FEATURING:
Jeremy Dennis, Thomas Doughty, Asher B. Durand, Cristina Fernandez, April Gornik, Leslie Hewitt, Sky Hopinka, An-My Lê, Zoe Leonard, Richard Mayhew, Charles Henry Miller, Kent Monkman, Mary Nimmo Moran, Thomas Moran, Arcmanoro Niles, James Perkins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Lucy Raven, Anastasia Samoylova, Meg Webster, selections from Dan Flavin’s collection of Hudson River School paintings and works on paper, and a contribution from the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

The Church is delighted to announce our Summer 2026 exhibition, This Land: Considering the American Landscape, curated by Donna De Salvo and Seph Rodney, opening on June 20 and on view through September 6.  Responding to the prompt ‘What is the American landscape?,’ a question timed to reflect this year of our nation’s 250th anniversary, De Salvo and Rodney have conceived of a transhistorical exhibition that explores artistic responses to the American landscape both at its inception and today.  Artists to be included are: Jeremy Dennis, Thomas Doughty, Asher B. Durand, Cristina Fernandez, April Gornik, Leslie Hewitt, Sky Hopinka, An-My Lê, Zoe Leonard, Richard Mayhew, Charles Henry Miller, Kent Monkman, Mary Nimmo Moran, Thomas Moran, Arcmanoro Niles, James Perkins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Lucy Raven, Anastasia Samoylova, Meg Webster, selections from Dan Flavin’s collection of Hudson River School paintings and works on paper, and a contribution from the Center for Land Use Interpretation. 

“The Hudson River School artists were inspired by the vastness and overwhelming beauty of the American landscape, particularly in the Hudson Valley,” said Donna De Salvo. “They sought to depict what they saw as the sublime, awe-inspiring quality of the natural world, a romanticized view that often omitted signs of industry and the presence of indigenous peoples. This exhibition brings into dialogue works by some of its artists and contemporary figures who continue to draw inspiration from the American landscape — making visible what is often obscured and underscoring the ways the past remains embedded in the present.”

The presentation will feature important works by artists associated with the Hudson River School, often thought to be the first true American art movement - Asher B. Durand, Thomas Doughty, Thomas Moran, Mary Nimmo Moran, Albert Pinkham Ryder and others. Pivotal loans from neighboring institutions underscore the cultural and artistic history of the region: the Parrish Art Museum, the East End’s oldest institution, founded in 1898,  will contribute six Hudson River School paintings, highlighting the Parrish’s collection and role in presenting American art; Guild Hall will lend a painting by Thomas Moran, evoking the legacy of the institution as hub for local arts, as Moran was based in East Hampton; and the Dia Art Foundation, who will be lending selections from Dan Flavin’s personal collection of Hudson River School works on paper which they received as a part of the Flavin Foundation’s integration with the museum, a partnership that also included the founding of Dia Bridgehampton and the Dan Flavin Art Institute. 

“Part of what we’ve aimed to do is show how a mythology, subtly and explicitly advanced by the Hudson River School of a sublime, idealized landscape that presupposes a particular viewer,” said Seph Rodney, “ gets subsequently upended by contemporary artists who show that issues regarding labor, Indigenous life, national borders, social class aspirations, and the materials of the earth itself are all bound up with the American landscape and deserve exploration.”

From the foundation of 19th century American painting and works on paper, the exhibition will turn its focus dramatically to the present, exhibiting works by artists from the last few years across all artistic media (painting, photography, video, sculpture, mixed media work, and performance). Taken together, the contemporary works explore currents in artistic forms and practices, conceptual underpinnings and approaches, and/ or sociopolitical or ideological expressions. Included among these are artists working with the ongoing history of the ‘sublime,’ a notion that the artist might uncover a covert spiritual presence, made popular on this soil by the Hudson River School artists. Further art historical references include nods to mid-20th Century ‘land art’ movements that challenged sculptural norms and explored the boundaries of minimalism. Considerations of issues related to land usage, borders, immigration, labor, and occupation permeate many of the works. 

“Bridging more than 200 years of art with deep poignancy to both our national and regional experience, this exhibition will inspire and delight as it compels a thoughtful consideration of art and the human experience. We are indebted to Donna and Seph for their remarkable insights, as well as the intrepid artists in the exhibition, and the collaboration of our peer institutions,” remarked Sheri L. Pasquarella, The Church’s Executive Director.

This Land will be accompanied by concerts, performances, lectures, and tours, creating a dynamic cultural program that draws thousands of visitors. This exhibition invites audiences to contemplate the relentless beauty, complexity, and contradictions of the American landscape—past and present—while imagining how they might locate themselves in the various, distinct regions of the same domain.

ABOUT THE CURATORS

DONNA DE SALVO brings over thirty years of curatorial expertise and senior leadership to museums across the United States and United Kingdom, distinguished by her artist-centered approach and innovative exhibition-making practice. She currently serves as Senior Adjunct Curator at Dia Art Foundation, where she previously worked as a curator (1981-1986.) Her recent projects at Dia include a presentation of Steve McQueen's work at Dia Chelsea and Dia Beacon—featuring Bass, co-commissioned with the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel—as well as an installation of Roni Horn's early works and Jack Whitten's Greek Alphabet Paintings (co-curated with Matilde Guidelli Guidi), both at Dia Beacon. Currently on view is Walter De Maria: The Singular Experience, which she curated for Gagosian, Le Bourget, Paris.

De Salvo spent fifteen years at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2004-2019) as its inaugural Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs, overseeing all curatorial activities including acquisitions, collection presentations, exhibitions, and the Whitney Biennial. She was instrumental in developing the museum's building at 99 Gansevoort Street and reimagining its curatorial vision.  Under her leadership, a multi-year Luce Foundation-funded collection study resulted in strategic acquisitions that significantly expanded representation of women artists, artists of color, and diverse geographic regions. She directed the team behind the museum's inaugural exhibition in its new home, America Is Hard to See (2015), curated the major retrospective Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (2018), and co-curated the retrospectives Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium (2017), Roni Horn aka Roni Horn (2009), and Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the Eye Can See (2007), along with projects featuring Steve McQueen (2016) and Barbara Kruger (2010), among numerous collection installations. With Linda Norden, she co-curated Course of Empire: Paintings by Ed Ruscha for the US Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, which traveled to the Whitney (2005).

Prior to the Whitney, De Salvo served as Senior Curator at Tate Modern, from 1999 to 2004, where she organized exhibitions including Open Systems: Rethinking Art, c. 1970 (2005), Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (2002), Anish Kapoor's commission for The Unilever Series (2002), Giorgio Morandi (2001), and Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (2001) and numerous collection displays.  She played an active role in building the collection and was founding curator for what is now the North American Acquisitions Committee.  Prior to Tate Modern, from 1995 to 1999, she was a member of the senior program team at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and from 1991-1995 was the Robert Lehman Curator at The Parrish Art Museum. 

A leading scholar on Andy Warhol, De Salvo has lectured and published extensively on the artist's work and organized significant exhibitions including the major retrospectives Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (Whitney, 2018) and Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (Tate Modern, 2002), as well as Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955-1962 (LA MoCA, 1992), "Success is a Job in New York": The Early Business and Art of Andy Warhol (Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 1989), Andy Warhol: Hand-Painted Images, 1960-1962 (Dia Art Foundation, 1986), and Andy Warhol: Disaster Paintings: 1963 (Dia Art Foundation, 1986). She served as Adjunct Curator for The Andy Warhol Museum from 1989 to 1991.

She has authored essays, lectured, and organized exhibitions on artists including Barbara Bloom, Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Walter De Maria, Robert Gober, Grace Hartigan, Michael Heizer, Robert Irwin, Ray Johnson, Isa Genzken, Imi Knoebel, Barnett Newman, Charles Ray, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Franz Erhard Walther, while also addressing new methodologies in the presentation of postwar and contemporary art.

De Salvo has lectured, moderated, or participated in panels at the Art Institute of Chicago, Brown University, CIMAM Singapore, Harvard University, Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), Global Art Forum (Dubai), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Menil Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Museum of Modern Art, Royal Academy of Art, Royal College of Art (London), Rhode Island School of Design, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, UCLA Hammer Museum, and the Vera List Center for Art & Politics.

She has served on distinguished juries and committees including the Berlin Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale, and The Sotheby's Prize, and was a member of the 3rd Academic Committee for Shanghai's Power Station of Art, among others. De Salvo is a recipient of the College Art Association's Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award for Distinguished Catalogue.

SEPH RODNEY, PhD is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and a former senior critic and opinions editor for Hyperallergic. He has also written for CNN, NBC, Art in America, Art Forum, The Guardian, and several other publications. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism prize and in 2022 won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. He is also a curator of contemporary art exhibitions, previously cocurating Get in the Game, at SF MoMa, the largest show that museum has undertaken. Get in the Game Recently reopened at the Perez Museum in Miamai after travelling from Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.