Black Hole/Atomic City (State of Decay) 

 

 

The Black Hole in Los Alamos, NM, 2009. Photo by Jeff Keyzer

 

Black Hole/Atomic City (State of Decay) 

August 2 – 30, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION: August 2, 6-9pm 

Black Hole/Atomic City (State of Decay) is an exhibition dedicated to alternative stories related to “the nuclear business” in New Mexico since the dawn of the Anthropocene/Trinity test near Tularosa in July 1945. The combined burden of nuclear byproducts and waste that decays over tens of thousands of years weighs heavily on New Mexico, a “national sacrifice zone.” The show will be on view until August 30.

Impacts that largely affect Indigenous and rural communities from nuclear weapons and their production in New Mexico and around the world, are not featured in the celebratory story of the Atomic Age promoted by Los Alamos, set for the commemoration in 2020 of the 75th Anniversary of the Trinity Test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first and only cities to be destroyed with atomic weapons. 

What is the impact of the theft and decimation of sacred lands? How have involuntary radiation exposures from atomic explosions and contamination from mining and milling of uranium affected generations? What are the ongoing threats from transportation and storage of radioactive waste?

This will be one of numerous efforts to highlight alternative views of our nuclear world during the lead up to the Anniversary of the Nuclear Age. The Black Hole, a Los Alamos business known world-wide for recycling equipment and materials from the Los Alamos Scientific/National Laboratory, was owned by anti-nuclear activist Edward Grothus, who died in 2009. Artist and activist Barbara Grothus is the lead organizer of the project.

Artists include: Josh Atlas, Brandi Beckett, Mitch Berg, Anna Bush Crews, Sabrina Gaskill, Barbara Grothus, Sheri Inez deLopaz Kotowski, Sto Len, Melanie Mills, Santiago Perez, Thomas Powell, Rachele Riley, Yasuyo Tanaka, Jessi Walsh, Nora Wendl

 

This exhibition was made possible in part by the Fulcrum Fund. The Fulcrum Fund is an annual grant program, created and administered by 516 ARTS as a partner in the Regional Regranting Program of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.