Poems, short stories, and other personal reactions to works in the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.

Reading Objects 2008: March 28-september 28, 2008 (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

Arts & Photography

Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

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An overview of the career of Eva Watson-Schütze (1867–1935), one the foremost American women photographers of the early twentieth century.

Eva Watson-Schutze: Photographer (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

History & Criticism

An overview of an innovative and influential arts organization of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Taking a Different Tack: Maggie Sherwood and the Floating Foundation of Photography (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

A photographic documentary of both sides of the river, from New York Harbor to Albany, updating and reprinting the classic 1910 Panorama of the Hudson. In honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage of discovery on the river that now bears his name, Panorama of the Hudson River offers a twenty-first-century updating of G. Willard Shear's long-cherished 1910 photographic survey of the river's shorelines, tracing the Half Moon's 1609 route from New York Harbor to present-day Albany. It also reprints the earlier edition, making it readily available for the first time in decades. Juxtaposing Shear’s photographs with those of renowned Hudson Valley photographer Greg Miller not only combines two extraordinary feats of photographic artistry, it also provides an important record of changes that have occurred along the river since the Hudson Tricentennial celebrations of 1909. Panorama of the Hudson River will interest anyone enchanted by the Hudson River’s beautiful and varied landscapes, and should also provide an excellent tool for those involved in continuing efforts to protect treasured by threated places along its banks. The original photographic panoramas were sold as souvenirs aboard Hudson River Day Liners, grand steamships that plied the river between 1863 and 1948. According to the text in the 1910 edition, Shear’s east- and west-bank panoramas are comprised of 800 photographs. Despite strides in technology since then, Greg Miller took considerably more shots―as many as 2,500―for this updated edition, and even with the aid of a computer he probably spent more time matching up his prints than Shear did in constructing the original panoramas. Blame for that can be laid, in part, on the plethora and size of new buildings along the shore, primarily in and around Manhattan, which play havoc with angles while shooting from the deck of a moving boat. But Shear also had the benefit of the Day Liners, which maintained a regular schedule and a more or less constant speed, while Miller was at the mercy, not to mention generosity, of boat owners who were intrigued with the project. In the end, the variety of craft on which he made the 140-mile journey―the 80-foot schooner Adirondack; Launch 5, a former New York City Police Department harbor patrol boat; and the Serenity, an electric-powered vessel―says much about the Hudson’s continued vitality. Wallace Bruce, the poet, diplomat, and Hudson Valley native who spearheaded the earlier panorama projects, wrote that “the Hudson, more than any other river, has a distinct personality―an absolute soul-quality.” Above all, Greg Miller’s panorama proves that nothing has diminished the Hudson River's power to cast a mighty spell.

Panorama of the Hudson River (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

Photography & Video

Over forty works spanning the career of pioneering painter, filmmaker, writer, and performance/installation artist Carolee Schneemann. Over forty works spanning the career of pioneering painter, filmmaker, writer, and performance/installation artist Carolee Schneemann are featured in this edition of the Dorsky Museum’s Hudson Valley Masters exhibition series. Schneemann’s multidisciplinary, deeply personal investigations explore the incomprehensibly complex dynamics between mind and body. As Brian Wallace states in his introduction, “What distinguishes Schneemann’s investigations―and what characterizes the varied and interconnected works that constitute them―is their insistent challenge to powerful cultural mechanisms that perpetuate (and rely upon) this mind-body split. These mechanisms include epistemological positions that value thought over the senses ... [and] also involve related positions―in ethics and aesthetics―that favor the visual and the abstract over the physical and personal and involve the gender-b(i)ased notions of psychology, behavior, and history that waves of feminisms have sought to describe and challenge.”

Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

Schneemann, Carolee

Individual Artists

Responses to works in the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.Reading Objects 2011 is part of an ongoing, interdisciplinary series featuring works from the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The artworks are accompanied by texts or other responses prepared by SUNY New Paltz faculty, staff, and students.Exhibitions such as Reading Objects 2011 are one of a number of ways that the Dorsky Museum is able to periodically display selections from its permanent collection of over five thousand objects. Like many museums, the Dorsky has many fine examples of artworks from diverse cultures and time periods that never see the light of day. It is these works―the ones that are housed in the dark recesses of museum storage―that this Reading Objects exhibition highlights.Each staff member at the museum was asked to review the collection database and choose five objects that they felt would be good candidates for the exhibition, keeping in mind the work’s potential for diverse narrative interpretations. Staff were also asked to consider works that had rarely or never before been on public display before. Thirty-seven selections were then pulled from storage for the staff to review, and this provided lively and spirited discussions as each staff member defended his or her selections. In the end, twenty-seven works made the final cut.

Reading Objects 2011: The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art Ro.11

Examines Steven Holl’s intricate and distinctive process of making architecture through approximately one hundred models, related sketches and other studies created for nine recent projects. This publication, and the exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art that it accompanies, investigates the architect Steven Holl’s unique process of making architecture, the foundation of which is drawing, almost always by hand. The publication includes an extensive critical essay about Steven Holl and his process by exhibition curator Nina Stritzler-Levine, and additional essays by Kerry Dean Carso and Peter Olshavsky. The projects section that follows these chapters includes descriptions of the eleven projects that are the focus of the exhibition; the exhibition checklist, which corresponds with the organization of the installation; and photographs of the installation.

Steven Holl: Making Architecture (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

Explores the recent print work of Judy Pfaff, one of America’s leading sculptors, printmakers, installation artists, and set designers. With an introductory essay by curator Brain Wallace, this illustrated exhibition catalogue explores the recent print work created at Tandem Press in Madison, Wisconsin, by Judy Pfaff, one of America’s leading sculptors, printmakers, installation artists, and set designers. Also featured in this publication is work from the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art’s permanent collection that was selected and installed by the artist as a complimentary exhibition.

Judy Pfaff: New Prints and Drawings, February 10 - April 7, 2007 (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art)

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Books by Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art