Satellite Events

Let The Record Show what we saw, what we saved, what we found important. Let The Record Show that we were here. Records can come in all shapes and sizes, from renowned places like the Library of Congress, to our personal archives of mementos and memories accumulated over time. These can reveal patterns, allow for reflection, or serve as bittersweet reminders of days past. In Let The Record Show, through unique processes, artists Cathleen Cohen, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, Donna Quinn, and Candace Karch reflect on what we as humans choose to commemorate.

 Margaret Pezalla-Granlund and Candace Karch’s works stem from physical archives. For Pezalla-Granlund, the focus is on public collections. Her body of work was created by drawing from images of books and journals held in library and museum collections including the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. By abstracting and obscuring details, she examines how ideas are shared across communities, distance, time, and culture. Karch by contrast, examines a more personal archive. Her series Les Objets Inconnus, is inspired by the urge to save the objects that come into her life. Her photographs capture shadowy scenes built out of items from her personal cache. But these original mementos are brought together and given new shape as small sets and sculptures of mysterious, fantastical scenes. 

Donna Quinn and Cathleen Cohen unravel the idea of an archive as they explore what we save and why and what these collections remind us about the past. Quinn’s abstract paintings and panels are inspired by time, a sense of loss, and reverence for the past. The surfaces of her pieces recall abandoned spaces with an impreciseness that often accompanies faded memories or oft retold oral histories. Cohen strives to develop a new way to organize and catalog facts and details in the world through her watercolor paintings. Through her lexicon, or vocabulary of tones, shapes, and marks, she conveys movement and mood in a way that can be felt and contemplated by viewers who wish to investigate her abstracted accounts.

This collection invites reflection on our own collections; what are we saving and what does it reveal about our lives, values, and stories?

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