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

Chris Burden, Wexner Castle, 1990. Addition of crenels and merlons to existing Peter Eisenman–designed building. © Chris Burden/Licensed by The Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Image description: Exterior view of a postmodern building with deconstructed red brick sections that include crenellations on the top recalling a castle. The building has white scaffolding to the right, and the foreground includes a partial view of a curved, fragmented amphitheater with sloping grass behind it.

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.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: Baseera Khan, Column 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 2019; background series I Arrive in Place with a High Level of Psychic Distress, 2020.

Image description: a gallery with white walls and granite tile floors. There are five sculptures in the foreground: three are stacked atop each other; one is leaned on a rectangular column; and one is resting flat on the floor. Each section is about 6 feet in diameter. They are round, flat, dissected sections that represent a Corinthian column. The outer edges of the column sections are wrapped in collaged, multicolored silk rugs; they each have pink foam cores with a central orange resin disc. Behind the sculptures are five photo collages of limbs and isolated body parts against a black background and covered by tapestries and rugs. Multicolored angular plexiglass pieces float above the photos in the frames.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: a project by Abraham Cruzvillegas with Tony Ball, Brianna Gluszak, Aaron Peters, Akeylah Wellington, and Bradley Weyandt.

Image description: A gallery with five sculptures resting directly on the floor, each is painted half red and half black. The smallest sculpture on the right looks like a wheelchair, the other sculptures are more abstract but have recognizable elements; in the foreground is the back of a chair, behind that an I-beam, and next to that, the largest piece has a cowboy boot coming off the sculpture to the left; in front of that are two sections of vacuum tubing.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: in foreground, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Drawing toward untoward reckonings, 2021. Background: Baseera Khan.

Image description: A gallery with a sculpture of a provisional trailer in the foreground made from plywood and metal. It has two tires and various elements attached to it, including a red cooler and portable solar panels. To the left, there are three large panels on the wall with clusters of sketches and maps pinned to it. In the background there are four photo collages visible on the wall; in front of those is a sculpture of a dissected fluted column wrapped in collaged, multicolored silk rugs.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: Raqs Media Collective, Provisions for Everybody, 2018.

Image description: A gallery with a video projection on white wall. The projection depicts a low building beneath a very large tree, and it is reflected in the shiny gold wallpaper that covers the long adjacent wall to the right. This wallpaper features green-outlined, computer-rendered illustrations including a boat, an insect, a pig, and a helicopter, all in different scales. The gallery has light-beige carpet and a maroon couch and chair facing the projection.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured: Jibade-Khalil Huffman, We Don’t Need Another Mural, 2019/2021.

Image description: A dimly lit gallery space with three walls and four projections. The left channel, viewed at an oblique angle, shows a news anchor next to an image of businesses with boarded-up windows. The center channel includes an image of a checkered tablecloth with puzzle pieces. The right channel has a black-and-white image of young person standing against a wall superimposed on a larger image of hands. There is AstroTurf on the ground, and seven staggered yard signs in yellow, black, blue, and red with words toward the back left corner of the space that read "We Don't" "CHAIN MAIL" "In This House." A projection on top of the signs renders some illegible.

Installation view of Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Pictured from left to right: Sable Elyse Smith, Landscape II, 2017; Carolyn Lazard, Pain Scale, 2019; Sable Elyse Smith, Coloring Book 56, 2020.

Image description: Three artworks hung on a long gallery wall, the furthest away, to the left, is a neon sculpture with white text that is illegible from afar and a yellow line below. Next, a series of six identical brown smiley face decals, equally spaced in a line. Two white columns are near the center of the image, and the framed work beyond depicts two coloring book pages that are blown-up, measuring about 5 foot tall. The frames are staggered so the drawing on the left is hung about 8 inches lower than that on the right. A globe runs across these two pages at the center of the spread. On the left page is the figure of a judge, a policeman, and a child, on the right there is a doctor, a man in overalls, and another child. The figures are colored in with red, blue, yellow, green, and cream marks that do not follow the lines of the forms, and most faces except for that of the man in the overalls is are obscured. Below them, text reads "IF WE ALL WORK TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE".