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Niagara

The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) announces a year of programs and exhibitions that explore the idea of art and landscape. Landscape can be described as topography, sustainer of life, site of conservation activism, cultural icon, metaphor, and object of awe and spiritual reverence. WCMA kicks off this thematic year with two complementary exhibitions that explore Niagara Falls: Alec Soth: NIAGARA, beginning October 10, and A Strong Impression: William Morris Hunt’s Niagara, beginning October 17.

Alec Soth: NIAGARA and A Strong Impression contrast historical and contemporary views of Niagara Falls as sublime landscape, tourist destination, and romantic cliché. A Strong Impression (October 17, 2009-January 31, 2010) examines both the artistic and cultural context in which William Morris Hunt’s Niagara Falls (1878) was produced through paintings, drawings, photographs, films, rare books, and souvenirs. Alec Soth: NIAGARA  (October 10, 2009–January 10, 2010) presents 22 photographs by contemporary photographer Alec Soth. From 2004 to 2005, Soth photographed sobering contemporary views of life on both the American and Canadian sides of Niagara Falls. Oscar Wilde wrote, “The sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.”

Soth captures this passion and disappointment in NIAGARA by focusing on the motifs of romance that have long been associated with the Falls – young couples, run-down motels, and pawn shop wedding rings. Using a large-format camera, Soth creates lushly detailed photographs that often belie the bittersweet subject matter of romance associated with the Falls – the “aftermath of passion,” as Soth describes it. However, Soth admits that he was not documenting Niagara Falls: “There is so much I left out,” he says. “Niagara has millions of happy vacationing families and I didn’t photograph a single one.”

“We are thrilled to be showing the work of Alec Soth for the first time in context with artists from the nineteenth century like William Morris Hunt and Frederic Edwin Church, who also depicted Niagara Falls. Hunt and Church painted the Falls in part because of its beauty and majesty, but also because the Falls symbolized the grandeur of American life. In contrast, Soth is interested in exploring the clichés and associations that have become part of the image of the Falls,” explains exhibition curator Kathryn Price. 

The artist will be at WCMA on Thursday, November 5 at 7:00 pm for a program titled “Inventing Niagara.” He will discuss his artwork with writer Ginger Strand, author of Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies.