Nineveh: A Sculptural Installation by Ezra Kellerman

Hite Galleries - Cressman Center

Nineveh

A Sculptural Installation by Ezra Kellerman

September 16 – October 17, 2009

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 16, 6 – 8 pm

Discussion with artist and special guest, TBA: First Friday, October 2

Artist Statement:

Vast, hanging plateaus of grass and their direct relationship to the irrigation system suspended above them sharpen the general ideas of conception, growth, and environmental sustenance prevalent in Nineveh.  This relationship between the two elements, life-support (irrigation) and organism (grass) is symbolic for the survival of life forms in unnatural and uninhabitable places.  As people navigate through the passageways cut through the plateaus, they inevitably come face to face with a stranger traveling the same route but in an opposing direction.  A negotiation must be reached between the two people as they stand, unable to pass one another, surrounded by the constrictive, hanging fields.  This negotiation and subsequent compromise in how to proceed through the corridors becomes allegorical for the cooperation necessary between human beings to assist and sustain the environment, particularly in places where different cultural groups share the same ecosystem.

                                    -Ezra Kellerman

About the artist:

Ezra Kellerman is a Louisville-based sculptor who returned to Kentucky after graduate study at Louisiana State University.  He has twice instructed and assisted at the Museum of Steel Sculpture at Coalbrookdale, England and has exhibited in several group and solo shows in England, Kentucky, and Louisiana.

Commissioned by the International Contemporary Art Foundation, Kellerman started fabricating the work in late May of 2009.  The project is a site-specific installation for the Cressman Center for Visual Art and was realized by joint efforts from the Foundation, 21c Museum, the University of Louisville, and the artist.

The Cressman Center is at 100 E. Main St. (40204), First & Main, in downtown Louisville. 

In addition to the art gallery, the Cressman Center is home to the Hite Art Institute's Glass Studios, which are also accessible during gallery hours and host visiting artists in glass and several public demos and lectures each year. (Map of Hite locations.)

Gallery Hours:  W - F, 11 a.m.  - 6 p.m.;  Sat., 11 a.m.  - 3 p.m.; 1st Fri., 11 a.m. - 9  p.m. Group Tours: school & other group tours should call Bruce Linn @ 502.852-0288 to make arrangements.