CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/30/2021

An argument for better captaining of spaceship Earth in 'Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks'

At a time when the Pacific Northwest is experiencing record-setting temperatures, a pandemic continues to circulate around the globe and migration trauma dominates not just the developing world, but our own southern border, Alexis Rockman’s Shipwrecks feels all too timely. Published to accompany a show currently on view at Guild Hall of East Hampton, it contains 70 color reproductions and essays by Andrea Grover, Daniel Finamore, Trevor Smith, Sasha Archibald, Chanda Laine Carey and Brett Littman. Guild Hall executive director Andrea Grover writes, “In a November 2017 interview on Boston’s WBUR radio station, Rockman said, ‘The history of life on this planet is psychedelic—it’s almost hard to comprehend how exciting it is and how phantasmagorical things can be. The stories of extinction, of invasive species, some of the darker parts of human legacy that have left not only humans doing things to humans, but humans doing things to other life on this Earth.’ Through the lens of the shipwreck, Alexis Rockman examines the complexity of the human psyche, the rearrangement of material culture and economies, and the exploitation of life, with its intended and unintended consequences. His paintings awaken imagination to the colossal impact of the Anthropocene, and with any luck inspire better captaining of spaceship Earth.”

Book design by Miko McGinty and Julia Ma, Miko McGinty Inc. Photo by Samuel Sachs Morgan.