On the Grounds 2022
Irja Bodén, Moko Fukuyama, and Jennifer Zackin

River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to announce On the Grounds 2022, the second in a series of outdoor installations that showcase Hudson Valley based artists’ work in fiber, wood, and clay. This iteration includes a pack of ceramic dog heads by Irja Bodén, handwoven paracord hanging between trees and draped over existing structures in the landscape by Jennifer Zackin, and a painted arrangement of fallen and uprooted trees that Moko Fukuyama created while in residence at STONELEAF RETREAT. All three artists have taken a site-specific approach to On the Grounds 2022, placing their sculptures so that their surroundings complement and contextualize the variegated forms and concepts at play. Such an approach reflects a unifying interest in how nature can be both the material basis of art and the site in which art is encountered. The exhibition has been curated by RVAC’s founder, Alyson Baker, and organized in collaboration with the Al Held Foundation in Boiceville, NY.

Dogs are symbols of friendship and loyalty in the twenty sculptures comprising Bodén’s The Pack (2021-22). Situated between the manicured lawn of the Held studio complex and the overgrowth beyond, they are peaceful conduits between environments that humans have cultivated and those that run wild. In Lapland, Sweden where Bodén was raised, dogs serve as work animals assisting with hunting, sledding, and ski competitions. In this series, however, the artist lovingly imbues each face in the pack with anthropomorphic personality accentuated through multi-colored glazes. Sixteen are named after the only women awarded a Nobel Prize in fiction. The three peeking out, hollow-eyed and ashen but benign, from a cluster of rocks are “unpublished.”

Zackin began hand-knotting Through the Veil (2022) while in the Sacred Valley, Cusco, Peru, completed the piece in her Hudson Valley studio, and selected a setting on the Al Held Foundation grounds that is commensurate with the high-voltage beauty of the previous locations. It is tethered between the trees where Held’s hammock used to be. Viewed obliquely, Through the Veil appears like an opaque sheet of crossbarred neon colors; straight-on, one sees the cords bisecting and framing foliage on the other side. Day Glow Constellation (2022) envelops vintage lawn chairs and cascades down as a skirt around the Held family’s picnic table. The patterns and clever interplay of colors emerging from both works are the products of Zackin’s intuition. Indeed, not unlike the mosses, lichens, and trees present in this location, her work seems to emerge organically and spontaneously in response to subtle and mysterious signals to which she is uniquely attuned.

Fukuyama approached her work for this site like a mortician, painting dead tree parts to resuscitate the vitality they once possessed, albeit in an eerily altered state. Her two largest sculptures on view have iridescent hues reminiscent of the emerald ash borer beetle that is notorious for decimating Hudson Valley forests. Jewel-like yet macabre, they are placed in the site line of a dead ash tree, still standing but devoid of life. The other sculptures are painted to take on qualities of fire, fishing lures, and colors extracted from the region’s horizons. Altogether, the installation is designed according to the principles of ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangement in which the negative space around an object is regarded as part of the composition. Fukuyama’s attention to both the emptiness and the visible decay within landscape, along with her material and color references result in a poetic meditation on mortality.

About the artists:

Irja Bodén received a B.F.A. in painting from SUNY Potsdam and a B.A. in Social Science from Lund University, Sweden. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, including at The Samuel Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY; Woodstock Artist Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY; Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2020; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; LABspace, Hillsdale, NY; and Konstmuseet i Norr, Kiruna, Sweden. Bodén has been awarded residencies, grants, and fellowships through programs including Byrdcliffe Artist Residency, Woodstock, NY (2022); Mass MoCA Studios (2021); The Berkshire Taconic Foundation (2021); Vermont Studio Center (2017, 2018); and NYSCA Public Art Fellowship (2017).

Moko Fukuyama is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow. She has previously received grants, fellowships and commissions from notable art institutions such as Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Jerome Foundation, SOHO20, MacDowell, Yaddo, Recess, The Shed, ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program) and more. She completed her residency at The Kitchen, New York, New York in spring 2021. During the residency, she created American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest and Act II: American Frequency in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie. She was a 2021 fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota and Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York. She recently had her solo exhibition Streaming Surface at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York.

Jennifer Zackin integrates public art, sculpture, installation, performance, collaboration, ceremony, photography, video, collage, and drawing into acts of reverence and reciprocity. Her work has been exhibited in national and international museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut; Spertus Museum, Illinois; Rose Museum, Massachusetts; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio; Contemporary Art Museum, Texas; The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway; Institute of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts; and the Zacheta National Art Gallery, Poland. Commissions include Governors Island, New York with the LMCC; Katonah Art Museum, New York; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; and the Berkshire Botanical Gardens, Massachusetts. She is the recipient of fellowships and residencies, including Factory Direct at Pinchbeck Rose Farm, Art Omi, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture.

River Valley Arts Collective is a Hudson Valley-based, W.A.G.E. certified organization committed to fostering an inclusive creative community that is responsive and attuned to the ecology of our region. Through partnerships with neighboring arts organizations, foundations, studios, and farms, we curate exhibitions, commission new work, organize outdoor installations, give artists both material and monetary grants, coordinate residencies, host workshops, and spark discussions on a wide range of subjects. As a nexus for regional artists and artisans to connect and collaborate with each other as well as with the broader community, we create a generative space for experimentation and shared learning. Our efforts foster the production of work that is as aesthetically and conceptually groundbreaking as it is environmentally aware.

Since 2020, River Valley Arts Collective has been proud to partner with the Al Held Foundation on a series of exhibitions presented in Al Held’s former drawing studio as well as outdoor installations on the foundation's grounds.

The Al Held Foundation is charged with the stewardship of Al Held’s art and creative legacy. Based in Boiceville, NY at Held's former home and studio, the Foundation’s mission is to foster the appreciation and advancement of the principles of modern art and the public’s understanding of Held’s contribution to art of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the last decade the Foundation has facilitated the organization of exhibitions, lent works of art, promoted scholarly research, and conducted educational programs in the United States and abroad. The Foundation is represented by White Cube.

River Valley Arts Collective is grateful for generous support from: Mara Held, Daniel Belasco / The Al Held Foundation, ASD Fund of the Essex County Community Foundation, Athena Foundation, Cabbage Hill Farm Foundation, Nicole Cherubini and Patrick Purcell, Mark Dion, Kristen Dodge, Stef Halmos / Foreland, John B. Koegel, Esq., The New York Foundation for the Arts, The O’Grady Foundation, Robin Panovka, Clay Rockefeller, Rydingsvard Greengard Foundation, Richard Salomon Family Foundation, Hart Perry / Southwood Wood Products, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, Helen Toomer / Stoneleaf Retreat, Luke Ives Pontifell / The Thornwillow Institute, and SJ Weiler Fund.

For more information, please contact info@RVACollective.org.

This exhibition is on view at the Al Held Foundation in Boiceville, NY. The Foundation is not open to the public, however guided private tours of the exhibition are available by appointment.

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