Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment

It’s now at crystal Bridges American Museum of Art , where I work , It’s Great

This catalogue for the Princeton, and now the Peabody Essex Museum, exhibition Nature’s Nation, is actually being used as a textbook at the university. It’s a brilliant, thorough, scholarly tome that’s nearly impossible to read from cover to cover. Rather, I’ve chosen topics and artists I’ve been most curious about and read those chapters and sections as a study for the PEM exhibition. There’s no question that there’s a point of view here that is positive toward indigenous people, anti-growth, and decidedly anti the Euro/American view of Manifest Destiny. The exhibition, combined with the book, can be a heavy experience, but definitely worth the effort.