Past Exhibitions

Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment

Foregrounding contemporary artists’ engagement with social issues and shaping institutions, Climate Changing raises critical questions as we face the entwined crises of systemic racism and a global health pandemic. What role do art and culture play in revealing legacies of oppression and violence? How might artists help imagine a different future? How can all of us, collectively, create a real climate for change?

Designed as a forum to test ideas about what an arts institution could be, the Wex is uniquely positioned to act as a platform for these investigations. In that spirit, Climate Changing will restage a work commissioned for the center’s inaugural year: Chris Burden’s Wexner Castle (1990). By adding battlements to the brick sections of the building’s deconstructivist design (a reference to the Armory that once stood on its site), the late artist’s work offers a launchpad for questions pertinent to today’s social and political climate:

  • Is the museum a fortress to protect “precious” cultural objects or is it a platform for producing new ones?
  • If the purpose of museums is to provide and produce spaces for culture—and by extension act as arbiters of value—how can they forge pathways toward ethical awareness and foster active, equitable participation in shaping those values?
  • What are artists’ roles within institutions, communities, and culture?
  • Whom do museums serve?

Shared among the exhibiting artists is a use of criticism as a generative tool to reorient one’s position relative to unjust systems, structures, and effects of power—and to reenvision how these establishments and infrastructures might operate. The artists in Climate Changing deal with a range of matters such as mass incarceration; global warming; labor, debt, and economic inequality; colonization; racism; education and democracy; and ableism. By presenting projects that span multiple themes and frameworks, the exhibition emphasizes the power of intersectionality and interdependence and encourages a collective reimagining of our social environment.

Climate Changing features nine commissioned works, including Bird and Lava, a 2020–21 Wexner Center Artist Residency Award project by Torkwase Dyson. Alongside her new body of work in the galleries, Dyson’s project has a website the artist created during lockdown that has served as a repository for sketches, animations, and her thinking about historical and contemporary Black liberation strategies by those working in and against hostile and inhospitable environs.

ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION

Dave Hullfish Bailey+ • Chris Burden • Abraham Cruzvillegas with Tony Ball, Brianna Gluszak, Aaron Peters, Akeylah Wellington, and Bradley Weyandt+ • Demian DinéYazhi´+ • Torkwase Dyson+ • Futurefarmers+ • Jibade-Khalil Huffman+ • Baseera Khan+ • Carolyn Lazard • Park McArthur • Danielle Julian Norton+ • Pope.L • Raqs Media Collective • Related Tactics+ • Jacolby Satterwhite • Sable Elyse Smith • Constantina Zavitsanos

+ commissioned work

EXHIBITION ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Dan DiPiero, Lecturer, Ohio State • Erica Levin, Assistant Professor, History of Art, Ohio State • Margaret Price, Director of Disability Studies Program and Associate Professor, Department of English, Ohio State • Maurice Stevens, Professor, Comparative Studies, Ohio State • Lucille Toth, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Italian, Ohio State (Newark), and Artistic Director, OnBoard(hers)

Organized by the Wex, Climate Changing will be accompanied by a robust, illustrated gallery guide featuring an essay by exhibition curator Lucy I. Zimmerman and commissioned and previously unpublished writings from Pope.L, Demian DinéYazhi’, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, and Park McArthur and Constantina Zavitsanos. Excerpts from a roundtable discussion with the advisory committee created for Climate Changing will also be included.

READ MORE

The Wexner Center for Arts’ Associate Curator of Exhibitions Lucy I. Zimmerman and Director of Learning & Public Practice Dionne Custer Edwards take a closer look at select works by artists Carolyn Lazard and Sable Elyse Smith featured in the exhibition Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, on view through August 15, 2021.

Related Material

Program Support

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Associate Curator of Exhibitions Lucy I. Zimmerman with assistance from Ohio State Contemporary Art Curatorial Practice MA students Dareen Hussein and Anna Talarico.

SUPPORT FOR THIS EXHIBITION
Ohio State's Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
Cardinal Health
Nancy and David Gill
The Guitammer Company

FREE SUNDAYS POWERED BY
American Electric Power Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Greater Columbus Arts Council
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
L Brands Foundation
American Electric Power Foundation
The Columbus Foundation
Ohio Arts Council
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Huntington
Nationwide Foundation
Adam R. Flatto
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease
Arlene and Michael Weiss

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Carol and David Aronowitz
Michael and Paige Crane
Axium Plastics
Fenwick & West LLP
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
KDC/ONE
M/I Homes
Ohio State Energy Partners
Washington Prime Group
Lisa Barton
Russell and Joyce Gertmenian
Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel
Nancy Kramer
Matrix Psychological Services
Paramount Group, Inc.
Bruce and Joy Soll
Business Furniture Installations
CASTO
E.C. Provini Co, Inc.
M-Engineering
New England Development
Our Country Home
ProAmpac

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Past Exhibitions

Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment