John Grade's VIEW FROM UP HERE On Display at the Anchorage Museum, Thru 10/2

In View From Up Here, the new exhibition at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, conceptual artist John Grade explores sculptural forms based on Japanese fishing floats. For the past century, floats made of thick, hand-blown glass have traveled to the Arctic coast from Asian waters, buoyed by harsh, ocean currents. They can get trapped in sea ice for decades, ultimately washing up on the Alaskan shoreline -- often in pristine condition. Grade created his own versions of blown glass forms, many of which are encased in a wood exoskeleton inspired by other organic, ocean bound elements.

Grade's Floats series is part of a diverse exploration of human impact on the Arctic region. View From Up Here: The Arctic at the Center of the World is an international contemporary art exhibition that conveys the complexity of this place and its people through film, photographs, installations, and sculpture. Collectively, the various works highlight Arctic cultures, landscape, scientific research, as well as visions of the future. Participating artists include: Nicholas Galanin (Alaska), Anna Hoover (Alaska/Washington), Jeroen Toirkens (Holland), Derek Coté (Michigan), Marek Ranis(North Carolina), Christoph Kapeller (California), Paul Walde (Canada), John Grade(Washington), Magali Daniaux and Cedric Pigot (France), Mary Mattingly (New York),Annesofie Norn (Denmark), Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson(Iceland/England).

Grade uses his conceptually and visually compelling sculptures as a means to explore the cycles of the natural world. Often, he creates these works while envisioning their degradation through the impact of the elements. Built from both traditional materials such as wood, resin and clay, the sculptures are often immersed for extended periods of time in tidal bays, the ocean, the high desert, or mountain snowfields. Inspired by the erosion of the natural landscape, Grade hands over control of his art to this inevitable decomposition - a process that Grade describes as "an interesting conversation between the landscape and the sculpture."

"John Grade's work has a deep backstory in its natural inspiration, its materials, and/or its placement. More than the typical installation, it has continuity, both literal and symbolic. More than the typical artwork, it accepts the fluidity of time and the possibility of death and rebirth." - Janet Koplos, Sculpture Magazine, 2010

The Floats follow the highly-acclaimed installation, Middle Fork, which was recently on view at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. Middle Fork is comprised of beautifully crafted cedar elements to create a life-size exoskeleton of a living tree, suspend horizontally. Floats also employs cedar, but as a housing for these seemingly fragile orbs of blown glass. As is his creative practice, Grade will embed some floats in Arctic waters this summer, tethered just off shore, to winter over in the ice. The other sculptures, currently on view at the museum, will be a control, in order to see the what affect the ocean waters have on these forms.

In 2013, the Anchorage Museum brought John Grade to Alaska and to Iceland as part of Polar Lab, which looks at the contemporary and future North through exhibitions and programs. The lab connects art, science, and the environment. It connects Anchorage with the globe. Contemporary art, along with traditional and non-traditional research in multiple disciplines, stimulates the activity of the Lab.

In 2014, Grade returned to Alaska and drove the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks to Deadhorse, flew deep into Gates of the Arctic National Park, and paddled 80 miles down the Noatak River to draw. During the exploration Grade photographed and made casts of trees in the tundra. The casts were transported back to Grade's studio where he painstakingly used the molds to create sculptures from wood and other materials, effectively returning the tree forms to a "natural" state.

"Experiencing this Arctic landscape and its nuances and gradual changes was amazing," says Grade. "I don't think I have ever been so profoundly moved by a landscape before." Grade's interest in the Arctic continues; he is working with the museum on an upcoming 2017 exhibition which focuses on virtual reality juxtaposed with Grade's built sculptural forms, all based upon the Arctic landscape.

John Grade: Polar Lab Project - Video courtesy of the Anchorage Museum

John Grade lives and works in Seattle, WA. Exhibitions scheduled in the coming year include Polar Lab, site-specific sculptural installations in Portland (OR), Sun Valley (ID), Craters of the Moon National Monument (ID), and Lexington (KY). Grade's installation, Middle Fork, created from plaster molds of a 140-year old western hemlock tree eighty-five feet high, was among nine monumental works selected for WONDER, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art's debut exhibition of the newly restored Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. Along with hundreds of volunteers, it took the artist a dedicated year to record the height, curvature and cavity of the massive tree using salvaged old-growth cedar 'cells'. Middle Fork will next travel to the Seattle Art Museum in January 2017.

The artist is the recipient of the 2010 Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (NY), a Tiffany Foundation Award (NY), an Andy Warhol Foundation Award (NY), two Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants (NY), the 2011 Arlene Schnitzer Prize from the Portland Art Museum (OR), and the 2013 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust (WA). Past exhibitions include Fabrica (UK); L 'H du Siege (France); Austin Contemporary Museum (TX); Portland Art Museum (OR); Kohler Arts Center (WI); Emory University, (GA); Boise Art Museum (ID); American Academy of Arts and Letters (NY), University of Wyoming Art Museum (WY); Bellevue Art Museum (WA); and Suyama Space (WA). Grade's 65-foot sculpture Wawona is permanently installed at the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle (WA), where it breaks through the floor and ceiling of the building, bridging the water and sky.

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