SARASOTA, FLA.- As residents along Florida’s coast endured the busiest months of hurricane season, a New York-based artist was preparing to transform Sarasota Art Museum’s galleries with a site-specific installation inspired by one of the state’s costliest natural disasters.

“Judy Pfaff: Picking up the Pieces,” on view through March 24, 2024, explores the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian that battered southern Florida as a Category 4 storm in September 2022. In her largest solo show since 2017, Pfaff presents paintings and sculptures that celebrate Florida’s beauty and acknowledge its vulnerability to environmental threats.

News coverage of Hurricane Ian’s extensive damage sparked the idea for the installation. Pfaff often keeps the televisions in her studio tuned to the news and was struck as she watched the storm ravage homes and vegetation in its path. A January 2023 visit to Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island in Florida gave the artist a first-hand look at the destruction left by the storm that killed more than 150 people. For Pfaff, exploring the area was reminiscent of her childhood in post-World War II London and her experiences living in New York during 9/11 when white dust blanketed the area following the collapse of the World Trade Center.

“Seeing with my own eyes the major impact Ian had on the land and homes completely shook me. In ‘Picking up the Pieces,’ I use ordinary materials and natural detritus to distill what I saw during my visit to Florida,” said Pfaff. “Since moving to the Hudson Valley 10 years ago, I have become more aware of the wind, rain and sun in the extreme. Winter can be extremely fierce and harsh, and because of that, I repair and repurpose a lot of elements around me to put new life into them.”

Pfaff routinely uses elements from her garden, hand-painted and digitally manipulated images, welded steel, aluminum, Plexiglas, wood, photographs, expanded foam, melted plastic, blown glass, neon and LED lights to build captivating, large-scale installations that invite viewers on a fantastic and unexpected journey. Welded metal trees, photographic flower wallpaper and painted metal flowers often anchor her work. As a carpenter, welder, printer, painter, designer and glassblower, Pfaff partners with several studio assistants to bring her hypnotic installations to fruition.

“Picking Up the Pieces” is divided into two parts. Pfaff designed the first section to appear unstable, acknowledging the tumult of the storm. Optimism abounds in the second section as the artist inspires thoughts of using what remains to put one’s life back together — “making lemonade.”

“In ‘Picking up the Pieces,’ Judy Pfaff balances artistic and experiential contradictions and dualities,” said Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., Sarasota Art Museum’s senior curator. “Despite the turbulent, devastating environment, Pfaff insinuates seeds of continuing life and beauty, and finds, in the aftermath of disaster, possibilities of regeneration that are partly hidden and partly visible within the masses of manmade and natural detritus. Life, beauty, hope and light are amply denoted by a range of bright and sparkling lights, interwoven and interspersed throughout the gallery.”

Pfaff created a plethora of new objects for ‘Picking Up the Pieces,’ including several translucent fiberglass boats made from a mold at her studio and numerous glass pieces made at Pilchuck Glass School this summer. She also fashioned her two- and three-dimensional works in response to the unique architecture of Sarasota Art Museum, which is housed in the building that was once the historic Sarasota High School.

“Judy Pfaff sees the echo of an enormous wave in the shape of the galleries. The gallery in the center has a ceiling that soars 30 feet high, while two galleries flanking that space have lower ceilings. The artist used the Museum’s architectural elements to help inform her massive and electrifying installation that is rich with sensory stimuli. Pfaff’s distinctive visual language communicates, both directly and suggestively, global concerns about climate change,” said Yoon.

Pfaff, whose artistic practice spans more than five decades, made her museum debut in Sarasota over 40 years ago. Later, she advocated to bring a contemporary art museum to the region when Sarasota Art Museum’s founders launched ARTmuse, a visiting artist program to support renovations that would transform the former high school into an art museum. She was among the first artists to participate in ARTmuse in 2009 to foster awareness for what would become the region’s newest contemporary art museum. A year later, she returned to the former high school building to share a large-scale printing demonstration.

“Contemporary art explores modern-day issues and sparks dialogue that fosters understanding and change. Bringing artists like Judy Pfaff to Sarasota Art Museum affords us the opportunity to engage the community in conversations around important topics such as climate change. Pfaff’s artistic career had its beginnings in Sarasota, and her latest work acknowledges Florida’s beauty and its susceptibility to the effects of climate change,” said Virginia Shearer, Sarasota Art Museum’s executive director.

Pfaff was born in London and relocated to Detroit as a preteen. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Washington University (St. Louis).

Pfaff has held more than 100 solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad and received numerous awards, including an International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2014), a MacArthur Fellowship (2004) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1983). She represented the United States in the 1998 São Paulo Biennial, and her works are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Whitney American Museum of Art (New York) and Tate Britain (London), among others.

Sarasota Art Museum
“Judy Pfaff: Picking up the Pieces”
November 19th, 2023 - March 24th, 2024