Two Shows, One Planet: The Endless Summer + Earthwork

This Fall Kohler Art Library presents two shows with one idea: art addressing global climate change. Hanging on the library’s walls is “The Endless Summer,” curated by UW-Madison MFA students and faculty adviser Derrick Buisch, while “Earthwork,” artists’ books dealing with the same theme, are on display in the cases. “What started as an idea to display work students had created over the summer morphed into a new project–art on climate change,” said Kohler Art Library Director Lyn Korenic. “What if the summer stretched on and never ended?”

Korenic then pulled materials from the library’s artist book collection that expanded upon and complemented the library’s wall show.  These books bear witness to the many ways planet Earth has been irreparably impacted by human activity. From Tate Shaw’s The Ground, which photographs a geothermal area of Iceland and former hydrofracking sites in Pennsylvania, to Barbara Milman’s A Pocket List, an accordion book whose illustrations are based on a 10th century Spanish illuminated manuscript of the Apocalypse, these artists’ books eloquently and devastatingly represent the unfolding of the sixth extinction.

“Endless Summer” will be on display through December 2019

“Earthwork” will be on display through November 2019

Image: Barbara Milman, A Pocket List, 2015