Arsenal Gallery Show: Alice Momm: The Gleaner’s Song
While the Arsenal Gallery is currently closed, enjoy this slideshow of our latest exhibition, Alice Momm: The Gleaner's Song, or watch our video walkthrough with the artist!
About The Gleaner's Song
The Gleaner’s Song is a collection of mixed-media works, words, and photographs by artist Alice Momm, inspired by her daily, immersive walks in Central Park. The materials and impressions gathered on these rambles become the seeds of artworks that pay tribute to the ragged beauty of found objects in nature and honor the quiet dramas unfolding in unexpected places. While often humorous, the artworks reflect a deep concern for our environment and an appreciation of the interconnectedness of all living beings. This solo exhibition is Momm's love song to Central Park and an invitation to find wonder and joy in New York City’s parks.
Collections In the Retelling…(2012-2020) by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
The many small works that comprise this piece, called Collections – In the Retelling…(2012-2020), are selected from the “collections wall” that Alice keeps in her studio. Consisting of found objects; pictures torn from magazines; stitched leaves and cut bark; drawings; and other odd bits, the wall operates like an ever-changing visual diary. The humble materials are transformed through Alice’s delicate interventions, evoking faces from bark shards, insects from pine needles, and neatly stitched patterns on fallen leaves.
Tree Memory II, 2020 by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
This wall drawing is made from the long pod-like seeds of the catalpa tree. On her frequent walks in Central Park, Alice gathers a few of the fallen seed pods at a time. To her, they have always looked like the exquisite strokes of a calligraphy brush. Here she uses these “strokes” to bring the memories of walking amongst the trees indoors. Below the tree, a small but fierce bunny paddles down a river of tulle in a bark canoe.
While Walking, Central Park, 2020 by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
Placed throughout the gallery is a series of small mounted photographs taken during Alice’s near-daily walks through Central Park. A haven for Alice, as it is for so many others, it has provided her solace through sadness as well as moments of calm, delight, and wonder.
While Walking, Central Park, 2020 by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
Sometimes the photo is itself the artwork, and sometimes it inspires further exploration. To see more photos, please visit @alicemomm7468 on Instagram.
Weaving It All Together (Studio Scraps), 2019-2020 by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
Gleaner’s Song The Ragged Beauty of Picked-Up Things, 2017-2020, by Alice Momm. Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
Alice shares a simple philosophy behind the compositions in Gleaner’s Song: The Ragged Beauty of Picked-Up Things (2017-2020). Each is made of one picked-up thing, one small sheet of paper, needle and thread, a little wire, and perhaps some paint. The artworks come to life based on these prescribed instructions: Pick up a scrap of a leaf or twig from the ground – the more raggedy the better. Look carefully. Find the beauty. Begin the conversation. Repeat.
Emotional Guardrails, 2020 by Alice MommPhoto by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
On her walks, Alice started noticing faces within the wooden guardrails that line sections of Central Park’s main roadway. She began a photo essay of some of the more expressive ones, calling them “Emotional Guardrails.” In the Arsenal Gallery, they are connected in a group therapy support chain.
Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
Above the Gallery's entrance, there is a standard EXIT sign, marking the way out of the gallery. Alice created her own directional in response, pieced together from twigs and cardboard scraps to invite viewers to “ENTER” back into Central Park after leaving the exhibition. Alice’s hope is that they will take with them the inspiration to be fully present to the possibilities of beauty that exist all around us.
Photo by Daniel Avila/NYC Parks
This exhibition is Alice’s love song to NYC’s parks and Central Park in particular. The parks have always been a refuge and offered a nurturing and dynamic pathway for her to live in this city.
Her art is made of the humblest materials; she offers these pieces as an invitation to see the possibilities of beauty all around us, in the clouds in the sky, dandelions in sidewalk cracks, the buzz of insects, and pigeon’s strut. We will once again be able to stroll through the parks with an even greater appreciation of the beauty that has always been available to us and to the importance of living in harmony with each other and the natural world.
For sales inquiries or more information, please contact Senior Public Art Coordinator Elizabeth Masella at Elizabeth.Masella@parks.nyc.gov.
Parks@Home
Visit our Parks@Home page to discover more fun ways you can enjoy parks while you stay home.