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New Exhibitions at Granary Arts

New Exhibitions at Granary Arts

Granary Arts is pleased to present new exhibitions: 

Gathering Light / Beth Krensky

Beth Krensky, a Jewish-American artist, describes herself as “a gatherer of things—objects, words, spirit—and a connector of fragments to make us whole.”

The exhibition Gathering Light holds a space to honor the emptiness left by the loss of over 1.5 million children who perished in the holocaust and provides an opportunity for collective reflection. Krensky’s artistic practice traverses the borderlands between spirit and matter as she creates objects and performative gestures as a contemplative act with the intention to metaphorically cross layers of shared and contested existence.

Rooted in a socio-historical memory of place, Krensky addresses pressing issues while providing a refuge—a free space—that allows participants to name themselves, envision a different reality, and engage in the re-making of their world. In this exhibition, she gathers light from unexpected places, including darkness. Her performance stills and delicately crafted objects provide openings for contemplating the hollows of loss and envisioning renewal.

This exhibition was curated by Granary Arts in partnership with Americans and the Holocaust: A Traveling Exhibition for Libraries, an educational initiative of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association, hosted by Snow College Karen H. 

Huntsman Library from September 4 through October 11, 2023. For more information, visit www.snow.edu/library/

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Beth Krensky is Area Head and Professor of Art Teaching at the University of Utah. She received her formal art training from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. She holds an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is also a scholar of youth-created art for social change. Her writing addresses community-based art education, youth activist art, and art for social change. Krensky’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and internationally. She is a founding member of the international artist collective, the Artnauts, and is a Fellow with the Jewish Art Salon in New York City. In 2022, she was selected as one of five performance art finalists for the 16th Arte Laguna Prize and Yale University exhibited a 20-year retrospective of her art. bethkrensky.com

The More That Is Taken Away / Ben Altman

The More That Is Taken Away is a meditation on mass violence and what it means to inherit such histories. A nine-year solo attempt to come to terms with historical evil, it takes place at a mass-grave-like excavation behind the artist’s home in rural upstate New York. It is an evanescent memorial and a performance, a cycle to catastrophe and back. Begun in late 2011, work at the site largely concluded in 2019.

This exhibition was curated by Granary Arts in partnership with Americans and the Holocaust: A Traveling Exhibition for Libraries, an educational initiative of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association, hosted by Snow College Karen H. Huntsman Library from September 4 through October 11, 2023. For more information, visit www.snow.edu/library/

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ben Altman (b. 1953) trained as an artist by studying physics, towing icebergs, and working in commercial photography. A naturalized U.S. citizen of British origin, his work responds to how histories of mass violence live in our lives and imaginations. Altman has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, two New York State Council on the Arts Artist Support Grants, a NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship, a Project Support Grant from the Center for Photographic Art, and Artist in Community grants from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. His work was selected for the Houston Center for Photography’s 2015 Fellowship, the 2015 Critical Mass Top 50, and many others. benaltman.net

About the Exhibition Americans and the Holocaust

Americans and the Holocaust is on view at the Snow College Karen H. Huntsman Library from September 4 through October 11, 2023. For more information, visit www.snow.edu/library.