Lafayette College Art Galleries

150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

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From Scales to Feathers

Williams Center
Gallery

Grossman
Gallery

Call for Pigeon Photographs and Videos

We are seeking photographs and short videos of pigeons for possible inclusion in a fall 2009 exhibition, From Scales to Feathers: The Evanescent Presence of Sculpted Wings, at Lafayette College's Williams Center Gallery, in Easton, Pennsylvania. The more varieties the better; our intention is to show the diversity of this wonderful though often misunderstood group of birds. To accomplish this, we hope to gather images of all kinds of pigeon breeds, including fancy, racing, other domestics, feral, urbanized rock doves, and even images of your local wild pigeons.

The exhibition will be in honor of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, and will coincide with a joint exhibition opening at Shrewsbury Museum, in Shropshire, England (Charles Darwin’s hometown). Darwin enthusiastically studied pigeons. In experiments, he even bred them selectively to create numerous color, shape, size, and behavioral variations. This understanding of “artificial” selection was invaluable to his grasp of the ways that species change in natural environments. A selection of photographs of his personal collection of pigeons will be included in the fall exhibitions.

If chosen, your images will be presented on video screens along with other submissions. The video screens will be mounted in the window openings of a pigeon loft created by eco-artist Brandon Ballengée. For a past project, Ballengée received thousands of images of migratory birds from people all over the world, which were exhibited in 2006 at the Arsenal Gallery, in New York’s Central Park.

To participate in this event, submit your images and video by October 10, 2009 - Extended to December 1, 2009. You must be the original creator of the submitted work(s) or, to the best of your knowledge, own the copyright, or have the right to grant these permissions. By submitting photographs and videos you agree to allow use of these materials in the exhibition, From Scales to Feathers, reproduced in the College’s publications—both print and electronic media—and for publicity purposes connected with the exhibition. (You will be given photo credit.) The images can be cropped if necessary. The images will not be used for commercial purposes without written permission of the copyright holder. Videos should be not longer than 90 seconds.

Please include your name, email address, and telephone number on the separate Pigeon Photographs and Videos Use Agreement or in an email, as well as the date and location of the photograph, and any information you may have about the pigeon(s) you photographed. Photographs and videos can be sent by mail or submitted online using yousendit.com or pigeonphotos@yahoo.com.

CD/DVD’s to Lafayette College Art Gallery, Williams Center for the Arts, Easton, Pa. 18042. Send questions artgallery@lafayette.edu. 

Please circulate to anyone you think may be interested.

call for entries: pdf form, and use agreement form: pdf form,
word documents: call for entries, use agreement.

Please email if you have trouble accessing the the file and would like forms emailed to you.

Brandon Ballengée

From Scales to Feathers:
The Evanescent Presence of Sculpted Wings

October 26 to December 10

In honor of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary, in November, of the publication of On the Origin of Species,Lafayette College’s Williams Center Gallery and the Shrewsbury Museum, Shropshire, England, will present joint exhibitions of works by the environmental artist Brandon Ballengée this coming fall. An amateur biologist and activist, Ballengée explores the boundaries between art and science, creating, for more than a decade, works about “bio-indicator” species, such as amphibians, fish, and birds.

The exhibition comprises three related sections: A Habit of Deciding Influence: Pigeons from Charles Darwin’s Breeding Experiments; The Absent Birds of America: RIP; and Coop.

1.  A Habit of Deciding Influence: Pigeons from Charles Darwin’s Breeding Experiments

Charles Darwin enthusiastically took up the study of English pigeons in 1855, analyzing the results of artificial selection by observing fancier club birds, researching, collecting skins and skeletons of pigeons from England and abroad, and even breeding his own birds.  He bred them selectively in numerous experiments in an attempt to create variations of color, shape, size, and behavior, determining that all fancy pigeons had descended from the Columba livia, the common rock pigeon. This grasp of “artificial” selection was invaluable to his understanding of the way species change in natural environments. His observations about pigeons were made early in Origins, and expanded further in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 1868. Darwin donated his collection of pigeon skeletons and skins to the Natural History Museum, London, in 1868. The collection is now housed at the Natural History Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire, England.

For the photographic series A Habit of Deciding Influence: Pigeons from Charles Darwin’s Breeding Experiments, Ballengée, who was artist-in-residence at the Natural History Museum, London, photographed “bones” and “skins” from Darwin’s personal collection of specimens. Printed nearly lifesize, the artist’s intention is to “make the birds look alive yet frozen in ephemeral backgrounds resembling the naturally blurred intersections between art and science.” By using pigmented inks on watercolor paper, the photographs resemble nineteenth-century paintings.

2. The Absent Birds of America: RIP

John James Audubon (1785-1851), French-American ornithologis, naturalist, hunter, and painter was an influence on Darwin, and careful observations of North American fauna are mentioned several times in On the Origin of Species. Audubon is best known for his Birds of America volumes. The Absent Birds of America: RIP feature birds, either declining or now extinct, including the passenger pigeon. Responding to species loss, Ballengée cut out the birds from original Audubon prints. Acquired over several years, he chose editions printed at that time in history when the species depicted became extinct. For instance, a nineteenth-century hand-colored octavo once depicted a serene pair of Labrador ducks, a species last seen in 1875; this is what the artist now refers to as a “framework for absence.” This series was first exhibited as part of the Silent Migration, the 2006 exhibition in New York’s Central Park’s Arsenal Gallery. For the Lafayette College exhibition, Ballengée will show, for the first time, a recently altered “Great Auk” octavo from 1871.

3. Coop
Also on view is Coop. The artist will create a full-scale domestic pigeon loft. Through the “windows,” viewers will see photographs and video of fancy, domestic, and feral pigeons submitted by the public via an international open call. The question the artist poses here is, “What is natural selection on a planet where humans have altered the entire environment?”

submit photos and videos
call for entries: pdf form, and use agreement form: pdf form,
word documents: call for entries, use agreement.

Please email if you have trouble accessing the the file and would like forms emailed to you.

Fall 2009

Quills, Spoons, and Spiders: An Outdoor Installation of Cultivated Chrysanthemums

Working with Lafayette’s Office of Plant Operations (Grounds), the Williams Center Gallery is tending a chrysanthemum garden with a small sample of the garden hardy and exhibition mums available today. Modern ornamental chrysanthemums are highly evolved flowering plants, developed probably from C. indicum and others. During a long history of cultivation, chrysanthemum hybrids—in a wide variety of colors and flower forms—have been created, reflecting the styles and fads of the period, not unlike some of the fancy pigeon breeds that Darwin studied

The National Chrysanthemum Society has divided the flowers into 13 classes, defined by the way each bloom’s hundreds of disk (center) and ray (perimeter) florets are organized. Categories range from the small double pompons to brush and thistle, quill, spoon, and spider types, to the giant irregular incurves.

Cuttings for a portion of the chrysanthemum garden were generously provided by the Hunterdon N.J. branch of the National Chrysanthemum Society.

October 20 – December 11

Ed Kerns and Chun Wai Liew

Computation, Vision, and Emergence

Lafayette's Chun Wai Liew (computer science) and Ed Kerns (art) share an interest in recurring natural patterns.  Li, as the patterns were called in ancient China, were studied there and considered evidence of the unity of the universe. These patterns exist on all scales and produce degrees of complexity leading to emergent qualities. 

 The notion that the very small and the very large look alike has a venerable tradition. Several pages in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are devoted to the “universal law of matrices,” in which the artist observed a common ratio of parts to whole, in veins, bronchi, trees and tributaries.

Evolution is change. Over time, small changes can produce substantial change.  Darwin’s theory holds that all life is related and descended from a common beginning.  This profound insight combined with the idea that from relatively simple interactions complex patterns and processes emerge, informs Liew and Kerns' exploration of dynamic processes in visual structures.

The large works in the exhibition are the result of the collaboration between Liew and Kerns.  Using basicpatterns such as branching or concentra, computational methods are used to  explore how slight changes in the “rules of growth” influence the resulting visual structures. These forms are combined in layers of transparent surfaces which suggest shifting points in space and processes large and small defining  the structure of matter itself.  The multiple-layered works   allow the viewer to see the evolutionary track back through the surface to the less complex visual systems from which the final image emerges. 

Additional information and video of project.

The exhibition program is presented under provisions of the Frederick Knecht Detwiller endowment.

All exhibitions and related programs are free and open to the public.

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