Artist Jean Shin (PiV ‘93) with her site-specific installation, FALLEN, at Olana State Historic Site (Photo: Amanda Picotte for The New York Times).
Pratt in Venice congratulates alumna Jean Shin (PiV ‘93) on the opening of her daring, thoughtful exhibition, FALLEN, at Olana State Historic Site, the former estate of Hudson River School-painter Frederic Edwin Church.
When the artist Frederic Church created Olana’s 250-acre naturalistic landscape, he planted thousands of native trees on a hillside that had been previously logged and deforested. His plantings included the eastern hemlock tree (Tsuga canadensis), a graceful native conifer that once thrived on the slopes of the nearby Catskill Mountains. In the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of hemlocks were cut down for the tanning industry, which used the tannin in the tree’s bark for the commercial demands of leather-making.
The devastating loss of these evergreen forests would have been visible from Olana’s hilltop. With an artist’s eye toward the cycles of nature, Church would also include fallen trees in his paintings. Sketches can be found in Olana’s extensive collection.
The eastern hemlock tree on Olana’s East Lawn died of natural causes last year, after attempts by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation to save it. It stood high amidst new native plantings, which were installed to complete the first project in Olana’s award-winning Strategic Landscape Design Plan. As a part of an ongoing commitment to engage contemporary artists at Olana, The Olana Partnership has commissioned the nationally-renowned artist Jean Shin to create a site-specific work in response to the loss of this hemlock tree.
“While reckoning with the devastating consequences of deforestation in local history, the project invites viewers to observe the natural surroundings more closely, witness nature’s struggles, and mourn what we have lost.“ says artist Jean Shin.
Jean Shin, Fallen, 2021. Leather-clad hemlock tree, Olana State Historic Site (Photo: Amanda Picotte for The New York Times)
The exhibition was featured in a May 3, 2021 New York Times article by Meredith Mendelsohn. The artist also spoke about the project in a conversation with the Olana Partnership.
Jean Shin is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York, known for creating elaborate sculptures and site-specific installations using accumulated cast-off materials. She is a faculty member in the Fine Arts department at Pratt Institute.
FALLEN opened on May 2, 2021 and will be on view through October 31, 2021.
Olana State Historic Site
5720 State Route 9G
Hudson, NY 12534
