For Immediate Release
August 1, 2007
Contact:
Corey Cronin 781/259-3628, ccronin@decordova.org
Collection Highlight: Randall Thurston’s Kingdom
Grand Staircase
September 1, 2007 – April 27, 2008
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, September 6 from 6 – 9 pm
LINCOLN, MA—Randall Thurston’s installation, Kingdom, was originally created for and installed on DeCordova’s Grand Staircase wall in 2000. The artist’s complex pictographic image uses black silhouette cut-outs to represent landscape as a stratified phenomenon with four layers—the air, the earth, the underworld, and underwater life. A variety of silhouettes of animals, vegetation, mythological figures, and decorative elements inhabit each region.
Thurston’s method of researching, cataloguing, and arranging his images is related to the eighteenth and nineteenth century branch of science known as systematics. Using sources both scientific and art historical, Thurston free-associates his forms, striving to achieve an underlying structural harmony.
Covering an area 32 feet high and 4 feet wide, Kingdom responds to the relationship of the staircase to the outdoors, since the large glass windows that flank the staircase give one a sense of being inside and outside simultaneously.
Collection Highlight: Randal Thurston’s Kingdom is organized by Director of Curatorial Affairs Rachel Rosenfield Lafo.
For images, please contact Corey Cronin at ccronin@decordova.org or 781/259-3628.
General Information: DeCordova is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm and on selected Monday holidays. General admission during Museum hours is $9 for adults, $6 for senior citizens, students, and youth ages 6–12. Children age 5 and under, Lincoln residents, and Active Duty Military Personnel and their dependents are admitted free. The Sculpture Park is open year round during daylight hours. The Store @ DeCordova and the School Gallery are open Monday through Thursday, 9:30 am to 7:30 pm, Friday through Saturday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm, and Sunday 10:30 am to 5:30 pm. The Café @ DeCordova is open Tuesday from noon to 3 pm, and Wednesday through Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm. Guided public tours of the Museum’s main galleries take place every Thursday at 1 and Sunday at 2 pm. Tours of the Sculpture Park are given on Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm from May to Oct. All guided public tours are free with Campus admission. Visit www.decordova.org or call 781/259-8355 for further information. This press release is available electronically on DeCordova’s Web site.
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