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VIDEO ART

The Cost of Our

Choices: Alice Miceli’s
Projeto Chernobyl at
The Americas Society
1 WEEK AGO by JONAS ALBRO

Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl at Americas Society, October 9,

2019-January 25, 2020. Photo by OnWhiteWall.com.

What would it be like to really see a ghost? To peer

beyond the veil into a realm which coexists with
ours, but perpetually impossible to perceive? This
is one of the central animating principles of Alice
Miceli’s haunting Projeto Chernobyl, on view at the
Americas Society until January 25th. Using
radiographic film, Miceli has managed to visually
record gamma radiation still present in the
exclusion zone established surrounding the town
of Pripyat in the aftermath of the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986. There has been a recent renewed
interest in Chernobyl, particularly after the
sensational response to HBO’s prestige drama
retelling of the event from earlier this year. When
taken against the backdrop of a collective sense of
our impending doom from climate catastrophe,
Miceli’s work insists on a greater consciousness of
our accountability to our planet. But she does not
appeal to the angels of our better nature; instead,
this ideology is presented as a threat. The
exhibition seems to ask, what happens when we do
not check our worst instincts?

Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl at Americas Society, October 9,

2019-January 25, 2020. Photo by OnWhiteWall.com.

In a conversation with co-curator Gabriela Rangel

(the exhibition was curated by Rangel and Assistant
Curator Diana Flatto) published as part of the
exhibition, Miceli explains that the radiographic
film she used for this project is the same film often
used for human chest x-rays. She further explains
that this is because it is one of the most sensitive
varieties, and therefore would be most likely to
produce the most obvious results. While that
makes sense practically, the morbid metaphor of
her choice is impossible to ignore: the radiographs
become a medical evaluation of our very planet.
Placed within different parts of the exclusion zone
for months at a time between 2006-10, these
pieces of film were exposed directly to the deadly
gamma radiation which still occupies the air in
Chernobyl. While gamma radiation may be invisible
to the naked eye, it is certainly not invisible to
observation. The original film sheets are shown in
lightboxes, installed in a near pitch dark gallery
space with only the most basic context given at the
outset. Some appear to be blank, with only small
disruptions, while others are transformed. Curving
mellifluous forms disrupt the surface of the film,
like smoke or a blurry photograph of ripples over
the surface of water. The viewer gradually realizes
this is the radiation, captured as it wafts invisibly
through space. The experience of walking through
this exhibition is one of mounting dread, as the
implications of the aesthetically simple radiographs
dawn on the viewer. Miceli has employed her
knowledge of photographic processes to
devastatingly emotional effect. One can only
imagine how chilling it must have been for Miceli
to develop this film, and see the mark of this
undetectable killer. The end result of this
experience is one of creeping horror; not only of
the radiation, but of our own human capacity to
harm. It has been estimated that the nuclear fallout
from Chernobyl was roughly 400 times that of the
bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
with radioactivity levels which have remained high
for 33 years and will remain that way for hundreds,
if not thousands of years to come. However our
future as a species unfolds, this indelible mark will
remain, likely long past when we have faded into
the annals of Earth’s history. Our longest standing
monument will be an invisible one, and it will
commemorate our carelessness, and our hubris.
How’s that for a memento mori?

Alice Miceli: Projeto Chernobyl, on view through

January 20, 2020.

Alice Miceli's Projeto Chernobyl at America

Alice Miceli, fragment of a field III – 9.120 µSv (07.05.09 –

21.07.09), backlight, radiographic negative. Courtesy of the artist
and Galeria Nara Roesler.

Alice Miceli, Berlin-Moskau Express Train,

Germany, archival inkjet print, 2008. Courtesy of the artist
and Galeria Nara Roesler.

TAGS: ALICE MICELI, ALICE MICELI: PROJETO CHERNOBYL AT THE

AMERICAS SOCIETY, PROJETO CHERNOBYL, THE AMERICAS SOCIETY

JONAS ALBRO
JONAS ALBRO IS A BROOKLYN BASED CURATOR, WRITER, AND
ARTIST WRANGLER. HIS RESEARCH AND WRITING PRIMARILY
FOCUSES ON THE INTERSECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY ART
AND AMERICAN POLITICS, BUT HE HAS BEEN KNOWN TO
CRITIQUE AESTHETICS AS FAR BACK AS THE RENAISSANCE. HE
IS THE FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF "LEVEL GROUND," AN
ITINERANT CURATORIAL PROJECT DEDICATED TO INCREASING
DEMOCRATIC ACCESS TO THE ART WORLD. CURRENTLY, HE IS
WORKING TOWARDS AN MA IN ART HISTORY AT CUNY-HUNTER
COLLEGE. IN THE PAST, HE HAS WORKED FOR/COLLABORATED
WITH KURIMANZUTTO, BLACK BALL PROJECTS, THE IRVING
PENN FOUNDATION, YANCEY RICHARDSON GALLERY, AND THE
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM. IN 2017 HE RECEIVED
HIS BA IN ART HISTORY AND MUSEUM STUDIES FROM JAMES
MADISON UNIVERSITY.

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