Storm King Art Center Exhibition Focuses on Climate Change

Art and science have come together to expand the public conversation on climate change  at Storm King Art Center in Orange County, NY. In an exhibition called Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, the work of seventeen artists and collectives address the diverse impacts of this critical issue.

Curated by Nora Lawrence, the exhibit is a mix of large-scale sculptures and installations spread out across the open air museum’s five-hundred acres as well as smaller pieces displayed in an indoor gallery.

Credit: Mary Mattingly/Storm King

Notable among the various projects is Mary Mattingly’s installation, Along the Lines of Displacement: A Tropical Food Forest. This stand of palm trees imported from Florida offers visitors a glimpse of what the landscape of upstate New York might look by the end of the century when the average temperature is expected to increase by 7.2°F (4°C) if global warming continues unabated.

Credit: Justin Brice Guarigila/Storm King

Another piece that stands out in Storm King’s bucolic setting is Justin Brice Guarigila’s We Are the Asteroid.  The orange colored, solar-powered LED highway message sign – the sort usually seen flashing information about dangerous situations – displays three-line ecological aphorisms by philosopher Timothy Morton. These include the piece’s moniker as well as things like “Danger: Anthropocentrism” and “Warning: Hurricane Human”.

Credit: Hara Woltz/Storm King

Embracing the science of climate change is Hara Woltz’s “Vital Signs”. In this interactive piece, a working weather station is encircled  by nine cylinders (a reference to the shape of ice-core tubes) that present the idea of albedo and melting sea ice. The top of each cylinder gets darker as a viewer moves around the circle. More specifically, the lighter area decreases by 13% per cylinder reflecting the predicted decrease in Arctic sea ice per decade relative to the 1981-2010 average. The cylinders also progressively get taller, referencing sea level rise. Data from the weather station is displayed in real time on Storm King’s website.

Other exhibiting artists include David Brooks, Dear Climate, Mark Dion, Ellie Ga, Allison Janae Hamilton, Jenny Kendler, Maya Lin, Alan Michelson, Mike Nelson, Steve Rowell, Gabriela Salazar, Rebecca Smith, Tavares Strachan, and Meg Webster.

The exhibit is on view through November 11, 2018.