At the Faulconer Gallery Winter 2016–17

Joan Linder: Operation Sunshine

January 27–March 19, 2017

The drawings by Joan Linder ’92 in Operation Sunshine are the result of her horror and bewilderment as she investigated the environmental history of brownfields and toxic waste sites near Niagara Falls. She spent many hours parked along the area’s dumping grounds, sketching their chain-link borders in over 80 running feet of accordion-style notebook drawings. Additional pen-and-ink drawings of earth patches are 1-to-1 scale, outlining ground and effectively questioning what lies beneath the ordinary pebbles and weeds that compose our land. Finally, Linder spent weeks in libraries and historical societies, creating more than 70 hand-drawn copies of aerial maps marking radioactive storage sites, memos on human uranium injections, and declassified documents.

Crossing the Line: Selections from the Grinnell College Art Collection

January 27–March 19, 2017

The Grinnell College Art Collection is distinguished by works of social and political commentary historically deployed by artists as weapons against oppression, exploitation, and human folly. Crossing the Line features works from many periods and media, highlighting recent acquisitions that speak to issues at the core of global discourse today: income and racial inequality, migration, incarceration, and public protest in the age of the “war on terror.” The exhibition is offered in conjunction with “Rethinking Global Cultures,” a yearlong seminar and related programs sponsored by the Center for the Humanities.