ABOUT THE ARTIST
Inspired by the long history of artists addressing the landscape, artist Blane De St. Croix begins with in-depth research on the science, geopolitics and culture of a place. Visiting locations key in climate research, engaging citizens who live and work there, consulting scientists, journalists, and cultural historians, De St. Croix unpacks his subject, in order to create a visually comprehensible picture of what is happening to our planet. Through aesthetically seductive works in various media and recycled materials, De St. Croix tells stories that facilitate a greater understanding of the shared social, political, and environmental changes we face on both a local and global level.
Presented is over a decade of works addressing the politics of the landscape, from a monumental miniature of the US/Mexico border to representations of mountaintop removal and mining. The artist new focus is a series of works about the Arctic. Consulting with scientists and members of the Indigenous Iñupiaq communities in Utqiaġvik, Alaska and on location in Svalbard, Norway, De St. Croix shines a spotlight on melting ice and dissolving permafrost, proverbial canaries in the coal mine for climate change. De St. Croix then transforms the data around climate change into artworks that shift in scale and vantage point, leading to a vertiginous feeling, an unsettling sense of whether we are standing on the ground or floating above it.
In the end, De St. Croix asks us to consider what it means to hold a landscape within us – as memory, image, and experience – reminding us that alongside scientific data we must understand the cultural importance of the landscape to our daily lives, in order to hope for the future.
Excerpts from How to Move a Landscape catalog and solo exhibition, MASS MoCA by senior curator Denise Markonish.
Biography
Blane De St. Croix’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally, in solo and group shows at venues including Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (current solo exhibition 2020-2021), North Adams, MA; Fredericks & Freiser, New York, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; The Land Art Biennial, The Mongolian National Art Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA; The Kathmandu International Triennial, Nepal Art Council, Kathmandu, Nepal; Värmlands Museum, Karlstad, Sweden; New York University Galleries, New York, NY; The Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Future Arts Research, (F.A.R.), Phoenix, AZ; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Gasworks Gallery, London, England; Europos Parkas Sculpture Park, Vilniaus, Lithuania; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Art In Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; The Asia Society, Houston, TX; The Virginia Commonwealth University Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA; and The Sheila Johnson Design Center, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY. Additionally, his work is included in both institutional and private collections in the United States and abroad.
De St. Croix has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards. Select awards include: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; The Lee Krasner Lifetime of Artistic Achievement Award; The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship for Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design; The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors; Brain Wall Award for Sculptors, Courtesy of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (nomination); The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; The Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship; The West Collection Prize; The MassArt Alumni Award for Outstanding Creative Accomplishment; and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture.
De St. Croix’s many notable international and national fellowship and artist residencies include: The CEC ArtsLink Residency, St Petersburg, Russia, New York, NY; The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Award Space Program, Brooklyn, NY; an Art Omi Artist Residency, Ghent, NY; Smack Mellon Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; residencies at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Foundry Artist Residency, Wisconsin; Gasworks Artist Studio Residency, Triangle Arts Trust, London; Montello Artist Residency Nevada/Utah; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; Tyrone Gutherie Center, Ireland; Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; Dieu Donne Residency, New York, NY; Special Editions Residency, Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY; The Arctic Circle Residency; and multiple MacDowell Colony Fellowships, Peterborough, NH.
De St. Croix’s work has been written about in publications including New York Magazine, The New York Times, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Artnet, Artforum, Artnews, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, The Chicago Tribune, Art Daily, Sculpture Magazine, ABC News, New Art Examiner, and The Miami Herald.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Blane De St. Croix was educated at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (M.F.A. Sculpture) and Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts (B.F.A. Sculpture with distinction). His work is represented by Fredericks & Freiser, New York, NY.
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