all of the surfaces around them. The shopping bags are filled with the air of human breath, and contain human love notes inside.

Maren Hassinger has work held in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in Baltimore; the California African American Museum in Los Angeles; Portland Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Williams College Art Museum in Williamstown; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Her many awards include: the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art, Maryland Institute College of Art; Joan Mitchell Foundation Grants; Anonymous Was a Woman; and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, among others.

The works of Clifford Ross are held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others. He is the editor of the book Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, and is Chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. His work has been widely exhibited in the United States, Europe, Brazil and China.

He has lectured in numerous university and museum settings, including Princeton, Yale, and New York University. Ross is a member of the Yale School of Art Dean's Advisory Board.

Celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2020, the Boca Raton Museum of Art encompasses a creative campus that includes the Museum in Mizner Park, Art School, and an Artists Guild. As the "Official Art Museum of the City of Boca Raton," the Museum has provided seven decades of cultural and artistic service to the community, and to many visitors from around the world. Open 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. on Thursdays; and 12:00-5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Visit www.bocamuseum.org for more information.