Left to right: Left to right: Anya Gallaccio (photo by Jonny Walton), Alexis Rockman (photo by Katherine Taylor)
A discussion between artists Anya Gallaccio and Alexis Rockman and the curators of our current exhibition, Romance, Regret, and Regeneration in Landscape. They will examine human impact on the environment related to the epoch of the Anthropocene, the anthropause that occurred during Covid-19, and the curatorial impulses behind the current exhibition at The 8th Floor.
Anya Gallaccio was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1963 and lives and works in London, UK and San Diego, CA. She has exhibited widely throughout the world, with institutional solo shows including Turner Contemporary, Margate UK (2024); National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh UK (2019); The Contemporary Austin, Austin TX (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego CA (2015), Camden Arts Centre, London UK (2008), Sculpture Center, New York NY (2006), and Tate Britain for Duveen SculptureCommission, London UK (2002). In 2003 Gallaccio was nominated for the Turner Priz
Alexis Rockman: (b. 1962, New York) Alexis Rockman has depicted a darkly surreal vision of the collision between civilization and nature – often apocalyptic scenarios on a monumental scale – for over three decades. Notable solo museum exhibitions include “Alexis Rockman: Manifest Destiny” at the Brooklyn Museum (2004), which traveled to several institutions including the Wexner Center for the Arts (2004) and the Rhode Island School of Design (2005). In 2010, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized “Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow,” a major touring survey of his paintings and works on paper. Concurrent with Rockman’s 2013 exhibition at Sperone Westwater, the Drawing Center mounted “Drawings from Life of Pi, featuring the artist’s collaboration with Ang Lee on the award-winning film Life of Pi. His series of 76 New Mexico Field Drawings was included in “Future Shock” at SITE Santa Fe (2017-18). “Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle,” a major exhibition of large-scale paintings, watercolors and field drawings, toured the Midwest in 2018-20, opening at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and traveling to five institutions in the Great Lakes region. “Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks,” opened at the Peabody Essex Museum (2021) and traveled to Guild Hall (2021), Ackland Art Museum (2022), and Princeton University Art Museum (2022). The Mystic Seaport Museum presented “Alexis Rockman: Oceanus,” featuring ten large-scale watercolors and an 8-by-24-foot panoramic painting commissioned by the museum for their permanent collection (2023-24). “Alexis Rockman and Mark Dion: A Journey to Nature’s Underworld” was presented at the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT (2023) and traveled to the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (2024). It will be on view at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY until 5 January 2025, before traveling to additional venues in 2025. Rockman’s work is represented in many museum collections, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Grand Rapids Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New Orleans Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and Whitney Museum of American Art. Rockman’s first solo exhibition with Sperone Westwater, “Evolution,” was presented in 1992. He has had subsequent solo exhibitions at the gallery in 2013, 2018, 2020-21 and 2023. He lives and works in Warren, Connecticut.
Image Description: Two headshots left to right: (1) A woman with curly brown hair smiles toward her left; she wears a green camo jacket and purple fringed scarf (2) a man with grey hair and a white button down smiles at the camera