Art

THE RIVERDALE Art Association presents the following spring exhibitions that will be on display during the month of June:

• The RAA is holding a juried group art show, in the Grinton I. Will Library, at 1500 Central Park Ave., in Yonkers, N.Y. The showcase includes oil and acrylic paintings, aqua media, pencil and pastel works, photography and pottery.
• RAA member Maria Formosa is exhibiting her work in an “Artist of the Month” solo show at the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, located at 4450 Fieldston Road. Ms. Formosa’s art, which includes watercolor paintings, pen and ink, graphite and color pencil works, often features vividly colorful depictions of flowers and other botanical subjects. In addition, she has also done still-life work with natural subjects such as shells and fruits, as well as other objects, both in realistic and abstract form. Both of these installations are currently open to the public and will remain on display through the end of June. There is no charge for admission. For more information, go to www.riverdaleartassociation.org.

THE AMERICAN Folk Art Museum, located at 45 W. 53rd St., presents the unique exhibition, “Kaleidoscope Quilts: The Art of Paula Nadelstern,” which is now on display through Sunday, Sept. 13. This installation highlights a collection of creative quilts that depict kaleidoscopic images made by Ms. Nadelstern, who is a Riverdale resident and has achieved international recognition for her innovative and complex designs. The artist takes jewel-like fabrics and joins them together like slivers of colored glass to create crystalline patterns of wheels, snowflakes, shifting ellipses, and other movements across the surfaces of the textiles. For more information, call 212-265-1040 or go to www.folkartmuseum.org.

THE HEBREW Home at Riverdale, located at 5901 Palisade Ave., presents the new exhibition, ‘Joseph Squillante/Icons of the Hudson: Portrait of a River,’ now on display through Sunday, Sept. 13. This special installation, which is being held in conjunction with New York State’s Hudson River Quadricentennial celebration, showcases more than 20 photographs of iconic sites along the Hudson River, from its source on Mount Marcy, which is the highest point in the state, to a night view from atop the World Trade Center. While Mr. Squillante’s photos primarily explore the river’s majesty, they also serve as a reminder that those who live and work along its shores today must take responsibility for its future. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 718-581-1596.

WAVE HILL, West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, presents “overture to Whirl,” a new exhibition by New York artist Janelle Iglesias, now on display in the Sunroom Project Space through Sunday, July 19. For her project, partially shown above, the artist has mimicked the nesting strategies of the bowerbird to create an immense, intricately adorned sculptural environment. The bowerbird, an avian installation artist, is known for its obsessive scavenging of debris to decorate into elaborately designed habitats, or bowers. Accordingly, the artist collected natural and discarded materials, from the grounds of Wave Hill as well as its immediate vicinity, and has assembled them to create her own bower in the Sunroom space. For more information, call 718-549-3200 or go to www.wavehill.org.

THE MUSEUM of the City of New York, located at 1220 Fifth Ave., will take visitors back to the Manhattan of 400 years ago with a new cutting-edge exhibition, “Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City,” which is now on display through Tuesday, Oct. 13. This installation, which features digital recreations and advanced multi-media technology, will offer a vision of the present-day metropolitan area and its natural history, by simulating the wilderness that thrived for many centuries, before 400 years of building transformed the area. Through historical artifacts, maps, paintings and drawings, visitors will also learn about the animals, meandering streams and other natural phenomenon, as well as the native people that populated the densely forested island known as Mannahatta. For more information, call 212-534-1672.

THE AMERICAN Museum of Natural History, located at Central Park West and 79th Street, presents the major new exhibition, “Extreme Mammals,” which is now on display through Jan. 3, 2010. This attraction will explore the ancestry and evolution of numerous extinct and living mammal species, ranging from huge to tiny and speedy to sloth-like. Among the fascinating specimens that visitors will encounter are the egg-laying platypus, the recently extinct Tasmanian wolf, fleshed-out models of extinct mammals like the “walking whale,” one of the oldest fossilized bats ever found and a giant life-size replica of the largest land mammal that ever lived. There will also be several dynamic media displays, dioramas, interactive computer animations, hands-on activities, touchable fossils, live animals and more. For more details, call 212-769-5100 or go to www.amnh.org.

This is part of the June 18, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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