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Sword of the Sun: Peter Happel Christian
Sculpture

Peter Happel Christian, Finding the Time, 2013, unique photogram, gelatin silver print, 10” x 8”

Sword of the Sun:
Peter Happel Christian

February 7-March 14

Opening Reception: 7-9 p.m., Friday, Feb. 7
Artist’s Talk: 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 19

Peter Happel Christian makes work about the experience of nature, time, and perception at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and performance. This exhibition, Sword of the Sun, very loosely imitates the contents of a story of nearly the same title in the book Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino. In the story, the reader hears the internal monologue of an elderly man, Mr. Palomar, while he is swimming in a nameless sea at sunset. Altogether, the exhibition is a drift through the wilderness of the artist’s home and yard, a skid through the nature of time, and an examination of how we fragment and compartmentalize the world for the purposes of contemplation and understanding.

Christian currently lives and works in St. Cloud, Minn., where he is an associate professor of art at St. Cloud State University. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. He is a 2011–12 recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Photography, and his forthcoming book is entitled Half Wild.