When the Sylvester family of Anglo-Dutch traders sought refuge on Shelter Island in the late 1600s, it was a time of worldwide upheaval. Religious persecution, the advent of global trade and the beginning of the trading of enslaved people from Africa in that century would reshape society in ways that destroyed innocence worldwide.
Pictured Above: Sculptor Walter Channing’s “Dancing Bird” outside the peacock house at Sylvester Manor.
John Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” was born out of this upheaval, and the poem serves as the framework upon which curator Tom Cugliani has built his second annual immersive exhibition at the Sylvester Manor educational farm on Shelter Island, Sculpture@Sylvester Manor, which opened on June 14.
“It was really world-changing, seismic in a way for Europe, for North America and for West Africa. Everything, in a way, devolves here,” said Mr. Cugliani of this time in history, as he gave a press preview tour of the exhibition on June 13. “The poem is really interesting because, on the one hand, it talks about paradise as a kind of Edenic setting, and on the other hand, it can be understood metaphorically for Cromwell’s failure to produce the Utopian commonwealth that was going to replace the autocratic king.”
Like last summer’s exhibition, which brought more than 2,500 people to Sylvester Manor, dozens of works that interweave the natural world into this narrative are lovingly placed throughout the grounds of the 236-acre property.
As you enter the grounds through a worn picket fence, the exhibition opens with an arching gate made of animal fencing woven with scraps of denim that may be familiar to anyone who’s seen a globe made of torn blue jeans in the midst of a farm field on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.
Both pieces share a creator, Sherry Davis, an expert in this medium.
“The denim in this state — ripped — is something that is easy to associate with dislocated people, mass deportations, displacement of populations,” said Mr. Cugliani as he walked through the gate. “Denim carries a lot of significance as a textile. It’s made by the cotton and the indigo dye being woven together, weft and weaved. It was very specifically fabricated for working clothes in France, and then it jumped to California, and then it became a sort of lingua franca — it embodies a lot of meaning.”
Through the denim gate, hung on an endless privet hedge, Erica-Lynn Huberty’s “New Eden Awaits” combines textiles with text from the poem, two words that you might not at first think share an etymological root.
“Its origin comes from humans grooming other humans, and the interweaving of bodily hair,” said Mr. Cugliani. “But here we’re interweaving text and textiles, and it’s so delightful.”
At three locations throughout the exhibition, artist B. Wurtz has installed signposts urging viewers to “Know Thyself.”
It’s a command that not only relates to the creation myth, and to what Adam and Eve lost and gained by eating from the tree of knowledge, but also to the history of Sylvester Manor, where enslaved indigenous people and Africans worked to supply the Sylvesters’ sugar plantation in Barbados.
“I feel that’s important in terms of this place, because its true history, over four centuries, has been concealed through the landscape,” said Mr. Cugliani.
Sandi Haber Fifield’s “Rooted Memory,” a series of Plexiglass figures adorning a half-dead fruit tree, also embody this exploration of knowledge and self.
“I think this tree was planted here in around 1908, when there were a lot of modernizations that were done to the property,” he said. “It also seems to be part of that whole Edwardian thing of sort of dressing up and looking good, which is what her work does to this to this tree, which in reality looks like it’s sort of amputated and almost more dead than alive.”
Cherokee musician and educator Jeffrey Pegram contributes three audio pieces to the exhibition, which can be accessed through a walking tour app or a QR code placed strategically on three relics of European influence on the property, including a canon and a stone that some believe was left by Vikings.
Plunging into the forest, Ella Mahoney’s set of four large-scale prints on ripstop that make up “An Island Sheltered By Islands,” the English translation of the Manhansett name for Shelter Island, grace the path with a prayer thanking the creator for the rivers, the sky, the stars and the ocean.
They’re a hint at the large-scale vision Mr. Cugliani has for the continuation of this exhibition in future years, splashes of color throughout the forest echoing Christo’s “The Gates” in Central Park.
They invite visitors further down the path to Ariel Adkins’ “Cocoon,” a giant Madonna-esque figure made of a reflective silver fabric. Visitors can go inside and view the sky through her shoulders, reflecting on their own gestation inside their mother, as they listen to the natural world outside.
“Nature imitates art,” Oscar Wilde had once wryly said, and what you’ll find next as you wander through the woods will leave you thinking on what this means in the epoch that geologists are now calling the anthropocene — in which human presence is the most prominent force in the natural landscape.
Farther down the path, visitors can reflect on Robin Gianis’ “Terrace 1-8″ and” Fire 1-5,” ceramic installations that mimic the lichens and fungi that make these woods home.
Be struck by three works by Catherine Brigham and her students at the Shelter Island School, “Echoes of Place: Home and Belonging,” that use reclaimed materials that are designed to break down over time, with influences from the Dada movement and Kurt Schwitter’s Merz-Life.
Bill Albertini’s “Pipe Dream System: Through a Mirror, Partly,” pieces of computer generated piping, pair what looks like a shiny new car exhaust with Plexiglas panels that mirror the woods surrounding them.
“They could not be any more inorganic, but they do reflect the natural world,” said Mr. Cugliani.
Emerge from the woods and you’ll be reminded again, by B. Wurtz, to “Know Thyself.”
“Milton’s poem proposes all kinds of things about knowledge, about creation, about truth,” said Mr. Cugliani. “You should know who you are — where do you stand on good and evil, heaven and hell, rebellion or compliance. Where is your moral compass?”
There is so much more here to explore than we have space to mention, and should you take the trek to Shelter Island, take the time to truly immerse yourself in this exhibition — with either the walking tour on the Sylvester Manor app or the curator himself as your guide.
The exhibition, which is funded through a $25,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, will on view through Sept. 14, 2025.
Admission is free, and the trails and grounds of Sylvester Manor are open to the public from sunrise to sunset. The Sylvester Manor app includes a walking tour, with access to Jeffrey Pegram’s audio pieces, which are also accessible through QR codes on site.
Mr. Cugliani leads walking tours of the exhibition on alternating Sundays throughout the summer — the next two are on June 22 and July 6 at 10 a.m. More information is at sylvestermanor.org/sculpture.
Keep Independent News on the East End
The Beacon is able to provide all of our content online free of charge thanks to support from our readers. Be a vital part of keeping our community informed!
Advertisement
It was great to be in this show. I didn’t do it last year, and this year, we couldn’t get to where Tom wanted my piece. We placed it at the parting of the paths.