Christo’s Over the River project planned for 2014 is getting a mixed reply from local environmental groups. For his large-scale art installation in Bighorn Sheep Canyon near Denver, Christo wants visitors to “float down the river” and “see the sky and canyon walls through translucent, wind-rippled fabric suspended above.” Read more »
A horde of supposed “anarchists” stormed a mayor’s office in a Moscow suburb in a flash mob of environmental activism and Molotov cocktails. Tensions over the destruction of the ancient Khimki forest have been mounting for years, recently elevating. Read more »
Christo (sans recently deceased Jeanne-Claude) has planned a sequel to their Gates installation, laying orange fabric panels along 42.4 miles of Arkansas River – but first, a rigorous, fully documented examination of the environmental impact. Christo points out that oil companies’ projects undergo a much lighter review. Good point. Let’s hope it doesn’t get mistaken for an AT&T advertisement.
In case you collect art or enjoy inflicting perpetual phobias on young children, Matt Campbell’s stiff stuffed toys are now available for sale at the Gallery Hanahou online shop. They’re dipped in black acrylics and drip with environmental nightmares.
As we continue to consume compulsively and poison our environment (fuck you, imaginary grandkids!), artist Matt Campbell says “We know it’s bad but we can’t stop – because we love all the cool shiny new stuff we make.” So here’s the cool shiny stuff he made: manufactured, loved, trashed, then rescued and “entombed in a symbolic black rubber skin” (acrylic, really) – these cuddly little guilt trips cry out from a dead world with their button eyes. The New Zealender/ex-Japan-dweller/New Yorker’s solo exhibit at Gallery Hanahou opens tomorrow with tons of these cute, oily nightmares.
“Out of the Black,” Matt Campbell, Apr 1 – Apr 30, Gallery Hanahou, New York City
The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to declare Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal a Superfund site, a move that would bring in federal money to thoroughly cleanup the polluted waterway. The EPA reports that sediment in the canal is “contaminated with a variety of pollutants, including pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals and volatile organic contaminants (VOCs), and significant contamination associated with coal tar.” There’s widespread support for flushing out the canal, however critics worry that proposed developments in the area will be delayed, or even killed, by the cleanup efforts. Some developers are even concerned that the Superfund status has too much negative stigma, as though the 1.8-mile cesspool didn’t have any already. |NY Times|
Photo by Will Sherman
Most people like the bad news first so here it goes. For the first time in human history the North Pole will not be surrounded by frozen ice, providing more direct evidence to the global warming trend. Now the good news. Arctic nations and oil companies could benefit greatly, since they’ll be “able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.” See, not all’s lost. |Independent|
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