“There is another world, but it is in this one,” said Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In this exhibition, artists look to the future, imagining how we move forward from the tumultuous events of the past year. [read more]
Art in the Plague Year is an online exhibition organized by UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov, and Rita Sobreiro Souther. UCR ARTS’s programs are supported by UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the City of Riverside, Altura Credit Union, and Anheuser-Busch.
All works in this exhibition are reproduced with permission of the artists/copyright holders. Works (images, video, audio or other content) must not be used or reproduced for any purposes other than fair use without prior consent of the artists.
(b. 1972, Temple City, CA. Lives and works in Colton, CA)
Selections from Chemical Landscapes – Scarring Land & Time
Early in the pandemic lockdown, Andrew K. Thompson commenced a set of images under the title Chemical Landscapes – Scarring Land & Time. The photographs depict “an apocalyptic vision of nature’s future,” he states. Thompson is an imperfectionist. He cuts and punctures, stitches and stains. He does to photographs what mankind is doing to the planet. Thompson’s practice has a punk edge. Destruction as creation with metaphoric aims. His markers of scruffy inland Southern California—palm trees, power lines—are intentionally generic: a place, not this exact place. And his work contains a strong streak of environmental activism. “It’s no longer authentic to create pristine images of grand landscapes. That’s obvious. The actual landscapes are falling apart in front of us. On the other hand, if we’re already on the road to ruining everything, there’s an intense freedom in that.”
