Looking at Tomorrow: Light and Language from the Panza Collection, 1967–1990
October 24, 2015–February 7, 2016
North Galleries, 1905 Building
Looking at Tomorrow celebrates the Albright-Knox’s recent landmark acquisition of immersive light and sound installations, and Minimal and Conceptual artworks from the celebrated Panza Collection. As a result of this acquisition, a number of the most significant artists of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s have entered the Albright-Knox’s Collection for the first time; however, this acquisition also strengthens and enriches the museum’s holdings by Hamish Fulton (British, born 1946), Roni Horn (American, born 1955), Joseph Kosuth (American, born 1945), and Sol LeWitt (American, 1928–2007), among others.
Looking at Tomorrow: Light and Language from the Panza Collection, 1967–1990 takes its title from Hamish Fulton’s Looking at Tomorrow (Scottish North West Highlands), 1974. Starting in 1969, Fulton began to shape his artistic practice around walks and their textual and photographic documentation. The artist, however, does not consider himself a photographer but rather self-identifies as a “walking artist.” The photographs—while carefully composed and expertly printed—are a means to an end, in this case documenting the artist’s five-day walk across a mountainous region in Scotland. The terse captions included with each image record in words the artist’s itinerary, naming both the mountain from which the photograph is taken and the one captured by his camera and to be climbed by the artist the following day.
The Albright-Knox’s Collection also includes Fulton’s Touching By Hand One Hundred Rocks (Fifty Three). Created fifteen years after Looking at Tomorrow,Touching By Hand One Hundred Rocks adds to the challenging of representing the visual elements of a walk that of capturing the feel of one hundred rocks Fulton touched over the course of a seven-day excursion in Hokkaido, Japan. Touching By Hand One Hundred Rocks (Fifty Three) was most recently on view as part of Looking Out and Looking In: A Selection of Contemporary Photography in 2013.
Images:
TOP: Hamish Fulton (British, born 1946). Looking at Tomorrow (Scottish North West Highlands), 1974. Five gelatin silver prints and text on paper, 24 x 33 ½ inches (61 x 85 cm) each, framed. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. The Panza Collection and George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund, by exchange, Bequest of Arthur B. Michael, by exchange,Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange and Bequest of John Mortimer Schiff, by exchange, 2015. Photograph by Alessandro Zambianchi – Simply. it, Milano.
BOTTOM: Touching By Hand One Hundred Rocks (Fifty Three), 1989. Three gelatin silver prints, 46 x 54 ¼ inches (116.8 x 137.8 cm) each. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. James G. Forsyth and Elisabeth H. Gates Funds, 1991. Photograph by Tom Loonan.