Hot Air
Curator Fran Beallor presents Water’s Voice and Our Fragile Moment at Hudson Guild in Chelsea, two exhibitions that focus on environmental damage—melting ice, polluted waters, deforestation, plastic waste, extreme weather, and species extinction. The goal is to make these vast and often abstract issues accessible to the wide public.
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Each exhibition has a distinct focus. Water’s Voice deals with the state of the planet’s water: rising temperatures, disrupted currents, contamination, and loss. Our Fragile Moment takes a broader view, addressing how human activity alters the land, air, and ecosystems. The works are made from a range of materials—some natural, some repurposed, some synthetic—but all connected by their attempt to record or respond to a changing world.
Eleanor Goldstein, at 88, traveled on a fishing trawler in the Arctic Circle as part of an artist and scientist residency. Her paintings Requiem and Night Shadows capture what she describes as the loss of icebergs. Camille Seaman, a photographer, and Shinnecock native has been documenting the Arctic since 2004. She sees icebergs as portraits, a record of something that will not last. “Sometimes I’m weeping as I take the picture because I feel like this is all I can do: push this button.”
Beallor structured Our Fragile Moment so that each exhibition section deals with a different part of the crisis. One wall is dedicated to species extinction. Another to salvaged materials—trash collected, reassembled, and made into something new. There are works about wildfires, floods, and oil spills. In the center of the room, woven willow baskets hang, filled with discarded plastic, displayed alongside drawings of littered landscapes.
Some of the installations were made for the space. Susan Knight’s Vertical Mixing, an 8-foot-high sculpture cut from Tyvek, stands in Water’s Voice, a structure meant to suggest movement, change, and instability. Michelle Lougee’s sculpted jellyfish, made from plastic waste, hang in the gallery’s glass entrance. They move slightly, responding to air currents.
Along with the exhibitions, Beallor has organized artist talks, workshops, and Hot Climate Art Film Night, a screening of short films and documentaries that expand on the show’s themes.
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WATER’S VOICE: Guild Gallery II, 119 9th Avenue, New York, NY 10011
OUR FRAGILE MOMENT: Hudson Guild Gallery, 441 W. 26th Street, New York, NY 10001. Curated by Fran Beallor. Through April 22, 2025