climate change

The screening will be preceded (from 7-8pm) by a reception sponsored by the Honest Weight Food Coop and information tables from local organizations.

The Climate Crisis Film That Focuses on the Big, Moral, Human Stuff

In the year 2055 - now a ravaged, war-torn, flooded world - an unnamed archivist, played by Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite, is entrusted with the safekeeping of humanity's surviving store of art and knowledge. Alone in his offshore repository, he reviews archive footage from back "when we could have saved ourselves," trying to discern where it all went wrong. Amid news reports of the gathering effects of climate change and global civilization teetering towards destruction, he alights on the stories of seven individuals whose lives in the early years of the 21st century seem to illustrate aspects of the impending catastrophe. These stories take the form of interweaving documentary segments that report on the lives of real people in the present, and switch the film's narrative from fiction to fact.

Screening co-sponsored by the Honest Weight Food Coop, and The Community Renewable Energy (CoRE) Project, Capital District Local First

Our season is over, and next week we'll be taking down our photography show, "Evidence & Fantasy: Militarism in American Life," by Nina Berman.

I've passed by these photographs almost daily for the past four months, but they've lost none of their power; if anything, my growing familiarity with the photographs as physical and visual objects makes them that much more stunning when I take a moment or two and really look, identifying with the wounded and disfigured soldiers as human beings and not just a collection of pixels, for the hundred-and-nteenth time. I'll be sad to see it go (though next season's art show should be great too; stay tuned!).

So I was thrilled to learn that Nina's work has been selected for inclusion in the Whitney Museum's upcoming 2010 biennial show of new American art. This is, apparently, a big deal in the art world and beyond: Wikipedia's (not always trustworthy) authoritative voice says the Biennial is "generally regarded as one of the leading shows in the art world, often setting or leading trends in contemporary art." Cool. (The show's up 2/25/2010 - 5/30/2010, at 945 Madison Ave. on the upper East side of Manhattan.)

We'll be taking down and packaging up the "Homeland" photographs next week, to be sent to The Whitney. "Purple Hearts" and "Marine Wedding," which are the photos on display in our downstairsunderground gallery, apparently haven't been invited. (Nina can only bring one series of work, and even though we've exhibited them together, these photographs were really taken and originally intended as separate projects.)

Here's a selection of photographs from "Homeland" which may or may not be showing at the Whitney in 2010!