Auction Highlight: Landscape Stratigraphy by Cheryl Barton PLA, FASLA, FAAR
The Cultural Landscape Foundation is proud to announce the opening of its Nineteenth Annual Silent Auction. This year’s auction is the largest in the foundation’s history and includes many one-of-a-kind works of art, including a stunning tapestry by Cheryl Barton. “Landscape Stratigraphy” originally appeared in TCLF’s second silent auction in 2005, where bidding continued until the final seconds of the auction. After long being treasured at its previous home, it is back in the auction looking for a new home with adequate ceiling heights.
When asked about the rationale and significance of the piece, which depicts layers of the Roman landscape’s palimpsest, Barton, who was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2004, offered these insights about the work that grew out of her time there:
“Rome is a city where one can consider the ideologies from which built forms emerged. Landscapes convey multiple ideas encoded in many layered planes occupying the same space. The beliefs and assumptions that underlie the drive to declare some places as protected zones of history, and others not, is what I find compelling. What is the privileged moment of a place? Is there a privileged moment? How does space evolve over time?”
In considering these questions, I worked within the frame of the Stratigraphic Section—or column—used by geologists to describe rock strata. A ‘topographic metric’ is tied to the Cloaca Maxima at its outfall on the Tiber River. This point of view is intentionally fictional and somewhat irreverent. The result is a ‘core sample’ of the cultural landscape layers of five specific sites: The Palatine, Roma Centro, San Leandro, Caracalla and Pompeii.
The Roman landscape is not a simple palimpsest; it is deeper and more muscular, folded, faulted, fractured, and recycled. Its layered character is more poetic and filmic than scholarly or preservationist.”
The signed tapestry, which includes supporting materials to hang the work, is 12 feet long and 30 inches wide. Bidding on this and all auction items closes on November 1 at 8pm ET. Proceeds support TCLF’s education and advocacy initiatives.
