The Sea, the Sky, a WindowA Project by Sarah Crowner
The Sea, the Sky, a Window
A Project by Sarah Crowner
Opening September 22, 2023
The Hill Art Foundation is pleased to present The Sea, the Sky, a Window, a project by Sarah Crowner opening September 22, 2023. The exhibition will place site-specific works by Crowner in dialogue with sculptures and paintings from the Hill Collection, as well as key loaned works.
The centerpiece of the exhibition will be three site-specific paintings created by Crowner in direct response to sculptures by Cy Twombly, an artist whose sculptural output consisted of intimate, corporeally scaled works. The Twombly/Crowner couplings modulate between spectator and subject, foreground and background, addressing each other across medium and time. In conversation with Levi Prombaum for the accompanying catalogue, Crowner elaborates: “These blue monochromes might be staged as backdrops, but they are more than backgrounds. They are paintings that replace windows, and that act as windows. What if we think about a sculpture looking at one, or looking through one, onto the city?”
Windows as architectural elements, framing devices, and portals are key to the project. Crowner explains: “I’ve been thinking about the window not only as a metaphor for painting, like that classic Renaissance view of the painting as a window onto the world. Paintings and windows are also a kind of staging ground. Through them, we learn so much about the world. We pay attention to what’s around it, to what’s through it… We negotiate presence, tension, and embodiment.”
Crowner’s dialogues with Twombly open outward in a polyvocal, intergenerational exchange across two and three dimensions—a dynamic that is deepened by the inclusion of a range of works in the Hill Collection by other artists, including Beatrice Caracciolo, Spencer Finch, Louise Giovanelli, Jennie C. Jones, Claude LaLanne, and Henri Matisse.
Beatrice Caracciolo
Untitled, 2016
Pigment, tempera, graphite, and
water-soluble chalk
on paper mounted on canvas
57 1/4 × 67 1/2 inches (145.4 × 171.5 cm)
The Hill Collection
Sarah Crowner
Platform (Stretched Pentagons), 2023 Glazed terracotta tiles, wood, cement board, mortar, grout
103 × 476 1/2 × 7 inches (261.6 × 1,210.3 ×
17.8 cm)
Collection of the artist
Sarah Crowner
Rotated two-way Arabesque, 2015
Acrylic on canvas and raw canvas, sewn
79 × 96 inches (200.7 × 243.8 cm)
The Hill Collection
Sarah Crowner
The Sea, the Sky, a Window 1, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, sewn
96 × 138 inches (243.8 × 350.5 cm)
Collection of the artist
Sarah Crowner
The Sea, the Sky, a Window 2, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, sewn
96 × 228 inches (243.8 × 579.1 cm)
Collection of the artist
Sarah Crowner
The Sea, the Sky, a Window 3, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, sewn
96 × 120 inches (243.8 × 304.8 cm)
Collection of the artist
Sarah Crowner
Untitled, 2023
Bronze
10 1/4 × 8 1/2 × 9 1/2 inches (26 × 21.6 × 24.1 cm)Collection of the artist
Sarah Crowner
Untitled, 2023
Bronze
5 1/2 × 4 3/4 × 5 1/2 (14 × 12.1 × 14 cm)
Collection of the artist
Spencer Finch
Candlelight (CIE 529/418), 2022
Stained glass, steel frame
Dimensions variable
The Hill Collection
Louise Giovanelli
Pool, 2021
Oil on canvas
70 7/8 × 55 1/8 inches (180 × 140 cm)
The Hill Collection
Jennie C. Jones
Fluid Red Tone (in the break), 2022
Architectural felt, acoustic panel, and
acrylic on canvas
48 × 36 1/2 × 2 3/4 inches (121.9 × 92.7 × 7
cm)
The Hill Collection
Claude Lalanne
Pomme bouche, 1994
Bronze, 4 1/2 × 4 1/2 × 4 1/2 inches (11.4 ×
11.4 × 11.4 cm)
The Hill Collection
Henri Matisse
Madeleine II, 1903
Patinated bronze, 23 1/2 × 7 × 7 inches
(59.7 × 17.8 × 17.8 cm)
The Hill Collection
Cy Twombly
Interior, Bassano in Teverina, 1998
Color dry-print
17 x 11 inches (43.1 x 27.9 cm)
Collection Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio
Cy Twombly
Studio, Lexington, 2002
Color dry-print
11 x 17 inches (27.9 x 43.1 cm)
Collection Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 1997
Bronze
27 1/2 × 14 1/8 × 14 1/8 inches (70 × 36 × 36 cm)
Agnes Gund Collection, New York
Cy Twombly
Madame d’O, 1999
Bronze, 70 × 16 × 10 5/8 inches (177.8 × 40.6 × 27 cm), ed. 3/4
Private collection, courtesy Gagosian
Cy Twombly
Untitled, 2009
Bronze, 94 5/8 × 15 7/8 × 12 3/8 inches (240.3 × 40.3 × 31.4 cm)
The Hill Collection