Thursday, October 24, 2019

Michael Wang's Extinct in New York



Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) in partnership with the Swiss Institute presented Michael Wang’s Extinct in New York,  the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the United States, at LMCC art center on Governors Island.

 Four giant greenhouses stand in the middle of a laboratory-looking exhibition space. The greenhouses contain selections of living species of plants, algae, lichen that used to be common in the natural environments of New York City, but no longer exist in the wild anymore. The plants, the greenhouses, and the care of from the staff from Art center become an artificial ecosystem that gives a peek at the process of reintroducing these organisms back to where they used to live. The exhibition is also accompanied with photos and watercolor paintings of the exhibited species in a scientific illustrations highlighting that the audiences can only see these species through presented reproductions.

 It is an paradoxical that the plants that once existed, now can only survive in greenhouses under human maintenance. Although with all the staff and volunteers’ care, some parts of the organisms in the greenhouse still look quite wasted. The fragility of these species remind us the act of human intervention and irreversible outcome of extinct in New York.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ziping!

    I think you gave a great explanation of the content and the overall goal and background of the exhibition.

    Perhaps you could be a little clearer about what your opinion or judgement of the show was? Did you think it was interesting, successful, or boring, ineffective, etc?

    Note below my corrections for how to use the words "contain" and "peek", as well as a reminder to keep your pronouns consistent. You used "these" earlier in the sentence, so you need to use "these" (instead of "it").

    "...The greenhouse CONTAINS selections of living species of plants, algae, AND lichen.."

    "...that gives THE AUDIENCE A PEEK INTO the process of reintroducing these organisms back to where THEY used to be."

    Best,
    Caito

    ReplyDelete
  2. This review accurately captures the concept and formal elements seen in the exhibition. However, there are some grammatical errors which detract from the strong content of the review.
    I would suggest changing “The plants, the greenhouses, and the care of from the staff from Art center…” to “The plants, the greenhouses and the care from the staff at LMCC…” In addition, the fifth sentence is unclear. It could read: “The exhibition is also accompanied by photos and watercolor paintings of the exhibited species. These works are presented as scientific illustrations, highlighting that the audience can only see these species as reproductions.”

    ReplyDelete