Press Release - Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and the Americas

Guest Curators Georgia de Havenon and Alicia Lubowski-Jahn
Press Preview and Reception: Tuesday, April 29, 5:00 p.m.

New York, April 7, 2014—Americas Society presents the exhibition Unity of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and the Americas, guest curated by Georgia de Havenon and Alicia Lubowski-Jahn, accompanied by a one-day-international symposium on April 30 at Hunter College. The show focuses on the trajectory and legacy of the prolific Prussian scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) who traveled from 1799 to 1804 throughout modern-day Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. During his lifetime, the journey would result in significant contributions to the understanding and study of tropical nature.

Unity of Nature presents a selection of outstanding landscapes, rare first-edition publications and maps, scientific instruments, and archival materials, as well as a cabinet by contemporary artist Mark Dion, all assembled together for the first time in this exhibition. The works provide insight into the scientist’s working methods and demonstrate Humboldt’s extensive scholarship and widespread influence on artists from Europe and the United States, as well as men of state and scientists. The title of the exhibition references Humboldt’s self-described aim to "represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces." These unifying forces also dissolved the barriers between the scientific, artistic, and political. Humboldt’s interest in the environment was matched by his investment in the people he encountered, a belief that is reflected in his position as an outspoken abolitionist. Humboldt was lauded during his time by Simón Bolívar as the "true discoverer of South America" and by Thomas Jefferson as the "most important scientist" he had ever met. Correspondences between these influential leaders and Humboldt are included in the exhibition. Despite his deep scientific and cultural influence and renown during his lifetime, Humboldt is not often recognized in the United States for his contributions. Unity of Nature seeks to amend this historical oversight.

Humboldt made detailed sketches while traveling, and he commissioned European artists to develop them into finished artworks. These works were published in Humboldt’s seminal Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique [Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas]. Vues and further illustrated books by Humboldt, such as Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe and Aspects of Nature (both published in English in 1849 and included alongside Vues in Unity of Nature), inspired generations of artist-travelers to embark on their own journeys, during which they meticulously documented landscapes complete with specific plant species.

The exhibition is drawn from public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, and focuses mainly on artists who directly integrated Humboldt’s process and ideology into their artworks. Unity of Nature features artists who were compelled to follow Humboldt’s South American route, including Americans Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), Louis Rémy Mignot (1831-70), Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1835), Norton Bush (1834–94), and Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904), as well as European travelers Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–58), Ferdinand Bellermann (1814–89), Albert Berg (1820–73), and the Victorian woman traveler Adela Breton (1849–1923). Although Humboldt never traveled to the western United States, his impact was spread there through the landscapes and early photographs of American artists Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) and Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916).

In the vein of European and American artists inspired by Humboldt, artist Mark Dion will premiere a new work in this exhibition: Humboldt (2013), as his contemporary response to the tradition of scientific drawing and systematic categorization of species. Dion conducted a 2013 residency in Bogotá, Colombia, during which he directly engaged the surrounding environment by collecting local specimens. His initiatives take form as a collection of hand-rendered postcards in collaboration with artists Dana Sherwood, Diego Benavides, Margarita Besosa, Olga Lucía García, Juan Pablo Gaviria, María Paula Moreno, and Eulalia de Valdenebro. These postcards were dispersed through the postal service to exhibition collaborators before reassembly for this exhibition in a large wooden cabinet recalling the earliest form of institutional display, the Wunderkammer, or "Cabinet of Curiosities."

Unity of Nature is accompanied by an extensive illustrated catalogue published in collaboration with Kerber Verlag. Its contents include contributions from exhibition curators Georgia de Havenon and Alicia Lubowski-Jahn, scholars Ingo Schwarz, Katherine E. Manthorne, and Pablo Diener; a preface by Jay A. Levenson, director of the International Program at The Museum of Modern Art; a conversation between Mark Dion, Gabriela Rangel, and Wenzel Bilger, with further information about Dion’s residency at FLORA by curator José Roca. An international symposium organized by Americas Society will be held at Hunter College on April 30, 2014. The exhibition curators will be joined by scholars and curators from Europe, Latin America, and the United States to discuss Humboldt’s historical, social, and artistic influence.

In parallel, the Goethe-Institut New York and the Galerie für Landschaftskunst Hamburg present Free River Zones: An artistic inquiry. The project by six participants from the United States, India, and Germany is inspired by Humboldt’s ideas, visions, and academic practice within an experimental artistic format: field trips on New York's waterways, collaborative art work, discussions, and a series of talks about rivers worldwide will culminate into the declaration of a Free River Zone in New York and an art exhibition, which will be on view from April 29 to May 31 at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building (5 East 3rd Street, New York). Based on the historical event of Humboldt's river voyage on the Orinoco and the Río Negro in South America in 1800, the exhibition will present a contemporary take on Humboldt's legacy.

The exhibition Unity of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt is made possible by the generous support from Mrs. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, The New York Community Trust, the German Federal Foreign Office, the Consulate General of Germany in New York, Goethe Institute New York, The Tinker Foundation, Mex-Am Cultural Foundation, and Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. The exhibition is also supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council of the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Image credit: Essai sur la géographie des plantes: accompagné d’un tableau physique des regions équinoxiales... [Essay on the Geography of Plants, Accompanied by a Physical Table of the Equinoctial Regions] [engraving with watercolor by Louis Bouquet, drawing by Lorenz Schönberger and Pierre Turpin, 1805, after a sketch by Alexander von Humboldt] (Paris: Chez Levrault, Schoell et compagnie, 1805). 149⁄16 x 3111⁄16 in. Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri.
 

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

ON VIEW
April 29 – July 26, 2014

Gallery hours:
Wednesday to Saturday
12 p.m.–6 p.m.
Americas Society
680 Park Avenue at 68th Street
NY, New York 10065
View map
Free admission

PRESS PREVIEW AND RECEPTION
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
5:00 p.m.
Guest Curators Georgia de Havenon and Alicia Lubowski-Jahn will host the media and will be available for interviews. A VIP opening and reception will follow.

GENERAL OPENING:
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
7:00 p.m.
Free

SYMPOSIUM- ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AND THE ORDER OF NATURE: ASPECTS OF CULTURE AND LANDSCAPE IN THE AMERICAS
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
11:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
THIS EVENT WILL BE BROADCAST LIVE
The exhibition curators will be joined by scholars and curators from Europe, Latin America, and the United States to discuss Humboldt’s historical, social, and artistic influence. Speakers will include Harper Montgomery, Distinguished Lecturer; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Professor in Latin American Art, Hunter College; Kevin J. Avery, Senior Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University; Wenzel Bilger, Regional Program Director, Goethe- Institute, New York; Laura Dassow Walls, William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English, University of Notre Dame; Georgia de Havenon, Exhibition Guest Curator; Pablo Diener, Professor in the History Department at the Universidad Federal de Mato Grosso, Brazil; Mark Dion, Contemporary Artist; Ottmar Ette, Chair of Romance Literature, University of Potsdam; Alicia Lubowski-Jahn, Exhibition Guest Curator; Katherine Manthorne, Professor of Art of the Unites States, Latin America and Their Cross-Currents, 1750-1950, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; Mary Louise Pratt, Silver Professor and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures at New York University; Gabriela Rangel, Director of Visual Arts and Chief Curator, Americas Society; and Michael Zeuske, Professor of Caribbean and Latin American History, Universität zu Köln.
Hunter College
695 Park Avenue, North Building
Room 1527, 15th Floor
New York, NY
View map
Free admission

EXHIBITION TOUR WITH ALICIA LUBOWSKI-JAHN AND GEORGIA DE HAVENON
Wednesday, May 14, 6:30 p.m.
Guest curators Alicia Lubowski-Jahn and Georgia de Havenon will lead a guided tour of the exhibition.
Free for members
$10 for non-members

EXHIBITION TOUR WITH ALICIA LUBOWSKI-JAHN AND GEORGIA DE HAVENON
Thursday, May 29, 6:30 p.m.
Guest curators Alicia Lubowski-Jahn and Georgia de Havenon will lead a guided tour of the exhibition.
Free for members
$10 for non-members

Press Inquiries: Contact Adriana La Rotta at alarotta@as-coa.org or 1-212-277-8384.

Americas Society is the premier organization dedicated to education, debate and dialogue in the Americas. Established by David Rockefeller in 1965, our mission is to foster an understanding of the contemporary political, social and economic issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, and to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship. Americas Society Visual Arts program boasts the longest-standing private space in the U.S. dedicated to exhibiting and promoting art from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada; it has achieved a unique and renowned leadership position in the field, producing both historical and contemporary exhibitions.