Satellite Gallery presents Nature, Knowledge and the Knower, an exhibition that features digital enlargements of panoramic photographs as well as an online display of a selection of artist and explorer James L. (Lippit) Clark’s archives from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
This exhibition presents three dramatic panoramas taken with Kodak Cirkut cameras in Kenya between 1920 and 1930. The enlarged photographs will provide visitors to Satellite Gallery with an immersive environment to consider how African nature was seen, understood and measured for reconstruction and representation at the Museum.
An online archive is the second element of the exhibition, providing unprecedented access to a selection of visual materials originally collected and organized by Clark. These resources were gathered to facilitate the making of the habitat dioramas and to provide the museum’s exhibition department with an in-house picture collection. The website, www.natureknowledgeknower.com will be launched on October 28, 2011. The photographs and the visual material in the online archive have never before been exhibited.
James L. (Lippit) Clark (1883-1969) was an artist, explorer, big-game hunter, entrepreneur, museum preparator and director. After the sudden death of Carl Akeley in 1926 in Africa, he was assigned by the American Museum of Natural History to complete the construction of the Hall of African Mammals.
Curated by Mohammad Salemy, this two-part exhibition includes works by James L. Clark, Carl Akeley, Alfred J. Klein, William Leigh, Herbert Lang, Arthur Jansson, Robert Kane, Raymond DeLucia, George Mason and others whose works are included in the James L. Clark archives.