Exhibitions Plumb Artistic Responses To Disaster

By ULA ILNYTZKY

NEW YORK (AP) ⿿ Coke Wisdom O'Neal looked at the soggy, stained and discolored photographs strewn about his Brooklyn studio by the salty floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy, sure there was nothing he could do to salvage them. But as he began cleaning up, he became intrigued by the transformation of a series of old family slides into cloud-like watercolors with human figures still discernible.

Now those Kodachromes, reinvented by nature, are part of an exhibition in Manhattan of art inspired by Sandy, a phenomenon that is being included in a larger look at how artists respond creatively to disasters, such as the 2011 tornado in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and California's devastating 2007 wildfires.

"The storm destroyed tools, books, old artwork, drawings and unfinished work," said O'Neal, whose studio in Brooklyn's Red Hook section was swamped by 9 feet of water. "They now feel to me like objects that were holding me back from going forward."

The "After Affects" exhibition, featuring 36 storm-inspired works by 23 artists, opens Friday at the Chashama gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood. The show is curated by the New York Foundation for the Arts, which is assisting artists whose livelihoods suffered storm losses. Many studios and galleries were in waterfront warehouse areas that suffered some of the worst damage.

"A tragedy can be inspiring or devastating," said David Terry, the foundation's curator and director of programs. "Artists are rebuilding and have to do this as a healing process."

Some works have repurposed storm detritus; Scott Van Campen made a black-and-white photograph of a 700-ton tanker ship that washed ashore near his flooded Staten Island studio. He set it in a frame made of steel corroded by sewage.

Deborah Luken, of the Long Island community of Long Beach, is showing an oil painting that she started before the storm and "took on a life of its own."

1 2 3 Next › Last »