ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A new exhibit opened at the Museum of Fine Arts in St.Pete this week that goes where no other exhibit has gone before. It encompasses the entire campus, including the garden.
The name of the exhibit is "The Nature of Art." It not only focuses on how things like sunlight and water fuel our creativity but also how people are affecting nature every day.
As you enter the exhibit, you’ll notice some pieces made from ivory and ones that look like they’re made from ivory.
In actuality, they are pieces of trash found in the ocean and turned into art.
“They really speak about the problem we have with pollution in the ocean,” said Chief Curator Stanton Thomas.
Thomas and Senior Curator Katherine Pill are responsible for the exhibit, which consists of the special exhibition galleries, the collection galleries, and the garden.
“We are taking over the entire MFA, and there is a beautiful contrast between contemporary and traditional viewpoints,” said Pill.
The curators say you won’t look at Claude Monet in the same light.
“It's not just mist, but it’s probably air pollution mixed with mist,” said Thomas regarding the painting, Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London. “It’s a completely different way of looking at a painting that was very familiar in an entirely new way.”
Some of the pieces make you reflect on our own backyard.
“These are symbolic of protectors of the mangrove trees,” said Pill about one sculpture.
The collision of beauty and destruction is evident.
“Here we have four debris booms that are used in things like oil spills. The colors reference different hazardous materials,” said Pill in reference to a display that filled an entire room from ceiling to floor.
“There are certainly a lot of works that are suggesting a dystopian future, and you don’t have to look that hard to see that,” said Pill.
However, the exhibit also highlights a certain harmony between humans and nature, and in the garden, guests are even being asked to add to it.
“I hope that when they leave, they have a better understanding of the world and our long relationship with the natural world and how we can be much better stewards of what’s all around us and, of course, our lives depend upon it in the future,” said Stanton.
The Nature of Art is on display until April 14.
