The Space Between

The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.
~ Henry David Thoreau in Walden

By Suzanne Révy

When Henry David Thoreau observed the ice harvests on Walden Pond, he marveled at the spiritual ramifications of the frozen water traveling to faraway continents. He understood the pathways and networks that bind the elemental aspects of a diverse world and our role in nature. In The Space Between Memory and Expectation, artist Renate Aller unites boundless landscapes of divergent locations into visual conversations. Her site specific installation Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation is on view at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont through February 12th 2023.

“Kā Roimata ō Hine Hukatere Glacier, NZ January 2017” (left), “Alaska, Valdez Range, August 2017” (middle) and “Swiss Alps, 2016” (right) in Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Kā Roimata ō Hine Hukatere Glacier, NZ” by Renate Aller, 2017, from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

“Valdez Range, Alaska” by Renate Aller, 2017, from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

(Featured Image) “Swiss Alps” by Renate Aller, 2016 from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

Aller’s hypnotic large scale landscapes are intended to function as picture windows on the world. Exploring the mountains in Europe, South America, and Asia, the sand dunes in Colorado, the tropical swamps of Florida among others, Aller endows diverse ecosystems in transcendent splendor through visual cues in unexpected sequencing. A trio of expansive prints, for example, featuring a glacier in New Zealand, the snow capped summits of the Valdez Range in Alaska and clouds dipping into the valleys between the heights of the Swiss Alps form a unique landscape that cannot be witnessed together in person. Yet, Aller invites viewers into an immersive fictional viewshed that resonates with a palpable sense of geologic interconnection through time and space.

“Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile, 2019” (left) “German Alps, 2019” (right) in Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile” by Renate Aller, 2019, from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

“German Alps” by Renate Aller, the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

“Nepal, Himalayas, Everest Region, December 2016” (left) “Alaska Valdez Range, August, 2017” in Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Nepal, Himilayas, Everest Region” by Renate Aller, 2017, from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

“Valdez Range, Alaska” by Renate Aller, 2017 from the the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

A ridge in the Patagonia region of Chile reaches toward striations carved in the German alps. Or the fractal patterns in the Himalayas are mirrored in the obsidian dirt found in Alaska.  Storm clouds over the Atlantic beckon to the Great Sand Dunes. Textures, shapes and markings forged through wind, rain or melting glaciers teem across Aller’s pictures. These dynamic landscapes seem to inhale at the rising seas then exhale in tectonic shifts. Aller has animated her pictures with the rhythms and seductions of life. 

“Atlantic Ocean, 2009” (left) and “Great Sand Dunes, May 2013” in Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Atlantic Ocean” by Renate Aller, 2009, from the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

“Great Sand Dunes” by Renate Aller, 2013, the show The Space Between Memory and Expectation, courtesy of the artist and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT.

The scale of the work is monumental while the presence of humanity is slight. Three figures roam across the Great Sand Dunes and there is a small Cross perched atop an alp. Our efforts to conquer the earth look futile here, but in reality, human activity has impacted the cadences of the seasons with hurricanes and wildfires becoming more frequent and violent. Aller reveals a reverence for the both the harshness and the regenerative vitality of nature, but her message is filled with urgency. In order to keep our blue planet hospitable for human and animal life, we must understand how integrated we are with this living, breathing organism called “earth.”

“Nepal, Himalayas, Everest Region, December, 2016” (left) and “Death Valley, California, 2020” (right) in Renate Aller: The Space Between Memory and Expectation. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

An in-person conversation between Renate Aller and Makeda Djata Best, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography and the interim head of the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museums is planned for this Friday, January 13th at 7:00pm.

To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conversation-renate-aller-and-makeda-djata-best-tickets-445288478827

For more information: https://www.brattleboromuseum.org/2022/06/10/renate-aller-the-space-between-memory-and-expectation/