CATSKILL, NY.- A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco is a new series of installations by Catskill, NY-based artist Marc Swanson inspired by the artwork and writings of Thomas Cole (1801-1848). A Memorial to Ice is jointly presented at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and MASS MoCA. The companion exhibitions are curated by Denise Markonish, Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions at MASS MoCA.

The companion exhibitions are Marc Swanson’s most ambitious installations yet and consist of sculptures and environments that look at the relationships between humans, culture, and the natural world. Swanson is creating a series of sculptures based loosely on dioramas and nature displays, as well as old Hollywood glamor, gravestones, and memorial monuments.

The works exist as both memorial and monument aligning climate change with the AIDS crisis. Swanson is interested in the fact that we seem to be living in the ruins of our future – mourning a world that will no longer exist as we know it, resulting from the impending loss and inevitable results of climate change, alongside the inability to control or change this outcome. For Swanson, nature and the disco have been the two places he has associated with letting go and freedom, but through the lens of loss and fear.

At the Thomas Cole Site, Swanson’s new work is specifically sited within the historic interiors and outside in the landscape, and in conversation with Thomas Cole’s own work, which inspired the exhibition. Best-known today as the founder of the major art movement of the United States, the Hudson River School, Thomas Cole created art and wrote extensively about the negative effects of development along Catskill Creek and in the Catskill Mountains in New York. Shortly after moving to the area, Swanson realized that his property along Catskill Creek was a favorite painting spot for Cole.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and MASS MoCA. The publication includes an essay by curator Denise Markonish, installation views from both museums, an interview between Marc Swanson and Kate Menconeri, and new writing by Ed Morris and Susannah Sayler, founders of EcoToolshed, and performer Jack Ferver. The catalogue will be available in August 2022.