Niagara
For the group exhibition, Niagara, Western New York and Southern Ontario artists were invited to submit slides and proposals for contemporary treatments of Niagara Falls. Three installations were chosen, as well as a selection of single works--photographs, paintings, and mixed media. In Burke Paterson's wall piece, All Roads Lead to Niagara, road maps were pieced together to make an absurdly disproportionate facsimile of North America. A tiny video screen played footage of Niagara Falls in its spot on the large map--it could be viewed with binoculars from a platform in front of the installation. This installation, along with the 1999 Christy Rupp installation and many others, was a method of addressing the Castellani Art Museum's dramatically large central space (20 foot ceilings with 45 and 55 foot-long walls). Other site-specific works in Niagara were Leandro Soto's video altar Oshun (shown at left) and artist team Art Industrial's indoor/outdoor project dealing with the Ontario and New York power plants. Other notable works included sculptures by Patrick Robideau and Brett Coppins and photography by Nancy J. Parisi. The selection of contemporary works was accompanied by a historic group of Niagara Falls prints borrowed from collector Charles Penney.