Transformation, The Theme at the George Eastman Museum
- by Carol White Llewellyn
"Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I started with the quote above because I recently visited the George Eastman Museum for the first time since the new Thomas Tischer Visitors Center opened, to catch the redesigned Dutch Connection, the Carl Chiarenza: Journey into the Unknown exhibit, and to catch several of the Night Reels by Stacey Steers. Upon leaving, I couldn’t help but marvel at how amazing it is when something you know – the old – can be transformed so completely into something new, which applies to both the museum and its current exhibits.
Its surprising how important the reception area of a museum is. It tells you a lot about what to expect from the institution, and GEM's has undergone an amazing metamorphosis.
The new entrance immediately off the parking lot boasts a stunning 48’ x 14.4’ screen that currently shows the Taj Mahal of India, on 4/5 the scale of the Colorama images displayed on the walls of Grand Central Terminal in NYC between 1950 and 1990. Fortunately, upon the destruction of the New York City-based exhibit, the Eastman Kodak Company donated the original photographic negatives, transparencies, and guide prints of those 565 images to the George Eastman Museum for perpetual care and preservation.
The new Thomas Tischer Visitors Center elevates receiving guests to a new level. It is an invitingly open, grand and airy space that hosts the reception area, a gift shop, the Open Face cafe, and a large multipurpose room where the Night Reels trilogy by Stacy Steers was being shown in advance of the opening. A few chairs scattered at a safe distanced from each other welcomed viewers. Click here for a virtual tour of the Thomas Tischer Center.
Click here for a virtual tour of the Thomas Tischer Center.
To provide a safe environment for guests to enjoy Dutch Connection, the annual celebration of George Eastman’s love of bringing the outdoors inside, the primary floral display has been redesigned as an island in the middle of the atrium, with guests circling the circumference in one direction. I found being able to enjoy a preview of the sweet sights and smells of spring throughout the house even more welcome this year. While there, you can pick up bulbs to transform your own garden this spring! Those with little ones can pre-arrange to pick up a free bulb kit by using this form. If you want to see Dutch Connection, be sure to visit before it ends on February 28.
In Journey into the Unknown, Rochester-based photographer Carl Chiarenza has used photography, not as a medium to record or interpret the “what is” of our daily lives, but to create abstract “Landscapes of the Mind,” by converting commonplace elements such as fabric, printed matter and torn pieces of paper into collages representing a mysterious landscape or unrecognized object that might or might not exist. Chiarenza has long been a pioneer in the concept of photography for Art’s sake, rather than as commercial endeavor. Most of Chiarenza’s work is done in black and white, which is magnificent, but I also loved his work that incorporates bits of color, and that challenges the periphery of a rectangle.
On February 19, the Stacey Steers: Night Reels Exhibit will open. A sneak preview of her trilogy was being screened in the Multipurpose Hall demonstrating Steers’ work combining 2D paper collage, animation, and mixed-media sculpture. The work also incorporated footage and stills from vintage films starring Lillian Gish, Janet Gaynor and Mary Pickford. Although these films are animated, they are not child’s fare. They are as brilliant and innovative as they are dark and brooding. Each composition within the film is a collage, 
and because It took 8 images for every second of film, creating this trilogy absorbed, at minimum, fifteen years of the artist’s life. I’ll look forward to returning to see them in their “native” environment, showcased in three dimensional sculptural pieces, as Steers envisioned in creating the ominous trio that includes Phantom Canyon (2006), Night Hunter (2011) & Edge of Alchemy (2017).
Transformation comes in many formats. Inevitably, it inspires us to do things differently or to think differently. A visit to the George Eastman Museum with its newly-redesigned Thomas Tischer Visitors Center, showing the current exhibitions Carl Chiarenza: Journey into the Unknown and Stacey Steers: Night Reels will encourage you to do both.