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Joan Linder: Operation Sunshine

Saturday, July 9, 2016Sunday, October 30, 2016

Installation view of Joan Linder: Operation Sunshine. Photograph by Tom Loonan.

Clifton Hall Link

In a world saturated with born-digital imagery, artist Joan Linder (American, born 1970) prefers to employ more traditional materials: a quill pen and ink. Taking as her subject what she describes as “the banality of mass-produced domestic affairs,” Linder explores issues related to the “politics of war, sexual identity and power, and the beauty disclosed in the close scrutiny of natural and man-made structures.” Working to create both large-scale and more intimately sized drawings, she allows her eye to direct her hand in mark-making. Linder has spent countless hours rendering, in excruciating detail, quotidian objects and places—everything from junk mail and a kitchen sink to neighborhood bars and a gross anatomy lab. The size of the subject often dictates the size of the object, which further articulates her interest in the one-to-one relationship between the observer and the observed. By no means, however, is she aiming to create an exact facsimile. Instead, Linder embraces the limitations of her materials, which can leave behind smudges and pools of color no matter how deftly she applies them. These imperfections are a welcome part of the final image.

Operation Sunshine highlights Linder’s most recent body of work, which explores toxic waste sites in Buffalo, Tonawanda, and Niagara Falls, New York, and the documents related to such precarious properties. She approached her subject not only as an artist but also as a researcher. Linder’s initial focus was the Love Canal neighborhood along the Niagara River. During the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company dumped over 20,000 tons of toxic waste on this 36-square block locale. In 1978, the ill-health of its residents came to light, and subsequently families were forced out of their homes and the community was demolished. Following a Superfund cleanup, what remains visible is a wasteland of grass-covered mounds surrounded by a chain-link fence.

Joan Linder (American, born 1970). Salt, Water, Power, People 1, 2013–16. Ink on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (24.1 x 31.8 cm). Image courtesy of the artist.

Joan Linder (American, born 1970). Installation view of Hooker 102nd Street Book, 2013–16. Ink on six Moleskine notebooks, 5 1/2 x 105 inches (14 x 266.7 cm); 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches (14 x 266.7 cm) each, closed. Image courtesy of the artist. Photograph by by Etienne Frossard.

Joan Linder (American, born 1970). HRE.007, Human Radiation Studies—Remembering the Early Years from the series "Toxic Archives," 2013–15. Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm). Image courtesy of the artist.

Joan Linder (American, born 1970). Block Club from the series "Toxic Archives," 2013–16. Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm). Image courtesy of the artist.

Joan Linder (American, born 1970). Consolidated List of Human Radiation Experiments (DOE) p1 from the series "Toxic Archives," 2013–16. Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm). Image courtesy of the artist.

In 2013, Linder parked her car on the street outside the fenced-in area and started drawing. As her work progressed, she began spending time in libraries and historical societies reviewing documents related to the region; the University at Buffalo’s archives, which hold numerous collections related to environmental issues throughout Western New York, proved especially important. Her tenacity has resulted in a considerable visual archive of beautifully rendered, scaled, and detailed images of the remains of the landscape, as well as redrawn and aged copies of historical and propagandist documents. Operation Sunshine is the result of her horror and bewilderment. Through practiced surveillance and the medium of drawing, Linder reveals the region’s disturbing past and uncertain future one page at a time.

About the Artist

Joan Linder is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University at Buffalo. She has shown her work throughout the United States and in Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. This is her first solo museum exhibition.

This exhibition is organized by Godin-Spaulding Curator & Curator for the Collection Holly E. Hughes.

Admission to this exhibition is free during M&T FIRST FRIDAYS @ THE GALLERY.

Project Sponsors

This project has been supported by Faculty Fellowships at the University at Buffalo’s Humanities Institute and Techne Institute for Arts and Emerging Technologies and residencies at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California.

The artist would also like to acknowledge Nina Freudenheim Gallery and Mixed Greens for their support of this project.