When Lewis Carroll&rsquo\;s \;Alice&rs quo\;s Adventures in Wonderland \;came out in 1865\, it was a blockbus ter success and was widely credited with changing the landscape of childre n&rsquo\;s literature\, adding nonsensical fun to what had been a genre ob sessed with moralizing. Since its first publication\, it has been translat ed into over 175 languages and continues to inspire artists from around th e world to interpret Carroll&rsquo\;s story in their own visionary ways.\n
Finding Alice: Artists Exploring Wonderland featuring Abelardo More ll \;features works from two photographic series by the acclaimed arti st Abelardo Morell\, as well as several versions of the book to examine ho w different artists have illustrated the classic story. Artists include An drea D&rsquo\;Aquino (American b. 1979)\, Salvador Dalí\; (Spanish 1 904&ndash\;1989)\, Camille Rose Garcia (American b. 1970)\, Yayoi Kusama ( Japanese b. 1929)\, Oleg Lipchenko (Ukrainian/Canadian b. 1957)\, Peter Ne well (American 1862&ndash\;1924)\, and Evgeny Alexandrovich Shukaev (Russi an 1932&ndash\;1988) among others.
\nOf his initial \;Alice in W onderland \;series\, Morell says\, &ldquo\;I designed my images to be situated within a landscape made of books because it struck me that Carrol l had linked Wonderland to the idea of discovering imagination by digging deep into the pages of a book. At this time my daughter\, Laura\, was seve n years old and these pictures felt in part to be tributes to her\, who li ke Alice\, was an equally brave girl in my life.&rdquo\; Later\, his exper ience during the COVID-19 pandemic and sheltering in place &ldquo\;sent [h im] down another\, different sort of rabbit hole. Suddenly\, Alice&rsquo\; s adventures seemed to have a lot in common with what was going on in the world&mdash\;and within me. His \;Through the Looking Glass \;seri es revolves around Alice stepping into a mirror\, on the other side of whi ch there is a topsy-turvy\, unfamiliar\, and illogical world. &ldquo\;What she encounters there seemed to me to have parallels to new realities in o ur present moment. Notably\, however\, in both her trips to Wonderland\, A lice is resilient. She confronts the many disturbing things she encounters with determination and\, in the end\, she manages to adapt to her new sit uation. Alice&rsquo\;s rolling with the punches supplied me with an instru ctive guide to living in turbulent times. Brave Alice learns to deal with the irrational without ignoring it. \; She makes her own sense out of nonsense.&rdquo\;
\nThis exhibition was inspired by an exhibition of the same title\, organized by the Ellen Noë\;l Art Museum (Odessa\, T exas) who has generously donated the books included in the exhibition\, an d provided curatorial support as the touring exhibition concept developed.
\nAbout the Artist\, Abelardo Morell
\nAbela rdo Morell and his family fled Cuba in 1962\, moving to New York City. He is well known in the fine art and photographic communities for creating ca mera obscura images in various places around the world. In 1998\, he was a n artist-in-residence at Boston&rsquo\;s Gardner Museum\, and the followin g year\, Boston&rsquo\;s Museum of Fine Arts hosted his retrospective \;Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye. A later retrospective entitled \ ;Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door \;was held at the Art Institu te of Chicago in 2013\, and was subsequently shown at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The artist was also the subject of a documentary film\, \ ;Shadow of the House\, in 2007.
\nAbelardo Morell was awarded the CI NTAS Foundation fellowship (1992)\; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fou ndation Fellowship (1993)\; the International Center of Photography&rsquo\ ;s Infinity Award (2011)\; and the Lucie Awards Honoree for Achievement in Fine Art (2017). His work is in numerous private and public collections\, including the Art Institute of Chicago\; the Fondation Cartier\, Paris\; the Metropolitan Museum of Art\, New York\; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art\; Victoria &\; Albert Museum\, London\; and the Museum of Modern A rt\, New York. There are numerous publications and monographs on his work\ , including his illustration of \;Alice in Wonderland \;and \; Book of Books\, with an introduction by author Nicholson Baker.
\nAb elardo Morell lives and works in Boston. He studied at Bowdoin College and holds an MFA from Yale University\, and an honorary doctorate from Bowdoi n. Until 2009\, he was a professor of photography at Massachusetts College of Art. He is exclusively represented by the Edwynn Houk Gallery\, New Yo rk.
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