New Media Series: Nicholas Lowe

New Media Series: Nicholas Lowe presents the 2018 video Sixteen Frames—a moving mirror of the overland trail. This video is part of a group of works by the Chicago-based artist Nicholas Lowe, inspired by the landscape paintings and travels of 19th-century American artist James Wilkins.

Sixteen Frames—a moving mirror of the overland trail consists of slow, horizontal shots meant to mimic the extra-wide format of a 19th-century panorama painting. The video showcases the layered histories and contemporary resonances manifested in locations along the Overland Trail—where Wilkins traveled—through documentation of the effects of human intervention and technological progress on the landscape. Lowe used Wilkins’s archive and historical documentation to match rock formations, named landmarks, and specific topographies—often identifying the general locales, if not the precise places, that Wilkins documented.

Related watercolors and sculptures by Lowe will be included in the exhibition, Art Along the Rivers. Placed alongside drawings by Wilkins, Lowe’s works explore the contemporary legacies of the nation’s western expansion.

New Media Series: Nicholas Lowe is curated by Hannah Klemm, associate curator of modern and contemporary art; Amy Torbert, assistant curator of American art; Melissa Wolfe, curator of American art; and Molly Moog, research assistant for modern and contemporary art.

Exhibition Link: https://www.slam.org/exhibitions/new-media-series-nicholas-lowe/

Date: 8/20/21 - 1/9/22
Location: St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO