Anderson Gallery presents exhibitions on Erie Canal, women in 19th-century asylums

Exhibitions marking the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal, as well as the histories of women institutionalized in 19th-century asylums will open in the UB Anderson Gallery on Sept. 12.

“Eighty-Six Reasons for Asylum Admission” and “Water, Grain, Steel: Industry and the Erie Canal” both open with receptions from 5-8 p.m. Sept. 12 in the Anderson Gallery.

Exhibitions in the Center for the Arts Gallery — “Martha Jackson in Paris” and “Bits by Bits: Six Artists from Buffalo’s Progressive Studio” — open Sept. 4.

The porcelain sculptures, assemblages and photographs in Ohio-based artist Kimberly Chapman’s “Eighty-Six Reasons for Asylum Admission” examine the institutionalized oppression of women through the lens of 19th-century asylums. It runs through Feb. 28.

The exhibition draws its title from a historical document compiled by the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia: a list of 86 “reasons for asylum admission” — many of them gendered, spurious or cruelly absurd. These so-called preconditions for mental illness illuminate how misogyny and pseudoscience were woven into the systems that once confined thousands of women. Chapman’s meticulously crafted, emotionally resonant works offer a poetic reckoning with that legacy.
 
Organized into thematic sections, “Eighty-Six Reasons” invites viewers into a charged encounter with erasure, ritual, survival and remembrance. Sculptural reliquaries encase artifacts and clay remnants in crystal-clear resin; fragile teacups sprout human hair; a cabinet holds 86 worn toothbrushes; and masked porcelain figures hint at lives endured in enforced, external silence. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Lipsey Architecture Center Buffalo, which is housed in the Richardson Olmsted Campus — site of Buffalo’s own former Kirkbride-designed psychiatric institution.
 
“Buffalo is home to one of the most iconic Kirkbride Plan asylums in the country, and it’s important to tell not only the architectural story of that site but more crucially the human stories of those who lived there,” says Anna Wager, curator of exhibitions for the UB Art Galleries. “This exhibition complements our partnership with the Lipsey Architecture Center of Buffalo by focusing on the women whose experiences shaped — and were shaped by — institutions like the Richardson. Kimberly Chapman’s work is both visually powerful and deeply compassionate, and we’re proud to present it here in Buffalo.”

“Water, Grain, Steel” brings together work from the UB Art Galleries Collection and regional artists to examine the lasting influence of the Erie Canal on Buffalo and the surrounding region. The exhibition explores the canal as a powerful force in shaping commerce, labor, industry, environment and land use across two centuries.
 
The exhibition includes artworks reflecting on Buffalo’s industrial rise through the steel and grain trades, the environmental health of Lake Erie and nearby waterways, and land and water rights viewed through Indigenous histories and perspectives. Works range from early 20th-century paintings and WPA-era prints to contemporary reflections that revisit the canal’s legacy today. Artists represented include Charles Burchfield, Mildred C. Green and Martha Visser’t Hooft, alongside Jay Carrier, Tim Frerichs and Milton Rogovin, among others.
 
“Our aim with ‘Water, Grain, Steel’ is to show how the canal’s impacts have been both sweeping and intimate,” Wager explains. “Through a wide range of artistic approaches and time periods, this exhibition encourages viewers to reflect on how waterways have shaped — and continue to shape — life in Western New York.”
 
Loans for the exhibition have been provided by Meibohm Fine Arts, the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Black Rock Arts. Many of the works from the UB Art Galleries Collection were donated by, and are cared for with support from, the Harry G. Meyer and the Howard L. Meyer Trust.