Description
Artists are increasingly looking at the fragility of the earth through their honest and emotional portrayals, while sending urgent messages to pay attention to the swift changes facing society today. Trouble in Paradise examines a range of art in a variety of media that addresses extreme forces of nature in two basic categories: nature-based discord, such as lightning, tornadoes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and fire; and human-caused environmental discord such as pollution, over-population, global warming, oil field fires, atomic fallout, and destruction of land. The debate about how much of nature’s wrath is the result of human impact and interference is ongoing, but questions are posed through dramatic visuals about the seemingly unstoppable cycle of cause and effect.
Many of the artists in this exhibition imbue their work with haunting messages while objectively documenting the reality before them. Others exalt in the awesome beauty of the power of nature without judgment of its genesis or its conclusion. While offering a selected survey of powerful works that address the forces of nature, this exhibition is far from a “doom and gloom” portrayal of earth’s and society’s current situation, nor does it attempt to solve environmental problems. What emerges from these works is not only a revelation of the pressing environmental problems of our times, but how artists see the world and share that message with stunning beauty and poetic resonance.
Artists featured in the exhibition and catalog: Kim Abeles, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Sasha Bezzubov, Randy Bolton, Sonja Braas, Alice Leora Briggs, Diane Burko, Edward Burtynsky, Corwin Clairmont and Leonard Edmonson, Robert D. Cocke, Anne Coe, Sue Coe, Dan Collins, James P. Cook, Susan Crile, Johann Ryno De Wet, Mark Dion, Mitch Epstein, Vernon Fisher, Paul Fusco, Francesca Gabbiani, Susan Graham, Heather Green, Emilie Halpern, Julie Heffernan, Roderik Henderson, Tracy Hicks, Dodo Jin Ming, Kim Keever, Isabella Kirkland, Dimitri Kozyrev, Nevan Lahart, Rosemary Laing, David Maisel, Mary Mattingly, Richard Misrach, Matthew Moore, Michael Najjar, Joe Novak, Leah Oates, Robyn O’Neil, Tom Palmore, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Anthony Pessler, Robert Polidori, Alexis Rockman, Barbara Rogers, Thomas Ruff, Chris Rush, Susan Shatter, Jeff Smith, Mikhael Subotsky, Tom Uttech, Ellen Wagener, William T. Wiley, A.T. Willett, and Joel-Peter Witkin.
Curated by Dr. Julie Sasse, Chief Curator
Edited by Vanessa Mallory and Mary Sasse. Artist biographies by Lindsay Russell. Foreword byDr. Robert Knight, CEO, and essay by Dr. Julie Sasse, Chief Curator. Designed by PS Studios, Inc. Phoenix, Arizona; with printing by Ben Franklin Press, Tempe, Arizona. Published by the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block.
Hardcover. 208 pp.
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