Featuring: Joy Episalla – Joy Garnett – Tom Hawkins – Dominic McGill – John McLachlin – Jason Middlebrook – Frank Moore – Catherine Murphy – Bruce Nauman – Gary Ponzo – Amy Jean Porter – Alexis Rockman – David Wojnarowicz – Carrie Yamaoka

Curated by Nick Debs.

If Rachel Carson were alive today, she would probably be pleased about the heightened public awareness of the environment and some of the protective legislation passed since she wrote Silent Spring. She would likely be much less satisfied with the ongoing battle between those who wish to preserve our natural environment and those whose efforts continue to contribute to its deterioration and destruction.

And just as Carson brought an investigative scientific eye to the problems of pesticides that she described in her groundbreaking book, an exhibition opening November 4 at the New York Academy of Sciences likewise casts a probing artistic look at some of the most critical environmental issues facing the world today. The exhibition, The Obligation to Endure: Art & Ecology Since Silent Spring, reflects one of Carson’s favorite maxims by the French biologist Jean Rostand: “The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”

It features works in a variety of media that raise questions about such current concerns as global warming, toxic waste, POPs (persistent organic pollutants), the extinction of species, and genetic modification.