I'm reading this WaPo piece by Kelsey Ables: "‘Coal and Ice’ exhibit won’t help you understand climate change/At the Kennedy Center, giant photos of glaciers and coal miners do little to overcome a trite, alienating narrative about the climate crisis."
Divided into sections titled “Coal Miners,” “Landscapes” and “Human Consequences,” the installation aims to visualize the connection between coal and ice. It’s an alluring artistic idea: the mines’ grime contrasting with the Arctic’s white. But it’s unlikely that the average viewer will feel immediately invested in either — especially without the help of wall text, which the show strangely avoids...
It’s not that “Coal and Ice” doesn’t have powerful images. It features work by dozens of photographers.... But from the start of the show, there’s a disconnect, a protective layer between you and the kind of stirring, substantive emotion that sticks with you.... It’s difficult to connect....
Why do we ever connect with art? Or is the problem here that we might very well connect with the art — dramatic, beautiful photographs — but that connection doesn't launch us into environmental activism. Oh, God help us, if art had the power to launch us into activism! Isn't the complaint here that the human mind doesn't yield so easily to propaganda?
The show caters to flickering attention spans....
By the way why is contrasting the "mines’ grime... with the Arctic’s white" "an alluring artistic idea"? On other days, in other contexts, the critics would be saying that this white good/dark bad concept belongs in the dustbin labeled Things That Are Too Close to Racism. But that trite, alienating meme has been alienated from this discussion.
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Ah yes, the climate crisis. Called that to spur action by people who don't want to take action themselves. Gotta have that vacation on the beach, after all, or that month in Europe.
you know what's Nice, on a cold icy snowy day? A nice coal fire burning in the stove
even better! a nice electric blanket.. powered by a coal fired power plant
Cold is COLD! this is just a FACT!
One wonders in the back of the mind at how they lit up the gallery for that show.
The writer stumbles upon a secret about art (and maybe a secret about climate change as well) that she must avoid looking into further if she wants to keep her job.
It used to be that the only ones allowed to make money off the environment were lawyers. Now academics and artists are in the game.
I'd say an exhibit that went into the supposed horrors of CO2 (Eek!) wouldn't help you understand climate change, either. And trite, alienating narratives from the Big Thinkers at WaPoo also won't help you understanding climate change. (Hint: it has been getting slowly but unevenly warmer since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1860s.)
I like the black/white dichotomy pointed out by Althouse (Things That Are Too Close To Racism). Extra marks for out-doing the propaganda machine with the motto "Democracy dies in Darkness." What kind of message is that to send to youths already bending under the yoke of ancestral racism? Aren't they glorifying white supremacy at WaPoo?
The horror! The horror!
My idea of environmental activism would be to show large pictures of roadside garbage. People who litter like that, what do they think about the environment?
"Coal and Ice"? To me it conjures images of my 40 years on the Northern tier, and what provided the heat light, and power that kept me alive at 40-below zero. "Winter is Coming" and coal is the key to the cheap, abundant power tha twill keep you alive.
It could go entirely virtual, thus eliminating GHG emissions from travelling to the Kennedy Center. Oh wait, I guess that is both trite and alienating.
Speaking of "alienating", wouldn't it be funny if aliens weren't as technologically advanced as we think they are, or at the very least that fossil fuels might have some distant galactic technological importance (they are after all a product of carbon-based life, something thus far known to be extremely rare) not known to us?
Everyone thinks of aliens coming to earth to steal water or our women, but what if aliens traveled around the galaxy stealing coal and oil from planets with an abundance, like earth? I mean, what if the aliens had the technology to make all the 'le bad' fossil fuels dissappear tomorrow, would environmentalists fight for their latex apple notebook powercords and shopping bags? Oh how funny that would be!
oh daddy won't you take me back to Muillenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay
"I'm sorry my son but you're too late I asking
Mr. ⊑⟒⌰⌰⍜ starship has hauled it away"
After the EPA raid last July. Dale has been talking about relocation and ‘Carbon-Zero.’
Do away with coal and how will these phart lovers drive their coal powered electric cars?
In related news, an energy company was fined $8.5mm for killing 150 bald eagles with its windmills. Pretty small potatoes but annoying nonetheless.
As Lenin said "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" this is the modern corollary "you can't save the environment without killing bald eagles." and millions of other birds. Seems unfair to fine companies like this.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
My feeling is that climate change art ought to deal with the Navier Stokes equations and with the uncertainty principle, which is where climate science fails.
There is no climate crisis. These people need to stop pissing on our leg and telling us it is raining.
When you mix white and black you get shades of gray (50, maybe?) which does not produce a call to action.
A black hole... whore h/t NAACP is destructive. A white hole is constructive destructive.
Coal and ice are inherently black and white, and prone to result in content that resembles black and white photography. Ansel Adams style. I don't see racism, I see preachy politics that'll likely be interpreted as a retro artsy-fartsy mid-century brutalism exhibit.
An art exhibit in a gallery can earn the artists money for their works. An art exhibit in a museum can earn the artists notice of their peers and of the public. Exhibits are for the artists as well as for the viewing public. Ain't gonna be no art without sales of art.
I'm not an expert, but that picture of the glacier in a sea of red would've been more powerful with a baby seal on it.
Given that Art is completely unnecessary, it would seem to be an obvious choice for First Thing We Stop Doing To Reduce Our Carbon Footprint.
I look forward to the Lithium and Ice Exhibit.
Lawyers are the best environmental advocates, "I'll sue your client if you countersue my client."
Mines could be a wonderful subject for a photography exhibit, though. There's very picturesque mines, like the Porto Flavia mine, or all those salt mines with churches carved out of them. There's the old English collieries from the Industrial Revolution -- fascinating, although none stands out to me as visually distinctive. And more modern mines that are remarkable for their sheer scale, such as the Mir mine in Russia. Mining equipment is also interesting, e.g. the gigantic Bagger excavators, or those oversized dump trucks. I know that's not all coal mining, but -- sort of like steelworks, assembly plants, and chip foundries -- it's a fascinating piece of industry, and could make for an interesting exhibit.
Probably not this exhibit though.
"Given that Art is completely unnecessary...."
It may be unnecessary, (I'll concede for argument's sake), but it is almost all that remain of human societies after they expire.
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