Ansel Adams

THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

The Future Is Not What It Used to Be, curated by Amanda Roscoe Mayo, will be on display in the Michael and Noémi Neidorff Art Gallery at Trinity University from March 1- April 7, 2012. There will be an opening reception on March 1st from 5-7pm.  A gallery talk with the curator and artists will begin at 6pm.

The Future is Not What it Used To Be features works by thirteen artists exploring human incursion on the landscape. Through a variety of media, these artists offer contrasting views of the landscape as touched by human hand through both destruction and conservation.  The exhibition asks, when did nature turn from sustained into sustainable?

The exhibition features artists Ansel Adams; Jeana Baumgardner and Sandy Carson from Austin; Erik Grow and Scot Polach from San Francisco; Caleb Jagger and Todd Jagger from Fort Davis, Texas; Adam Katseff from Stanford, California; Leigh Anne Lester from San Antonio; Allie Mount from Portland, Oregon; Kristin Musgnug from Fayetteville, Arkansas; Adam Waldron-Blain from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and Liz Ward from Castroville, Texas.

Curator Amanda Roscoe Mayo is a graduate of Trinity University where she majored in studio art.  She is now the Co-Director of PLAySPACE Gallery at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California, where she is a candidate for a Masters in Curatorial Practice. She also co-founded R&R, a curatorial collective based in San Francisco.

Michael and Noémi Neidorff Art Gallery

Dicke Art Building, Department of Art and Art History

Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX, 78212

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1-5pm

EcoArtTech launches Eclipse App


EcoArtTech has created a new web-based application for turbulence.org that mashes up Flickr photos of national parks with real-time air quality data. It’s a good effort and the air quality of national parks is something worth investigating. But as air-quality is beyond our individual control, I wonder what an effort such as this can accomplish. Yes, Ansel Adams photos led to the creation of new national parks in California’s Sierras, but what can we artists do today? Hacks of existing data seem to only corroborate what already know, or at least what those of us paying attention to the environment already know.

I’m not trying to bash EcoArtTech’s efforts, but a project such as this only makes me think of the bigger forces (i.e., government regulations) that need to be enacted to improve air quality. And personally, I’d rather see those efforts directed at the highly populated areas such as communities surrounding the Port of LA and Long Beach, where air pollution has serious, direct impact on hundreds of thousands of people.

If anything, a project such as this is a good representation of the futility I feel with so many of these issues. What can we do? At least a shout in the digital wilderness is a start.

> Experience the Eclipse project here.

> More by EcoArtTech here.

Go to Eco Art Blog