Simon Lewis, British, born 1980
Carbon Dioxide Concentration, 2014
In the introduction to her book, Artwash, Mel Evans writes that, “The Keeling Curve is an artwork in itself:...each dot signifying a new set of possible challenges” (16). Evans’ assertion that the curve is art in and of itself is a compelling one, if indeed one of the many purposes of art is to generate thinking, the sharp and dizzying uptick at the end of the graph surely leads us to wonder: what happens next? This rendering of The Keeling Curve bears unmistakable resemblance to a supply curve (though, admittedly, there seems to be a bit more fluctuation in Keeling Curve data from year to year than what appears here), in which price and quantity are engaged in a positive (not in the value judgment sense) race towards some asymptote in a/the catastrophic future. Price, which exists on the x axis on a supply curve, is replaced, fittingly, by carbon dioxide concentration in the earth’s atmosphere. Label by Jay Jolles