A.I.R.

View Original

Rock Stars
Barbara Siegel

GALLERY I

May 27 - June 21, 2009

In her mixed media installations Siegel unearths the scientific world of Frondel’s richly complex mineralogical practice, while also exploring the powerful impact of rocks and minerals on poets, songwriters and the leagues of ordinary folk whose rock collections take pride of place on desks and window sills. A connoisseur of all sorts of unusual collections and the fascinating and timeless museums that house them, Siegel’s current installations such as “Whose Boulder?” and “Wonder Cabinet” incorporate old display tables and cabinets to evoke such venues. Siegel’s research for ROCK STARS has taken her from the American Museum of Natural History to Harvard’s Mineralogical Museum and New Jersey’s Franklin Mine Museum. But “Forty-Eight” a centerpiece of the exhibition, is a very personal, unscientific idiosyncratic collection of 48 drawings of significant rocks borrowed by Siegel from friends and colleagues. Although here the imagery is more personal than scientific, the title, “Forty-Eight,” and configuration of 48 rock “portraits” hanging behind a small antique school desk, refer to the exact number of new mineral species Clifford Frondel named over the course of his long career.

View the full Press Release here.