With photography, painting, interactive installation and video, Claudia X. Valdes considers a nuclear explosion at a point of its impact, the Trinity Site in New Mexico, where the atom bomb was tested in 1945. Her exhibit at Lawrimore Project, titled Ten Million Degrees, runs through March 14.
In 1983, Jacob Lawrence completed a series titled Hiroshima.
Several years ago I was invited by the Limited Editions Club of New York to illustrate a book of my choosing from a list of the club’s many titles. I selected the book Hiroshima, written by the brilliant writer John Hersey This work was selected because of its power, insight, scope, and sensitivity as well as for its overall content My intent was to illustrate a series of events that were taking place at the moment of the dropping of the bomb… August 6, 1945. The challenge for me was to execute eight works: a marketplace, a playground, a street scene, a park, farmers, a family scene, a man with birds, and a boy with a kite. Not a particular country, not a particular city and not a particular people.
Valdez marshals her media to create a series of moments. As if fearful the attention of the audience might wander, she changes her approach like a nervous suitor changing clothes for a big date.
Lawrence’s series is not interactive except in the traditional sense, that it catches the eye and holds it. Valdez’s work is technically astute. Lawrence’s isn’t, but next to his, hers looks simple-minded, too caught up in the toys of its time and place to make any one thing matter.
Recurring Dream, Nine, 2002 (Detail) Digital print on board, video monitor, 10 minute video 48″ x 60″ Unique
Image via Lawrimore Project
Jacob Lawrence, Farmers from the Hiroshima series
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