BOMBHEAD explores impact of the nuclear age at Vancouver Art Gallery
A “thematic exhibition” known as BOMBHEAD that “explores the emergence and ongoing impact of the nuclear age” through the work of artists, designers, filmmakers, photojournalists, and physicists, is coming to the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Guest-curated by John O’Brian, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at UBC, BOMBHEAD combines atomic ephemera with artwork drawn primarily from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s collection.
Encompassing the pre- and post-war period from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, to the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, the exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photographs, film and video that deal with this often dark subject matter.
Each installation is strongly linked with the themes of with obliteration and destruction.
“We are very pleased to present BOMBHEAD, which explores the profound cultural and ecological impact of nuclear technologies through the art and visual culture of the nuclear era,” says Kathleen Bartels, Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
“In a time marked by ongoing nuclear proliferation, this timely exhibition compels us to observe and reflect on the major role Canada has played in nuclear events since their emergence in the mid-twentieth century.”
Bartels added that themes explored in this particular exhibition will “strongly resonate” with the works on view in Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg (February 3 – May 6, 2018), which reflect Murakami’s own reckoning with the nuclear age.
BOMBHEAD opens on March 3 and runs through until June 17, 2018.
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