Rather than Ab Ex—démodé by the mid-1960s—Remington flirts with hard-edge and Pop without submitting to either.

“All nature here is new to art, no Tivolis, Ternis, Mont Blancs, Plinlimmons, hackneyed and worn by the daily pencils of hundreds; but primeval forests, virgin lakes and waterfalls.” So rhapsodized British-born painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848) on the appeal of the American landscape.

Eleven tapestry-like painted objects hang from the gallery ceiling in symmetrical arrangements, delineating pathways, establishing something of a community.

The Illinois Parables, a documentary by the Chicago-based filmmaker Deborah Stratman, begins with a brief series of shots from above the titular state’s landscape. Illinois is “flyover country” after all: most coastal Americans see it as a undifferentiated stretch of farmland, flanked by the Mississippi on one side and cut through by the country’s two longest interstate highways, I-90 and I-80.

“What is art?” asked Baudelaire. “Prostitution?” His question underlines the tenuous power dynamics between artist and viewer in the modern age.

In August, Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater hosted CON-MYTHOLOGY: The Moving Images of Conrad Schnitzler, four programs that showcased films by or featuring the titular German artist (1937 – 2011), selected by Schnitzler collaborator Gen Ken Montgomery.