Princeton Art Museum exhibitions explore landscape as culture with historical and contemporary ecological perspectives

Two exhibitions at Princeton Art Museum, 'Picturing Place in Japan' and 'Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment,' examine how visual depictions of place reveal cultural attitudes toward nature. 'Picturing Place in Japan,' curated by Andrew M. Watsky and Caitlin Karyadi, features 35 works including a 12-foot gold leaf screen by Tani Buncho and contemporary photographs of post-2011 Tohoku. It challenges Western landscape concepts through three themes: imagined, famous, and sacred places. 'Nature's Nation,' curated by Karl Kusserow and Alan Braddock, presents over 100 objects tracing American art's ecological evolution from colonial theology to modern ethics. Works by Thomas Moran and Alfred Bierstadt appear alongside contemporary critiques by Valerie Hegarty and Subhankar Banerjee. Banerjee's aerial photograph of caribou in the Arctic National Refuge highlights environmental threats. Both exhibitions ran in 2018-2019, with 'Nature's Nation' also traveling to Peabody Essex Museum. They demonstrate how art historically embodies ecological conditions while confronting current disasters.