A two-part exhibition, with a site-specific installation in the Rotunda Gallery and an exhibition upstairs of works from 1998-2010, mostly on paper, with one fluorescent-tube sculpture, recording not just clouds, but the Jet Stream, the shifting color of sunlight on a white wall, and other atmospheric phenomena.
The Rotunda installation (Passing Cloud, 2010) is an attempt to conjure a moment from Washington DC’s history as recorded in Walt Whitman’s diaries – by recreating the light conditions that Finch recorded at the same place this past July.
Blake Gopnik’s review here
From the website: “Finch’s exhibition at the Corcoran takes up the subject of clouds. Drawing from the history and environment of Washington, D.C., his project explores the poetic, physical, and meteorological aspects of these natural phenomena. Finch’s site-specific sculpture of a passing cloud in the museum’s central Rotunda alludes to a moment of convergence between two historical figures, Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln. In a selection of related photographs and drawings, Finch attempts to make something solid out of air, investigating the atmospheric and metaphoric properties of light, water vapor, and sky.”
Spencer Finch, “My Business, With the Cloud”
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Through January 23rd.