agriCULTURE: Art Inspired by the Land

Longmont Museum

400 Quail Road, Longmont, CO 80501

June 10, 2023-January 7, 2024

Curated by Jamie Kopke, Jane Burke, and Jared Thompson

Admission: Adults: $8; Students/Seniors: $5; Members and Children ages 3 and under: Free

Review by Jillian Blackwell

AgriCULTURE: Art Inspired by the Land pairs artists with local Boulder County farms to create artworks. The exhibition attempts to wield art to connect humanity to the land. This is a tricky tightrope to walk, with the perils of being too didactic or making art that is only illustrative and not substantive on either side.

The work presented in AgriCULTURE does a good job walking that tightrope, melding formal elements, materials, and subject matter to create pleasing artworks that maintain a tie to the overarching theme. There is often tenderness apparent in the connection between artist and farmer, as one might hope to achieve when we work in community.

Margarita Cabrera, *CARE Longmont: Feast and Dialogue*, 2023, clay, slip, and wood. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

There is no greater example of working in community than Margarita Cabrera’s CARE Longmont: Feast and Dialogue. Cabrera orchestrated storytelling circles onsite at Ollin Farms, ceramic workshops, and a live performance dinner. These activities culminated materially in the exhibition as a collection of ornate and extravagantly long-handled spoons on display in a circle on two large round tables.

The spoons were created by community members. Each is unique but similar, with a broomstick-sized wooden dowel handle decorated with large wooden beads and a decorative ceramic box. Placed at chest height, it is hard to resist the temptation to try to heft one of the oversized spoons.

A detail view of Margarita Cabrera’s *CARE Longmont: Feast and Dialogue*, 2023, clay, slip, and wood. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

In the live performance dinner, “the community-made ceramic spoons [were] used by invited guests to feed each other as they [partook] in a curated conversation around the main themes of art and food, regeneration, food access, and pollination.” [1] The collection of activities, centered on food access and the diversity of the community, is an effective form of social practice, being both aesthetically interesting and socially uplifting.

Patrick Marold, *Cornstalk Screen (the scale of consumption)*, 2023, cornstalks and toothpicks. Image courtesy of the artist.

Other works in the exhibition function as visualizations of information. In Cornstalk Screen (the scale of consumption), Patrick Marold constructs a lattice of dried corn stalks held together with toothpicks. The screen spans from floor to ceiling across one wall of the gallery space.

As indicated from the title, Marold utilizes scale in the artwork to help us understand the enormity of a single cow’s consumption of corn for a two-and-a-half-day period (approximately 84 pounds of corn). [2] Cornstalk Screen (the scale of consumption) is visually striking and compelling, as the viewer can feel the size of the work in comparison to their own body.

Sam Van Aken, *Tree of 40 Fruit: The Boulder Trees*, 2023, cyanotypes of fruit tree varieties. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

The work of Sam Van Aken combines both aesthetically-pleasing documentarian aspects and unusual ventures into sculpture. The project, Tree of 40 Fruit: The Boulder Trees, is an adaptation of Van Aken’s longer standing Tree of 40 Fruit project, which he modifies for this exhibition to pair with the University of Colorado’s Boulder Apple Tree Project.

In the gallery space he displays a grid of cyanotypes that document a collection of herbarium specimens. The cyanotypes are straightforward but lovely, showing the details of leaf veins and flower buds.

An example specimen from Sam Van Aken’s project *Tree of 40 Fruit: The Boulder Trees*, 2023, grafted fruit trees. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

Outside of the museum, the adventuring viewer can hunt down grafted apple trees at four different locations. Van Aken planted the crabapple trees, then “grafted 20-30 heritage apple varieties to each tree using scions (buds/branches of trees) collected throughout the Front Range.” [3] These trees are a handful in a larger series of fruit trees that Van Aken has been grafting and planting across the country since 2008.

Aken’s project, which creates Frankenstein trees that are curious sculptures in their own right, pairs well with the Boulder Apple Tree Project. This project “collects historical information along with biological information” concerning old apple trees around Boulder, where fruit production was very prominent in the late 1800s and early 1900s. [4] Aken’s trees become a site of collection for forgotten, historical, local apple tree varieties.

The identifying “King David” tag on a tree from Sam Van Aken’s project *Tree of 40 Fruit: The Boulder Trees*, 2023, grafted fruit trees. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

The trees themselves carry the concept of grafting to a ridiculous and thus intriguing extent. The work pushes the bounds of sculpture to include a living, growing tree and can be folded into the narrative of Land Art such as in Agnes Denes’s Tree Mountain: a man-made mountain planted with eleven thousand trees in a spiraling geometric pattern near Ylöjärvi, Finland. [5] Van Aken, in partnership with the Boulder Apple Tree Project, makes interesting advances for contemporary art while simultaneously informing the public and making a historical and useful record.

A view of the exhibition *AgriCULTURE: Art Inspired by the Land* at Longmont Museum. Image by Jillian Blackwell.

AgriCULTURE considers our culture as tied to the earth through the lens of art. As such, should the focus be on artistic exploration or the investigation of culture? The exhibition balances these goals not only in the artworks, but also in the curation. Considering this balance, the aesthetics of the exhibition at the Longmont Museum perhaps hinder the artworks and pull them out of a conversation with contemporary art. [6] The signage makes a direct reference to John Deere®, being bright green and yellow. Stripes of lines curve around the signage text like rows made by a tractor.

The text grabs at universal but vague ideas, slotting artworks into categories such as “community”, “roots”, or “complexity.” These panels often over-explain and can be quite saccharine, particularly in the wall of quotes from artists and farmers. When trying to juggle so many things, perhaps letting the art speak for itself as much as possible would have been more effective. Lead curator Jaime Kopke is quoted in the wall text, asserting: “The artists in this exhibition hold up a mirror to us all. Through these collaborations they have sought to share the many stories the farmers—and thus the land—have to offer.” [7] By simply viewing the art, this message rings true.

An installation view of the exhibition *agriCULTURE* with Patrick Marold’s *Cornstalk Screen (the scale of consumption)* in the foreground on the left. Image courtesy of Longmont Museum.

In an exhibition which pairs artists with professionals in the farming field, there are many ways that one might define success. Is it enough for the artwork to be aesthetically pleasing or forward-thinking for contemporary art? If a moral imperative is presented, is it enough for the artwork to provide the audience with information? Should the exhibition create avenues for the viewer to take action? Whether or not this kind of art should require some further action is up for debate, but the question lingers, nonetheless.

AgriCULTURE offers experiences to accompany the exhibit, from mushroom foraging to a natural dye workshop, but generally does not take the further step into any type of social or climate justice action. An exhibition that takes on so much may stumble in some aspects, but there are many successes in this presentation. AgriCULTURE aims high and makes great strides in forging connections across disciplines, displaying interesting use of space and materials, and creating conscientious interaction with the community.

Jillian Blackwell (she/her) is an Editorial Coordinator at DARIA as well as an artist and art educator. She holds a BA in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics from the University of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 2022, she began the master’s degree Painting program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

[1] From the exhibition signage.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Museum of Natural History Research and Innovation Office, "Boulder Apple Tree Project," University of Colorado Boulder, www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/boulder-apple-tree-project.

[5] In addition to Agnes Denes’ webpage on the project at www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works4.html, see https://www.americanscientist.org/article/regeneration-on-tree-mountain.

[6] Part of the exhibition was also on display at the Boulder Museum of Art through October 1, 2023.

[7] From the exhibition signage.