Exhibitions 2025

GLOBAL WARMING/GLOBAL WARNING!
JUNE 7 - OCTOBER 31

June 7 marks the opening of its 47th annual contemporary outdoor sculpture exhibition, which will run throughout the season, ending October 31. This season’s exhibition, entitled Global Warming/ Global Warning! addresses the issue of climate change and will be curated by preservation engineer and restoration architect Michael F. Lynch, with works by sculptors Kathleen Jacobs, Ann Jon, Harold Grinspoon, Natalie Tyler, and DeWitt Godfrey.  

Global Warming/Global Warning! explores how the natural and designed landscapes at Chesterwood are being impacted by global warming, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and the aging out of a mature forest. Invited artists engage directly with the environment, using the native and invasive materials of the forest, responding to climate impacts, and introducing human-made objects juxtaposed with the natural environment to challenge the viewer and raise issues around what we are doing to our planet. 

Curator Michael Lynch writes, “In 2008, Chesterwood hosted an outdoor contemporary sculpture show that reflected artists’ concerns about the environment, but as the Albany Times Union reviewer wrote at the time, the catalog narrative was silent on the issue of climate change and environmental degradation. A lot has changed in the intervening decades. In 2016 during The Nature of Glass show featuring contemporary glass, I was struck by the fragility of the art being shown in the woods. In 2019-20 I was struck by the fragility of those very woods, as one of the tree sculptures in Rick and Laura Brown’s exhibit ‘One Impulse From Vernal Wood,’ collapsed.  

Those experiences led me to focus this year’s theme on how the natural and designed landscapes at Chesterwood are being impacted by global warming. Global Warming/ Global Warning! reflects the duality of the art being made in the aging forest that is suffering from climate change and the hope that we can find our way out of the climate situation we have created.” 

This year’s exhibition features artists Kathleen Jacobs, Ann Jon, DeWitt Godfrey, Harold Grinspoon, and glass artist Natalie Tyler, who will premiere a new work entitled “Tornado.”  A full survey of the artists’ statements about their work for Global Warming/Global Warning! can be found in Chesterwood’s press kit.