The latest show at Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) is entitled “Love” and it was mounted in conjunction with a series of new exhibitions going on throughout the area based on the theme of the Seven Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins. There are works by forty-two different artists from all over the globe and the media include drawings, painting, sculpture and video. This is not an easy show and not one that can be easily described or summarized. For a docent it is a real challenge. While I usually like to pick some art works that particularly resonate with me or which I believe illuminate a particular aspect of a show, in this case I was hard-pressed to find those specific pieces that would lend themselves to that kind of tour. Where to begin a tour with this kind of diversity and where to take it? My decision was to let the participants on the tour direct it. This was either going to be the easiest tour I’ve ever done or the most difficult. I invited the group that arrived at the Museum on Saturday afternoon to peruse the galleries for about ten to fifteen minutes and to choose a work that they “loved” or, if not loved, a work that moved or intrigued or stimulated them. A work, perhaps, that they would live with if they had a place with the room for it. We then gathered in front of those works and talked about them—what we saw, what we liked, what we didn’t get, what we did. It proved to be a really delightful and insightful time at the Museum. Among other things discovered, after stopping at one work with a large cat in it and another with a number of catfish, is that the docent doesn’t like and never buys works of art in which there are animals depicted. I gather from the feedback that the group enjoyed the tour and I certainly had a very good time. I am also now deeply involved in a conversation with my wife about whether or not I am an “animal lover.”
The exhibition, “Love” will be up for the better part of this year and is well worth a visit to Peekskill, which has a number of other attractions for visitors as well.