Alice Miceli - Projeto Chernobyl

Alice Miceli Projeto Chernobyl
October 9, 2019–January 25, 2020

Americas Society presents Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl, a series of 30 radiographs produced in 2006-2010 and documenting the residual effects of the 1986 Ukrainian nuclear plant explosion. The exhibition, curated by Gabriela Rangel (Artistic Director, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires and former Chief Curator and Director, Visual Arts, Americas Society) and Diana Flatto (Assistant Curator, Americas Society), is the first to bring the series Projeto Chernobyl (Chernobyl Project), by Alice Miceli (b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1980), to the United States.

Gamma radiation is invisible to the naked eye and to traditional methods of photography that have been used to document the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone’s ruins. With her innovative radiographic technique, the artist makes the destructive energy visible via direct contact between the radiation and her film, which was exposed in the region for months at a time.

“In Chernobyl, where the defining quality of the environment is the invisible radioactive contamination, which is pervasive but not perceived by our senses, the question of the project became: ‘How to look, and by what means?,’” Miceli commented. “I see the act of walking through impenetrable spaces as a form of resistance. I’m specifically trying to access and offer a point of view from within the land that has been occupied.”

“Alice Miceli’s work is very unusual and rare within the narratives of Latin American art,” said Rangel. “She has a unique niche in her research on questions that affect our bodies in a biopolitical manner. She’s one of the few artists concerned with the militarization of the world in the bodies and minds of people today.”

“Miceli’s work is increasingly relevant today in Brazil, Latin America, and the rest of the world,” said Flatto. “It raises pressing issues about clean energy and the environment that go beyond the specific moment or place as we are witnessing destruction of the Amazon, depletion of natural resources, and broader climate change.”

Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl unearths the layers behind nuclear disaster—a continuous threat to human and environmental safety. Miceli questions the military, economic, and political contexts of damaged landscapes like the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, inviting a confrontation of the history of our society.

Curated by Gabriela Rangel and Diana Flatto

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication including an interview between the co-curators and the artist.

The presentation of Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl is made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the generous support from Galeria Nara Roesler.

Additional support comes from The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Garcia Family Foundation, and the Consulate General of Brazil in New York.

Americas Society gratefully acknowledges the support from the Arts of the Americas Circle members: Estrellita Brodsky; Galeria Almeida e Dale; Kaeli Deane; Diana Fane; Isabella Hutchinson; Carolina Jannicelli; Vivian Pfeiffer and Jeanette van Campenhout, Phillips; Luis Oganes; Roberto Redondo; Erica Roberts; Sharon Schultz; Herman Sifontes; and Edward J. Sullivan.