While it’s a slightly rougher version of what Dallasites have come to expect from a sculpture garden, the current exhibit at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park leaves the space as peaceful as ever.
The mostly large-format sculptures, installations and video works of art sit stoically and invite you to the usual picnic atmosphere. Sweet Pass is one of the few art rooms that serves hot dogs on a regular basis. But this show, titled “Nearly Natural,” invites guests to contemplate some of the most alarming aspects of the way our most mundane landscapes are framed.
Nathaniel Hitchcock is the quick mind behind the show, which explores landscaping and its relationship to architecture, as well as other fundamental elements of cities, businesses and homes. Read or have a quick chat with his intensely-researched exhibit essay and it is clear that the man spent much of the pandemic thinking about hedges and bushes – a recurring theme for Hitchcock.
“The whole thing is of course super problematic, and the hedges themselves and the way we think about hedges is problematic,” says Hitchcock on the phone.
Letha Wilson’s “Wall in Cedar Elm Tree” features a white wall with two huge branches and green leaves growing through the plant.(Nan Coulter / special contributor)
Relying on hedge pioneers like Lancelot “Capability” Brown, Hitchcock has an encyclopedic knowledge of how these architectural components evolved, usually at the behest of elites who could afford such topiary affairs.
“They’re landscape architects, but they’re designing the language of the class we all live in now,” says Hitchcock.
To articulate how environments and spaces are manipulated, Hitchcock hired a group of artists from around the world. Including Andreas Angelidakis, born in Greece; Gabriel Cohen, based in Los Angeles; the Franco-Caribbean Julien Creuzet; Ricardo Morales-Hernández from Puerto Rico; and Letha Wilson from Hudson Valley, NY
Hitchcock also lives in New York State, but has worked in Seoul, Mexico City, and even Waco. He runs an art space in Roxbury, NY called Liberal Arts Roxbury. The gallery was recently featured in an article about Oscar-winning director and Roxbury-based Roger Ross Williams.
The most striking piece is Gabriel Cohen’s Consolidation (after Cleopatra’s Needle, Tatlin’s Tower). Its imposing plywood tower contains a sharp pendulum that swings only slightly in the mostly still air of North Texas. Elsewhere, Andreas Angelidakis’ Philosophy Pattern Table and Chairs is a useful work that the artist originally designed in 2006 and debuted in Milan. The original set was lost, so Sweet Pass co-founders Trey Burns and Tamara Johnson rewrote the work according to the artist’s specifications.
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The most striking piece of the exhibition is probably Gabriel Cohen’s “Consolidation (after Cleopatra’s Needle, Tatlin’s Tower)”. Its imposing plywood tower contains a sharp pendulum that swings only slightly in the mostly still air of North Texas.(Nan Coulter / special contributor)
While Angelidakis often creates works that are mostly only used by Internet avatars, these are fully functional pieces of furniture.
Perhaps the most striking piece of art for Hitchcock’s intentions is Wilson’s Wall in Cedar Elm Tree. This is exactly what the curious work of the white wall of an art gallery is, through which two huge branches and green leaves grow.
“It’s not like her other public sculptures, which are made of concrete and metal and designed to last,” says Hitchcock of the work. “There is an impermanence. I’ve always been interested in how galleries can interact with plants. … How do these things come together, and how do we harmonize them intellectually or aesthetically? “
And yet, with all the criticism on the show, Hitchcock is also an admirer of what he knocks on. “Personally, I love a good, flawless hedge that is well cared for,” he says. “It’s kind of that show of strength.”
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“Fast Natural” is on view at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, 402 Fabrication St., Dallas. The exhibition is open at selected times and by appointment until December 18 by emailing sweetpasssculpturepark@gmail.com. The last day of opening times is December 12th from 2pm to 5pm sweetpasssculpturepark.com.
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