Syndicate: Carey Young: Atomic

[Inke Arns <inke@berlin.snafu.de>]

From: "Young, Carey SR" <Carey.Young@capgemini.co.uk>
Subject: Atomic
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:14:12 -0000


Why not sculpt with radioactive material?


ATOMIC


New Works by James Acord, Carey Young and Mark Waller


Imperial College Gallery and the Queen's Tower, Imperial College,
Exhibition Road, London SW7
until 26th November 1998
tours the UK in 1999

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'Atomic' - a controversial new exhibition, confronts our fears and
assumptions about science and the nuclear industry.

Featuring the work of American sculptor James Acord - the only private
individual in the world licensed to own and handle radioactive materials
- 'Atomic' deals with the tricky issue of the idealism behind the 'white
heat of technology' of the fifties and sixties and attempts to break
down the wall of secrecy which has shielded the nuclear industry since
the cold war.

Acord's deadly serious ambition to build a 'nuclear stonehenge' on a
heavily contaminated site at Hanford - home of the Bomb - has led him
into a tragi-comic dance with the US Department of Energy. Atomic leads
us through his perilous 15-year journey to a site-specific display of
his nuclear reliquaries - specially commissioned for his UK residency -
and introduces the complementary work of two young British artists,
Carey Young and Mark Waller.

As a counterpoint, Young travelled to the former USSR to photograph the
remnants of the Space Race. She portrays these technological crown
jewels as they lie stranded in the present, like the scattering of an
unruly time capsule. Removed from the familiar iconography of science
fiction or Cold War paranoia, these little-seen giants of the Twentieth
Century imagination appear small and vulnerable, like the shock of
celebrity glimpsed in the flesh.

Meanwhile, Waller gained access to some of Britain's nuclear power
stations to film a short thriller, shown as an installation, about
itinerant nuclear power workers who mysteriously develop superhuman
qualities, featuring Mark E. Smith of the Fall. Post-shift in the early
hours of the morning, the deranged jokes of the contractors lean over
into belief as they talk of their superhuman prowess, metamorphosed by
radiation.

'Atomic' is organised by the science-art agency The Arts Catalyst, who
specialise in unusual collaborations between artists and scientists.
Their next project will be with a dancer who works in zero gravity,
courtesy of the French Space Agency.

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colour catalogue available, with an essay by James Flint, price ? 9.95 

Press: for interviews and photos contact Anastasia Calder: 
tel +44 171 375 3690
fax +44 171 377 0298
email: supanova@artscat.demon.co.uk

More information on the show and on The Arts Catalyst
http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk/prog.htm



Carey Young
FutureWorks 
tel: (internal) 771 8133
(external) 0171 434 8133

Cap Gemini (UK) PLC
carey.young@capgemini.co.uk
http://www.capgemini.co.uk