America Now at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly

 

Montserrat College of Art Gallery
23 Essex Street
Beverly, MA 01915
Phone: 978.921.4242 x1204 

gallery@montserrat.edu

 

Alec Soth, Peter's Houseboat, Winona, MN, exhibition print 

America Now

February 5 – April 10, 2010

The current show in Montserrat College of Art's main gallery is an extensive photography exhibit featuring the works of six technically skilled artists.  It is called America Now, and the title reflects the subject with accuracy.  The subjects have a variety of range: the poverty of urban South Philadelphia by Zoe Strauss.  A slaughtered elk in the wilds of a winter aspen grove in Idaho by Laura McPhee.  A trailer home in twilight, its reflecting insulation stained with the oncoming dusk while an electric reindeer blurs the image with a nod by Alec Soth.   All the photographs have striking similarities despite the differences in subject.  Stark, hard beauty links them all as well as a disenchantment with and decay of the American Dream.  Loneliness grips the  subjects and yet the photography shows an unflinching in-depth connection between photographer and subject, and this is literally a saving grace.  Would that we all could look this hard at the country around us and find a sympathy and beauty this meaningful.

 

 

Laura McPhee, Sagebrush and Grass in an Irrigated Field, Fourth of July Creek Ranch, Custer County, ID, 2004, chromogenic print

 

Directions from the Salem Inn

Upon exiting the Inn, take a left on Summer St.  Take your first immediate left and continue across the major intersection.  (You should pass the post office on your right).  Follow this street until you come to a four-way stop. Take a left on Hawthorne Blvd. (Rte 1A north).  Follow 1A north into Beverly; this will take you across the Beverly-Salem bridge.  Once in Beverly, the road forks into two main roads.  Take the one on your right (Cabot St.)  You will no longer be on Rte 1A.  Follow Cabot Street into downtown Beverly and take a right at the Rte 22 sign.  Montserrat's main building is about two blocks up on your right.  The gallery is free.