Michael Wang Challenges Visions of a Nuclear Future
Michael Wang, Demon Core (Open), 2024. Aluminum and uranium glass, 4.7 x 9.3 x 9.3 in. Courtesy of the artist and Bienvenu Steinberg & C.
At Bienvenu Steinberg & C, the multidisciplinary artist Michael Wang presents Yellow Earth, an exhibition that explores the destructive capabilities of natural energy in a modern nuclear age. The exhibition engages in dialogue with the work of Walter De Maria, a key figure of land art, whose exploration of environmental relationships and atomic undertones parallel Wang’s. Wang leaves the viewer to observe the pure beauty of uranium while being confronted with the inextricable damage and tragedy its misuse has caused.
The United States government began uranium mining in the 1940s in preparation for a dawning nuclear era. This became a daunting reality by 1948 when the mining “boom” began in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona as the Cold War escalated. The mining invaded the land of the Navajo Nation and is just one of the countless examples of the US government dismissing the rights of Indigenous peoples, the sacredness of their land, and the safety of their communities.
Installation view of Michael Wang: Yellow Earth, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Bienvenu Steinberg & C.
Commonly referred to as “leetso” or “yellow dirt,” uranium has continued to plague the land and water supply of the Navajo community. With over 500 abandoned uranium mines, inhabitants of these cities suffer from higher rates of lung cancer, bone cancer, and kidney disease due to radioactive exposure.
A central piece of the exhibition, The Collision Bar (Three Balls), is a smooth aluminum rod that holds three uranium-pigmented glass marbles. The rod is similar to a control rod of a nuclear reactor, housing the luminescent yellow orbs of uranium, encapsulating both the power and peril associated with the mineral. The refined aesthetic of the exhibition allows the viewer to view uranium in its intrinsic beauty while being juxtaposed with its ingrained political ramifications.
Michael Wang, Collision Bars (1-3-9), 2024. Stainless steel and uranium glass, 2 x 2.25 x 15.5 in (each bar). Courtesy of the artist and Bienvenu Steinberg & C.
Along the floor of the gallery are aluminum tubes containing radioactive soil samples from what was known as the Grants Mineral Belt, New Mexico’s uranium mining region. Walking around the aluminum bars, I felt uneasy knowing the catastrophic power of the mineral housed inside. In our nuclear age, uranium is the catalyst for tragedy and corruption, but in a white-walled gallery on a side street in SoHo, I couldn't help but be enamored by the beauty of its liquid yellow.
This deep, vibrant yellow recurs in Wang’s Yellow Painting series (2024), where he draws inspiration from De Maria’s Yellow Painting from 1968, The Color Men Choose When They Attack the Earth. De Maria’s pieces were painted in John Deere’s signature yellow in reference to the machinery used in mining and construction. In Wang’s version, images of uranium dust and abandoned mining sites remind us of the destructive nuclear legacy left behind for Indigenous communities to endure.
Michael Wang, Yellow Painting (Tailings), 2024. Powder-coated aluminum and pigment print, 36 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist and Bienvenu Steinberg & C.
Wang’s engraved aluminum panels, titled Pie Town, map out the well water contamination in the area. By the late 1970s, the United States government continued to search for areas to mine, and instead found the water contamination levels in the area had surpassed the federally accepted limit of 30 parts per billion, at a staggering 300 parts per billion. Drawing inspiration from De Maria’s work Lightning Field, set 20 minutes outside of Pie Town, Wang urges viewers to reflect on their relationship to the earth and criticizes the ongoing push for industrial gain over environmental preservation. The exhibition aims to present these staggering statistics to the viewer, not to paint uranium in a positive or negative light, but to present the information alongside the earthly mineral itself, allowing the viewer to come to their own moral conclusion.
Demon Core (Open) and Demon Core (Closed) recall another catastrophic instance of nuclear weapons. From Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, Wang designed these artworks to resemble a nuclear bomb originally intended to be the third dropped on Japan, reminding us of the heavy toll of nuclear warfare endured by Asian and Pacific peoples.
In an interview with Eastern Standard Times, Wang expressed his disappointment in films surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb like Oppenhiemer. The attempt to humanize the creators of the atomic bomb rather than its victims “felt like an erasure.” There’s an unsettling numbness to the catastrophic effects of nuclear warfare, and while countries search for new ways of creating nuclear energy, we brush aside the damage our past “tests” have caused. As contamination levels rise among indigenous communities in New Mexico, the mining sites abandoned from the 1970s remain untouched and uncleaned. As scientists search for new ways to mine uranium, the families of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still mourn the indiscriminate death of their loved ones.
Yellow Earth presents a double-edged relationship between humans and earth, one that reminds us to have conversations about societal attitudes toward environmental issues. Always looking forward, Wang challenges viewers to consider the broader implications of human actions on the natural world and the systems that govern our lives.
Michael Wang: Yellow Earth was on view from June 27th through August 31st, 2024 at Bienvenu Steinberg & C, New York.
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