Community: Climate Change in Providence

FRESH CURATORIAL AND ARTISTIC PERSPECTIVES

It is noticeable, looking at artwork made in Providence as we enter 2015, that the flavor of the city is changing. Facilitated by a re-branding process that seems to also address anti-intellectual posturing as an impediment to global context, the city is willing, at the moment, to entertain the concept of varied aesthetic languages informing its learning curve with sophistication and surprise. Fresh curatorial perspectives are afoot, both institutionally and independently, that are beginning to shape the art climate in ways that comment upon and reflect this growing dimensionality.

The appointment of Dominic Molon as the Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at RISD Museum is an example of institutional leadership change. Molon is making studio visits and regularly meeting local artists in their element, experiences he then reflects on informally in a blog on the museum’s website (RISDMuseum.org) where he also shares images of the art that he encounters.

Molon said that he came to Providence from the midwest because he wanted to be actively involved with an institution that made acquisitions. He also liked that once they had been appointed, past RISD Museum curators had stayed on for a long time. These two very practical points indicate Molon’s desire to imbed in the community and make a lasting curatorial mark.

Jamilee Polson Lacy, recently appointed as director and curator of the PC Art Galleries at Providence College, is looking forward to the fastapproaching solo exhibition of paintings and new-media work by Providence artist Heather Leigh McPherson, on view from January 14 through February 28 in PC’s Reilly Gallery.

Suzanne Volmer