Saturday, November 27 @ 6 - 8 p.m.
Generally, the bigger the book, the slighter its content, but this rule of thumb is turned on its head by A.T. Mann and Lynn Davis's Sacred Landscapes: The Threshold Between Worlds (Sterling Publishers, $35). Yes, it is a big, lushly illustrated "coffee table book," but it is the rare one that is about something profound—the constructs of man and the accidents of nature that transcend the bounds of earth and reach toward the divine. Mann argues that magnificent landscapes and the myths they inspired in our forebears permitted them a more profound connection with the physical world. Davis' haunting images from fifty-seven sacred sites in thirty countries are a powerful reminder of all that is at stake in a world beset by climate change and economic upheaval, where the spokesmen for religion and science strive to invalidate each other. The author suggests that, to restore reason, we must first reawaken our ancient connection to these sacred landscapes, as they are perhaps the only eternal verités we have. Both A.T. Mann and Lynn Davis are longtime Hudson residents. Davis, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others, will be signing books at a reception at Rural Residence on Saturday evening. A silver gelatin print of one of her photographs, Iceberg 1, Disko Bay, Greenland, 1988, will also be on sale. Rural Residence 316 Warren Street, Hudson
