About
Wilderness, Light Sizzles Around Me features a uniquely inspired group of sculptures and two-dimensional works more than a decade in the making. The installation will include many works made expressly for the Figge’s presentation. The exhibition represents Dill’s ongoing investigation into the significant voices and personas of America’s past. For Dill, the “American” voice, grew from early America’s obsessions with divinity and deviltry, on fears of the wilderness “out there” and wilderness inside us. The extremes of both shaped history and gave pulse and heat to the words of activists like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Mother Ann Lee, and Dred Scott. Dill writes: “These personas and their times stir something deep in my own family history and sense of self. I am compelled to explore this period in America’s history when limited access to a diversity of written word ignited the bravery of these figures in response to their times.” The catalogue Lesley Dill: Wilderness, Light Sizzles Around Me will be produced in conjunction with the exhibition featuring essays by art historian and critic Nancy Princenthal and others will be released by Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich in June. The installation will be accompanied by a film of Dill’s 2018 opera Divide Light with libretto based on the writings of Emily Dickinson and designs by Dill. Lesley Dill’s works can be found in private and museum collections around the world.
Our Sponsors
Humanities Iowa | John K. Figge Family in memory of Mrs. Jean Nobis | Carolyn Levine & Leonard Kallio Trust | Linda and J. Randolph Lewis