Farm Tool

Donald Lipski, American

Farm Tool, 1993

Donald Lipski’s Farm Tool features a 1932 Ford truck whose flatbed transports four 200-liter Pyrex boiling flasks filled with yucca plants in a preservation solution. The installation is one of eleven glass sculptures commissioned in the 1990s for a new headquarters building of Corning Incorporated in Corning, New York. The corporate context for this sculpture calls attention to the dialectical relationships between glass technology and its applications. Pyrex glass is one of the most well-known products associated with the 150-year old company. We know it as an ideal oven-to-table baking dish or measuring cup. The large flasks seen here are also made from Pyrex glass and are ideal containers for toxic and hazardous waste.  In Lipski’s installation, they feature ephemeral plant material that will break down slowly over time, emphasized by the nostalgic choice of the 1932 Ford. Given the placement of the installation, he also subtly stirs conversation about the endangerment and necessary preservation of the natural world if we are not careful in our approach to containing the by-products of the industrial world. Label by Kelly Conway

Cape Mongo

Francois Knoetze, South African, born 1989

Cape Mongo, 2013

Cape Mongo is a short film set in Cape Town, South Africa that follows six different characters, represented by sculptures made of the city’s discarded waste. The word “mongo” is a slang term for “an object thrown away and recovered.” Even in a post-apartheid state, structural environmental violence is still incredibly evident in impoverished, non-white areas where the trash of wealthier metropolitan residencies ends up. Each “creature” journeys to the place of their material origin, revisiting its imagined past and examining the social weight of its conception. The selection I have chosen is a still showing a metal figure surrounded by pollution of their own making, in a slouched position facing toward the sun, perhaps contemplating the time and negligence it took to get there. Label by Kristin Rheins

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and Everywhere

Julian Charrière, Swiss, born 1987

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and Everywhere, 2019

Charrière’s installation addresses the sacrifice zone created by the US nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll. Charrière visited the site and produced a series of photos and videos on land and in the water showing the abandoned atoll. The central image in this picture shows the propeller of the sunken HIJMS Nagato, which was a target in nuclear tests at the site. A large diving bell and bags of ocean-water from the contaminated site both hang from the ceiling, while coconuts encased in lead (both protecting them from nuclear explosions and making them reminiscent of cannonballs) are scattered on the floor. Charrière’s work shows human efforts to dominate and control the environment in his carefully trapped subjects, along with the continued toll from radiation at the site. In doing so, he encapsulates the topics of slow violence and sacrifice zones that result from modern warfare and environmental injustices. Label by Tori Erisman

Untitled

Saurabh Das, Indian, born 1972

Untitled, 2009

Saurabh Das uses photography to document the ongoing suffering of the Bhopal people following the deadly methyl isocyanate leak from the Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) factory in 1984. In its wake, the toxic gas leak was fatal to thousands and spread about fifteen miles around the plant. Even though the factory was deserted and cleaned of waste, the Bhopal people are still struggling to survive. There are second and third generation children of survivors who are being born with disabilities. This portrait is of a young girl who is dependent on her caregivers to sustain her life. Her physical appearance including her sunken eyes and bony cheekbones displays the ongoing legacy of the Bhopal incident. Das arranges the photo upside down so the girl’s eyes peer despairingly into the camera, creating feelings of unease. Label by Elsa Rall