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Roger Hiorns, Untitled, 2005. Richard Brown Baker Fund for Contemporary British Art

Introduction

Stranger Than Paradise

July 14, 2017 - February 25, 2018

This presentation of works, from ancient Greek pottery to contemporary objects, considers the changing—and often unusual—relationships humans have with the natural world. Early examples depict forests and fields as backdrops for hunting scenes or for mythological icons. Paintings by Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Surrealist Wifredo Lam suggest significantly different notions of communion between people and nature. More recent paintings, sculptures, and photographs further explore this unsettled and complicated relationship and reflect on the destruction of the very environment that sustains us. Other works in this gallery and elsewhere in the museum—for example, Paul Morrison’s Exine mural—offer a range of perspectives between these concepts, and identify nature as a force of empowerment or as a way to escape an increasingly technologized and industrialized world.

Dominic Molon
Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art
RISD Museum

The RISD Museum is supported by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with the generous partnership of the Rhode Island School of Design, its Board of Trustees, and Museum Governors.

Selected Objects

Attributed to François Boucher

Bird-Catching Cherubs (Summer) L'Amour Oiseleur (L’Eté), 1732-1733

Wifredo Lam

Near the Virgin Islands (Près des Îles Vierges), 1959

Attributed to Giessen-Providence painter

Wine Jug (Oinochoe), ca. 610 BCE

Wilhelm Frederik van Royen

The Young Hunter, ca. 1706

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Young Shepherd in Repose (Portrait of Alexander Thurneyssen), 1911

Arthur Bowen Davies

Clothed in Dominion, ca. 1912

Roger Hiorns

Untitled, 2005

Ron Nagle

Waiting for Jumbot, 2009

Justine Kurland

Smoke Bombs, 2000

Rina Banerjee

Dangerous World, Lava and Erasable Flower, Oil and Radiation Filled with Power..., 2010

Angela Dufresne

Man and Kid, 2014

Tomory Dodge

Nature Study, 2006

Michael E. Smith

Untitled, 2016

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Stranger Than Paradise

July 14, 2017 - February 25, 2018
View Checklist PDF

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