Dissonance
Stephen Hendee, Lair
40'x 26'x 12'
Polypropylene, Tape, Assigned LED, Projection mapping
It was 104 degrees in Bend last Sunday. Central Oregon is already an arid place where dust, pine needles, and lava rock dominate the landscape. Sunday it felt like a tinderbox. To escape the heat, Mark and I spent a few hours at the High Desert Museum south of town. A Smithsonian affiliate, the museum is well-funded and curated. It hosts thoughtful art, history, and cultural exhibitions as well as natural history displays like live tarantulas, burrowing owls, and snakes.
One of the current art exhibits is Lair: Light and the Art of Stephen Hendee. Taking up an entire room, Hendee’s installation features floor to ceiling translucent geometric panels, glowing red and orange. The panels are lit from within and also serve as screens for projected video of flames. Evoking Oregon’s volcanic landscape, the room feels like you’re deep underground. But also in the middle of a forest fire. But also in a surreal world where the aforementioned dragon might pop out.
Accompanied by a steampunky audio loop, the overall effect is futuristic. And yet, not. The day we visited the museum, wildfires erupted all around Oregon and Northern California, and are raging away this week. Sitting in Hendee’s exhibit, I have to admit I felt like I was being hit over the head with a metaphor of a reality I already hitting our heads.
If one goal of some art is to make viewers uncomfortable, this installation worked. One of the most unnerving aspects was that the room remained cool while Hendee’s Lair smoldered around me. I could reflect on climate catastrophe without being physically threatened. Which is basically like the rest of my relatively privileged life. I didn’t burn up in the nearby McKinney fire. Nor did I lose my home in Kentucky.
Exhibition literature promised this installation would “prompt dialogue about humanity’s relationship with the landscape.” For me it felt like an immersion in what I’m already immersed in – a world in which the time for dialogue has passed and where the only thing that matters is action. Standing in Lair, I felt disconnected and impotent. The flames and lights flashed around me until I decided to walk out of the room.
Then again, here I am posting about the installation and inviting dialogue!
I left the Lair with questions about art’s role in the climate crisis. If Hendee’s intention was to create an inferno people could enter safely, what purpose does that serve? Should art spur us to action? Does an artist whose subject is climate change have a responsibility to offer solutions or tools? Or is holding up a mirror enough?