In An Unflinching Look Benjamin Dimmitt Bears Witness to the Ecological Disaster of Floridas Wetlands

“Dead palm in creek” (2021). All images © Benjamin Dimmitt, shared with permission

In one photo, dead palm leaves dangle from a desiccated trunk and skim the surface of a creek, making the crispy, lifeless fronds soggy with water. In another, a diptych highlights the same shoreline photographed 18 years apart, the latter sparse and sickly in comparison to its thriving predecessor.

Taken in stark black-and-white, these scenes are a few of many captured by Benjamin Dimmitt during the last three decades. They document the immense ecological changes of Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, approximately 70 miles north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast, and are now compiled in a forthcoming book that approaches the climate crisis with raw, unwavering honesty.

Slated for release in September from the University of Georgia Press, An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands highlights how the region has undergone dramatic changes since the 2010s when saltwater began to infiltrate sources of fresh water due to rising sea levels, over-pumping the underground aquifer, and general contamination of the area. “As the climate crisis worsens, my photographs show wetlands that are no longer an ecosystem in transition but now a ruin, a nearly barren, treeless salt marsh,” Dimmitt tells Colossal of his more than three-decade project bearing witness to this destruction. “The only plants thriving now are grasses, salt-loving mangroves, and the toxic algae that has flourished with the increase of phosphates and other fertilizers in the aquifer.”

 

“View Downstream,” top (2004), bottom (2022)

Although he’s currently based in Asheville, Dimmitt is a Florida native, and his profound respect for the state’s ecosystems and desire to preserve its natural life is evident in his photos. While earlier images show broad swaths of land, today, he primarily focuses on what’s left of the salt-addled forests, zeroing in on the barren limbs and cracked, gnarled roots of downed trees. The images are poignant reminders of the life we’ve already lost due to the climate crisis and that, while much damage has already been done, there’s still more to save.

Pairing more than 90 photos with contributions from scientists and writers, the book is a broad-reaching examination of a damaged ecosystem. It also suggests that what’s happening in Florida is indicative of a much larger problem. “The coastal inundation at the Chassahowitzka is a bellwether for low-lying coasts everywhere,” Dimmitt says. “What I have photographed is happening all around the world. As our planet continues to become warmer, the glacial melting and rising seas will only worsen.”

An exhibition of An Unflinching Look will open the new Wild Space Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida, for its inaugural show this October and also be on view at Asheville Art Museum in November. Dimmitt will be traveling the southeast U.S. for a book tour this fall, and you can find news about that on his site. Until then, An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands is available for pre-order.

 

“Late Sun, Blue Run” (2020)

“View Upstream,” top (2004), bottom (2022)

“Blue Ruin Still Life 2” (2020)

“Diagonal trees in creek” (2021)

“Lower Crawford Creek,” top (1988), bottom (2014)

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Get In the Activity Zone: Playfulness Abounds in a Multifunctional Park in Poland by SLAS Architects

Photos by Michał Kopaniszyn, © SLAS Architects

In Chorzów, Poland, a vibrant, multi-use public park highlights the possibilities of play. Designed by architecture firm SLAS, “Activity Zone” perforates a large concrete expanse with myriad shapes and structures, each with its own function. Playground and fitness equipment intersperse between tidy ball courts, seating, and green areas, including a number of large existing trees. To emphasize accessibility, the studio chose concrete as a primary material to ease navigation for wheelchair users and those with limited mobility.

“Activity Zone” comprises the first phase of an integration initiative between the University of Silesia and the city of Chorzów, redeveloping a former military site into a more welcoming space while building connections between the academic and local communities. Find more work by SLAS on Facebook. (via Kottke)

 

 

 

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AHHHHHH: Enjoy the Relatable Catharsis of Watching 100 People Scream As Loud As They Can

It turns out that watching people yell as loud as they’re able to is almost as cathartic for the viewer as it is for the screamer. The Cut recently filmed 100 folks as they shout with all their might, capturing an array of emotions as they let it all out. Jumping, laughing, and heavy sighs of relief ensue, along with insights into many of their lives and stressors, in what might be the most relatable video on the internet at the moment.

You also might enjoy this film documenting people as they contemplate a ten-meter dive and the work of Bob Ross’s screaming counterpart.

 

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A Granite Replica of a Bedroom Closet Honors Personal and Collective Memories in New York City AIDS Memorial Park

“Craig’s closet” (2023), granite and bronze, 90 x 57 x 28 1/2 inches. Installed in New York City AIDS Memorial Park. Photos by Daniel Greer, © Jim Hodges, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, shared with permission

In 1981, the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan began to see an influx of young gay and bisexual men with startling weight loss, pneumonia, rare infections, and compromised immunity. Two years later, the HIV virus was identified as the cause of AIDS, which quickly reached epidemic proportions, and St. Vincent’s opened the first—and largest—AIDS ward on the East Coast.

In 2016, a public park became the home to the New York City AIDS Memorial, honoring the more than 100,000 residents who died of the disease, as well as those who lobbied for medical research and access to drugs and fought discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. Marking a continuation of the memorial’s public art program, a new sculpture by Jim Hodges is both a heartfelt ode to a young New Yorker who succumbed to the illness and an invitation to consider complex histories and personal and collective memories.

“Craig’s closet,” a granite and bronze work that stands like a monolith in the middle of the park, considers the personal, metaphorical, and physical significance of the ubiquitous storage space. It is an exact replica of the bedroom closet belonging to musician Craig Ducote, who shared a home with Hodges until he passed away in 2016. T-shirts and jackets hang neatly next to a stack of drawers, a cane, various containers, and knick-knacks. While the piece references the artist’s personal relationship and memories, the simultaneous universality and specificity of a wardrobe, or objects accumulated over time, speaks to the shared experience of loss.

“Craigs closet” is on view through May 2024, and you can find more on Hodges’ website.

 

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article A Granite Replica of a Bedroom Closet Honors Personal and Collective Memories in New York City AIDS Memorial Park appeared first on Colossal.

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By Engraving Found Plastic Waste Duke Riley Links Extractive Practices Throughout Human History

“No. 382 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.5 x 8 x 3.5 inches

In the 1860s, the U.S. government introduced kerosene as an alternative for lighting lamps. Whale oil had previously dominated the market but was unsustainable given the appalling number of animals killed in order to provide power. The country quickly transitioned to fossil fuels, swapping one harmful and extractive practice for another. While whaling had its economic implications, it also birthed a largely nautical art form known as scrimshaw, or engravings in bone or ivory.

Artist Duke Riley is attuned to this history and its modern-day implications. He gathers laundry detergent jugs, flip-flops, and bottles that once held household products once they wash up near beaches and carves incisive allegories and ornamentation into their surfaces. Painted in a warm, grainy beige, the scavenged waste mimics the whale bones traditional to scrimshaw while the artist’s signature wit emerges through the contemporary narratives of oil barons or marine creatures carrying human trash.

 

“No. 363 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25 inches

Having grown up in New England, Riley frequented maritime museums with his family as a child. These experiences formed his “early ideas of what art was,” and the marine, folk art aesthetic emerged early in his practice—it’s also unsurprising that today, Riley frequently works from a boat docked near Rhode Island. As problems with waste and plastic pollution became more obvious during his visits to the ocean, he saw an opportunity to expand his scrimshaw works. “I was walking down the beach one day, and I found a piece of plastic that I thought was a bone and picked it up. It turned out to be a deck brush handle for scrubbing a boat deck,” he tells Colossal.

This encounter prompted what’s now a growing series of engraved sculptures, many of which comprise the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum. Diverging from the cheerful, bright colors of packaging, Riley distorts the containers designed to promote unchecked consumption at the expense of the environment. “I have always used a lot of found materials,” he shares. “For me, it’s about taking a found material or something that’s discarded or trash and trying to transform it in a way that it’s almost no longer recognizable.”

 

“Echelon of Uncertainty (Bad Guys)” (2022), salvaged painted plastic in wood and glass case, 18 x 51 x 6 inches

Together, the works position plastic waste as relics of our time with the potential to outlast humanity. “When you go to a maritime museum, and you see these different scrimshaw portraits on whale teeth, oftentimes, they portray the people that benefited most from the whale oil industry and that are most responsible for wiping two species of whales completely off the planet,” Riley says. He draws on this tradition, too, carving stylized renditions of Exxon chairman John Kenneth Jamieson or Arnold Schwartz, who founded Paragon Oil which later sold to Texaco, into the hard surfaces.

Whether depicting a hungover couple or a magnate plummeting into the ocean, Riley strives to use satire as a way to make the effects of pollution and the climate crisis more accessible. “Using humor sometimes is an easier way to engage people in things that are too large to wrap your head around. When talking about any sort of difficult subject, it’s a lot easier to (use humor to) talk about something that is painful or challenging and to reach people and not feel like you’re preaching,” he says.

Riley is currently working toward an upcoming show in Los Angeles and on a project centered around fast fashion. You can follow updates and see more of his scrimshaw sculptures on Instagram.

 

Detail of “Echelon of Uncertainty (Bad Guys)” (2022), salvaged painted plastic in wood and glass case, 18 x 51 x 6 inches

“No. 108 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2020),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.5 x 4.75 x 2.25 inches

“No. 367 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25”.

“No. 66-P of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2019),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.75 x 7.5 x 3.5 inches

“No. 26 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2020),  painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.25 x 7.25 x 3.5 inches

“No. 365 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article By Engraving Found Plastic Waste, Duke Riley Links Extractive Practices Throughout Human History appeared first on Colossal.

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You Can Now Follow Colossal on Threads Bluesky and Mastodon

As the post-Twitter social world (or post-social media world?) has fractured into a dizzying array of competing platforms, Colossal has set up shop in several new spaces. You can now find us sharing daily art and visual culture updates on the new Threads platform, as well as Mastodon. We’re also on Bluesky, which is still in a closed beta, so you may have to wait a bit longer to start skeeting with us.

As always, we think the best way to follow is through our regularly published newsletters.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article You Can Now Follow Colossal on Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon appeared first on Colossal.

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Scientific Principles and Craft Traditions Converge in Tauba Auerbachs Research-Focused Practice

Tauba Auerbach (previously) wants “to be somewhere that isn’t a hard edge,” within a space that mimics the instability of “The Wave Organ.” Embedded within a jetty of the San Francisco Bay, the sculpture was created by Peter Richards and George Gonzalez in 1986 and captures the sounds of waves as they crash into and fill the pipes, emitting a musical mix of gurgling and gushing noises as the tide changes. The work is designed to highlight the acoustic irregularities of Earth’s elements and is also one of Auerbach’s favorite locations in their native San Francisco.

In a new episode of Art21’s 11th season, “Bodies of Knowledge,” which premiered in late June, Auerbach visits the instrument and explains their interest in natural patterns and processes, physics, and mathematic principles. They harbor a profound curiosity and desire to understand the complex systems that undergird life, many of which they interpret as swirling marbled paper, spontaneous tessellated drawings in marker, and writhing beaded sculptures that evoke biological forms like the rigid composition of a sea sponge.

 

Auerbach in their studio

Auerbach’s New York studio is brimming with these translations, and shelves lining the space are filled with puzzles, organic matter, and small treasures that inspire the artist’s works. They’re interested in how these structures and systems are not just the basis of life on Earth but also of craft and artistic traditions. For Auerbach, research into how pigments rest atop water or how variances in the velocity of the artist’s hand affects a painting is as important as the work itself. “I am quite compelled by things that just barely work. The near–impossibility is key,” they say.

After surveying the artist’s broad and diverse practice, the segment closes with “Auerglass,” an interactive organ-like instrument Auerbach created in collaboration with their friend and musician Cameron Mesirow. Made of glass and wood, the apparatus functions with pedals, keys, and pipes like the traditional design, although it requires two players. Each person has only half a keyboard—four octaves have been divided by alternating notes—and is required to pump air for the other. Physically engaging and rooted in the principles of sound, “Auerglass” is evidence of the artist’s interest in the experiential, connection, and the understanding that “the body is an important thinking tool.”

Auerbach will open a solo show titled TIDE on July 15 at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. That exhibition runs through January 14, 2024, and you can find more of their work on their site and Instagram. You also might enjoy earlier Art21 episodes on Wangechi Mutu and Guadalupe Maravilla.

 

Auerbach at “The Wave Organ” in San Francisco

Auerbach in their studio

Cameron Mesirow (left) and Auerbach (right) play “Auerglass”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Scientific Principles and Craft Traditions Converge in Tauba Auerbach’s Research-Focused Practice appeared first on Colossal.

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