March 13 - May 8, 2009
[view the exhibition program]

With the awareness spurred on by a new environmental reality, this show investigates the ways in which artists depict this thing we call "landscape". The show should serve as an extension of an art historical lineage, but also as a document of the current ecological crisis and how, as a culture, we are dealing with the decline of our natural environment. While attuned to the art historical legacy of the landscape, the artists in this show engage new ideas about exploration, land use politics, and the relativity of aesthetic beauty. The artists represented here respond to our conflicted landscape with a mix of humor, irony, amazement and terror. The works included in the show are immensely beautiful but represent appalling environmental conditions. The show, therefore, deals with the aesthetics of the decline of the environment. It seduces the viewer with the aesthetic beauty of the landscape and then subtly engages him/her in contemplating its survival. The artists alert us to the problems of the natural world and provide possible solutions by presenting the land as, above all else, imbued with beauty.

See selections from the Seduced exhibition below, or click here to learn more about the artists.

This exhibition was supported, in part, by NewAlliance Foundation

[click on thumbnails for larger view]