UMF gallery first stop in North American tour of exhibition of global environmental artists

“Danse Macabre” 2019 Nina Schipoff image

FARMINGTON — The UMF Art Gallery is set to present “Precious Cargo/Precious World,” an exhibition of global environmental artists. Curated by mp Warming, the exhibit will be on display Thursday, March 23, through Saturday, May 6, at the gallery at 246 Main St., behind the Admissions Office.

An opening reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. March 23. It is free and open to the public.

From its inaugural exhibition, this collection of art by global environmental artists has been dedicated to positive action for Earth’s recovery by representing the leading-edge of environmental art making, according to a news release from April Mulherin, UMF Associate Director for Media Relations.

In keeping with its mission and to limit the carbon footprint of its transport, the collection has traveled abroad via the sailing ship AVONTUUR and has arrived in North America for its pilot exhibition at the University of Maine at Farmington.

The sailing ship AVONTUUR. Submitted photo

In November 2020, the first, performance-activist stage of Precious Cargo/Precious World launched the artworks of a battalion of global environmental artists on a voyage on the AVONTUUR, a two-masted gaff rigged schooner built in 1920, from Hamburg to Douarnenez, France. This low-carbon-footprint voyage lampooned the extravagance of luxury art transport today via airplanes and high-end commercial shipping.

The second stage of Precious Cargo/Precious World is exhibition. Through the collective display of the artworks of Louise Beer (New Zealand/UK), Adam Crosson (USA), Brent Dedas (USA), Manuela Fischer (Switzerland), Nikolina Kovalenko (Russia), Agnieszka Kozłowska, (Poland), Gerardo Nolasco (Mexico), Christine Pereira-Adams (UK), Stefan Schlumpf (Switzerland), Nina Schipoff (Switzerland), Hilla Steinert & Uwe Arens (Germany), Alisi Telengut (Canada/Mongolia), Rosa Vetrano, (Italy), and mp Warming (USA: Spearheader of the Art/NaturSci Movement), diverse collaborations with scientists and natural environments come together to form a visual manifesto on beauty and sustainability.

The final stage of the Precious Cargo/Precious World project is education and engagement — to spread awe and understanding of the natural world and its dangers, and to hear the voices of children and all people in response.

mp Warming Submitted photo

Curator mp Warming (Berlin, Germany/US) is a multimedia artist/curator and the founder of the Art/NaturSci Movement and Art Science Exhibits Berlin. Her socially engaged, environmental art projects include international, large-scale exhibitions and installations.

She likens her social engaged art partnerships to a contemporary Warhol Factory, “without the beds and drugs.” One example of her socially engaged art projects is the Gorenflos Flowerhaus. Warming’s main exhibition site has been the Grand Hall of Thaer Institut at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, located in the heart of city, and next door to her partners at the vast Museum für Naturkunde.

In her recent work, mp Warming has collaborated with evolutionary biologists. She has worked/drawn in the collection rooms of the American Museum of Natural History, the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, and Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Warming’s work was featured as a performing artist at the 2009 Venice Biennale. In 2019, her prints were exhibited at the Venice Biennale and the WATOU Arts Festival in Belgium. Her curatorial and art making for the 2019 Venice Biennale Art/NaturSci Pavilion was sponsored in part by Villa Sträuli in Switzerland, where her studio spanned the top floor of the villa.

Warming’s art on paper is in permanent collections at the V.V. Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Philology Library designed by Foster + Partners at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The UMF Art Gallery is dedicated to bringing contemporary art to the campus and regional communities. The gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, and by appointment.

For more information or to make an appointment, contact Sarah Maline at maline@maine.edu or 207-778-1062.