Oppenheimer and Barbie, Sort Of
Hi Friends,
Weirdly, the zeitgeist of this summer's art offerings converges nicely on an essay I wrote for Plutonium in March of 2022 for my soon-to-be published book on the Elements and the universe of Art. (Last week's missive was short; this one makes up for that. :)
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." is a line from the Bhagavad-Gita, allegedly spoken by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, upon witnessing the Trinity test, the first atomic bomb detonation, January 16th, 1945. A mushroom cloud 7 1/2 miles high, created by splitting atoms in a 13 1/2 pound ball of Plutonium, rose above the team of scientists, some of whom wept, some of whom laughed nervously, most of whom were silent. At 5:29 AM on that day, civilization created the means to annihilate all life on earth.
Plutonium was literally smack in the center of it. This Element is the one supreme freak on the Chart. Where to even start? It is the worst heat conductor of all metals. It's been shrouded in secrecy for 80 years. First identified in 1940, Pu was created by bombarding Uranium 238 in a cyclotron, which created Neptunium (Yay, new Element!), which decayed into Plutonium 238 with a half-life of 88 years. It became the first synthetic Element made in a sufficient quantity to be visible without a microscope. Subsequent study confirms that it is, in fact, naturally occurring. In Uranium ore, pitchblende, there is Plutonium from Uranium decay. It therefore is the highest number on the chart that naturally exists in the earth's crust. It is warm to the touch. In a closed container it will heat itself to red hot. It reacts quickly with Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Silicon and all the halogens. In moist air, a small sample can expand up to 70% and shatter a container and the "rust" flaking off can spontaneously ignite. Its melting point is low at 1,183 degrees Fahrenheit. Its boiling point is very high at 5,849 degrees Fahrenheit. It has 6 different allotropes -- crystallographic phases at normal pressures, as brittle as glass or as squashable as Aluminum, and a seventh when pressurized. It is more than twice as dense as Iron. Plutonium increases in density when it melts. (Think about that for a moment). It's bright silver but turns dull gray rapidly, or slightly green or yellowish, or one of 54 different documented colors. Different isotopes emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. A 12 pound ball of Pu 239 radioactively decays releasing 9 1/2 watts of power continuously for tens of thousands of years. The batteries powering the Voyager, Cassini, Galileo, and New Horizons space probes, as well as the Mars Rover, use Pu 238 to make up to 500 watts of continuous power from a two pound slug. Some heart pacemakers have been implanted using a tiny version of these power cells, but doctors have discontinued that program. Famously, the activist Ralph Nader claimed that a pound of Pu dust spread properly(?!) could kill 8 billion people. Scientists dispute this statement. They do not dispute the challenges of storing the toxic waste of dismantled nuclear bombs or nuclear plant spent fuel. Programs such as making two ton glass and Plutonium oxide logs encased in stainless steel canisters and dropped into two mile deep bore holes plugged with concrete have never been enacted to protect humanity from the deadly radiation that will endure for tens of thousands of years. The state of Plutonium storage is not public knowledge, although, strangely, laws for flying with it exist. It is the most dangerous element on the chart, both in the many ways it can kill you medically or explosively. I highly recommend the books out there chatting about this super freak. AND look at the photographs of nuclear detonations. They are truly visions from the apocalypse.
The 98' tower holding the bomb was vaporized and the sand of the ground was fused into a green, radioactive quasicrystal named "trinitite." The artwork shows the tiny tower and expanding fireball, the glow on the ground from the searing light. Pluto was discovered in 1929, and, following Uranium and Neptunium, the Element name was logical. I have to think its namesake god of the underworld was recognized during the naming process. All three of these Elements in my visual universe had to be somewhat spherical, planets ya know. The artwork could be a bee's eye view of a flower, a bubble from the primordial slime of life, an ovum, a molecular cloud captured by the Hubble telescope's vision. Life or annihilation, miniscule to cosmic scale.
The close up immersion in a flower's gravity was one particular artist's superpower. Georgia O'Keeffe lived primarily in New Mexico, not far from Alamogordo where the "Gadget" was detonated. Her work was part of my initial motivation to portray Plutonium, but as I studied her paintings, I discovered her depiction of the natural world was all about the sensuous glowing aspect of our world. Her work is so much about auras, energy pulsing from within. Her use of gradations of hue is the expanding bloom under the sun's warmth. All of her paintings feel like the primordial apprehension of an object. Her depiction of a mesa is its warmth; a bleached skull, its vibrancy of life intact. In O'Keeffe's work, the insistent shape of the yoni that exists throughout art history and in the mind of every human and suffuses the organic universe, is a constant portrayal of the seat of creation. It is a pure form. She shows us, with the strength only a woman could wield, the feminine principle distilled into an idea AND an artistic motif. In her work, the depiction of reality necessarily involves the creation of life -- her vision -- manifested with paint. Yin, as the force of life itself, energy emanating from all things. And the Yang? Male scientists engineer obliteration, creating radioactive glass shards from mother earth, vaporizing reality. From the outset, my depiction of Plutonium had to be the microsecond after detonation, as a blossom frozen, before the cataclysmic destruction. Pore through Georgia O'Keeffe's life's work, and savor a human's capacity for painting love of our place in the universe -- symphonic, yet small and simple and perfect. She sees truth in form and color. Her vision has become life, the creation that is our world."
That's the text written during the pandemic for one of my favorites. This summer, the maestro of a filmmaker, Christopher Nolan is releasing "Oppenheimer." Go see it. He is a genius depicting genius. The humans behind the first nuclear chain reaction live in the realm of gods and one feels their gravity, their sense of potential Armageddon, the end of the world we inhabit. And then, there is Barbie. No, wait. Not Barbie. The Museum of Modern Art in New York city is having a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition until August 12th. She once wrote, "To see takes time," and this is the title of the compendium of works on paper throughout a fifty year span that is now on display. Strange for me personally to have connected these two figures and to have this summer harmonize with my thinking. The contrapuntal forces at work here are the heart of my book. Hard science and the opposite end of the spectrum dancing back and forth, manifestations of the mind's power, machinery and fingertips, slide rules and watercolors, nuclear bombs and the aura around a morning glory. The title of her show rings more true with every passing season.
Come visit to see my newest large piece "Gloria Mundi" at the Seattle Art Fair, July 27-30th. This 8' x 12' piece is composed of three Mandalas -- "Time," "Space," and "Everything Else." I think it's comprehensive. I would love to know what you think. Love and hugs and summer, big summer...b mac
