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August Issue 2004
The Redux Center for Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Robert Knoth
The Redux Center for Contemporary Art is presenting an exhibition in Gallery B entitled,
Half Life: Living with the Effects of Nuclear Waste: The Work of Robert Knoth, on display from Aug. 5 - 25, 2004. These images are from Mayak, a Russian nuclear site that is considered the most polluted place on earth featuring images by Dutch photographer Robert Knoth.
At first glance, the black and white photographs are deceptively charming. There are fat-faced farmers standing in their fields, children playing happily in a kindergarten classroom, generations of family members gathering together to have a portrait taken. Study the photographs for a while and a darker truth emerges. One of the farmers is standing on crutches to support his twisted frame, while the childrenšs eyes are frighteningly vacant. The shadows of decades of grief and horror are etched on the faces of the family members. Then the pictures get worse. There is a teenager who is shrunken and disabled, despite his youth. And, perhaps most horrifying of all, jars containing grotesquely deformed stillborn babies.
This exhibit, which takes its name from the fact that plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, brings the reality home of the dangers of this deadly substance. This exhibit comes at a crucial time, since a shipment of 330 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium is slated to come through Charleston Harbor in late summer. The risk of exposure, poisoning the people and environment cannot be ignored when gazing at this poignant exhibit. The exhibit is being sponsored by Greenpeace International and Citizens Against Plutonium.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery lisatings, call Redux at 843-722-0697, e-mail at (reduxstudios@hotpop.com) or at (www.reduxstudios.org).
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