SEEING CLIMATE CHANGE

Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change, 2002-2021 was on view at The American University Museum, Washington DC from August 28 through December 12, 2021. It covered 20 years of Burko’s work on climate change and ecological crisis. The 115 page hardback catalog for the show, featuring a foreword by Jack Rasmussen with text by Bill McKibben, Diane Burko, Norma Broude, Mary D. Garrard, is available through ArtBook.com.

Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change, 2002-2021 Installation at AU: Photography by Greg Staley.

Climate Conscience

“This was the year when public awareness of ecocide reached at least an orange alert level. Direct response from museums and galleries remained muted, with notable exceptions being “Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change,” a solo exhibition of paintings at the Katzen Arts Center of American University in Washington (through Dec. 12); and a survey of early work by the ecofeminist artist Betsy Damon at La MaMa Galleria in Manhattan. In New York, the major statement on the theme of present and future catastrophe took place, appropriately, outdoors, in Madison Square Park, where Maya Lin’s “Ghost Forest,” a grove of dead and salvaged Atlantic white cedars, all victims of environmental damage, was installed last Spring. Surrounded by the park’s lush greenery the lifeless trees made for a starkly majestic cautionary tableau, an arboreal “Burghers of Calais.” (And when they finally came down, they were given new life by teenagers learning to build boats.)”

by Carter Ratcliff — November 12, 2021

Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change, 2021. Video by Katie Supplee.

American University Panel featuring: Diane Burko, artist; Eleanor Heartney, art critic and author; Jennifer McGregor, Curator and Arts Planner; Bill McKibben, environmentalist, author and journalist.

Climate Change in the News, 2021. Digital video, 26:04, edited by Emma Soria.