New Norton exhibits take on climate change, other issues via video and collage

Artists have many ways of confronting the world’s most challenging issues aside from figurative drawing and painting.

The Norton Museum recently opened two exhibits in which alternative art forms lead the way to important discussions: Video and photomontage.

One of the exhibits, “Surroundings: Video Encounters of Nature,” opened July 27 and takes on climate change in three eight-week installations by different artists. Each of the installations will be paired with an object from the Norton collection.

Currently on view is “From the Ashes (De la cenizas),” by the Panama-based American artist Donna Conlon, which depicts a closeup of a hummingbird, a film “that reminds viewers of life’s fragility and humans’ impact on the natural world,” the Norton said in a news release. Conlon’s video runs through Sept. 22.

That will be followed by “Esto no es agua/This Is Not Water,” by the Los Angeles-based artist Carolina Caycedo. The video, which can be seen from Sept. 28 to Nov. 24, explores the energy of the Las Damas waterfall in southern Colombia.

The final installation in the series is the Trinidadian artist Nadia Huggins’ “Circa no Future,” which runs from Nov. 30 to Jan. 26. Huggins uses images of the marine environment to explore questions of free will and displacement.

“This exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to view nature through different artistic perspectives, promoting reflection, discussion, and action related to the environment and climate change,” said Sarah Bass, a curatorial assistant at the Norton who curated the exhibit along with two other emerging curators, Tiera Ndlovu and Pamela Solares.

The second late-summer exhibition examines the art of photomontage through the work of 10 different artists. “Cut Up/Cut Out: Photomontage and Collage,” opened Aug. 3 and runs through Nov. 17. The art form, which has its roots in the World War I-era Dada movement, brings photographic images from varied and unrelated sources together to create new works that are at once assemblages and social critiques.

Included in the exhibit are works Bruce Helander, a Palm Beacher whose 1986 “Macintosh Moda” is a colorful collage that also bears the legend “Idylle de Guerre,” or “War Idyll.” The eminent American artist Romare Bearden, a prominent collagist best-known for his images of African-American life, is represented here by “Pittsburgh Memory,” in which the details of two faces are made up of images from numerous other sources to create a quizzical but powerful statement.

“The storytelling here goes far beyond the collages and scrapbooks many of us have created,” said Lauren Richman, the Norton’s photography curator, in a prepared statement . “Photomontage allows us to see new realities through the eyes of artists who have reinterpreted found images. The juxtapositions can be by turns amusing and heart-rending.”

The Norton Museum of Art, at 1450 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Tuesdays. Admission is $18 for the general public, $15 for seniors and $5 for students with a valid ID. For more information, call 561-832-5196 or visit norton.org.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New Norton exhibits take on climate change, other issues via video and collage