Featuring: Shiva Ahmadi Jesse Bransford Chris Burden Davide Cantoni Sarah Ciraci’ Julian Dashper Heide Fasnacht Tony Feher Carlos Garaicoa Joy Garnett Leon Golub Ingo Gunther Mark Handelmann Keith Haring Alfredo Jaar Marguerite Kahrl Peter Kennard Komar + Melamid Seitaro Kuroda + Hironobu Yamabe Molly Larkey Cristobal Lehyt Ellen K. Levy Robert Longo Dominic McGill Curtis Mitchell Nobuho Nagasawa Taras Polataiko Robert Polidori Michael Rakowitz Lisi Raskin Wilhelm Sasnal Francesco Simeti Nancy Spero Hiroshi Sunairi John Timberlake

“They made a desert, and they called it peace.” – Tacitus, 37 AD

“What the world would best remember of 1945 was the deadly mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here were the force, the threat, the promise of the future … In such a world who dared to be optimistic?” - The Bomb and the Man, Time, 21 Dec. 1945

ATOMICA: Making the Invisible Visible is based on a project by curator Ombretta Agro’ Andruff.

On July 25, 1945, the President of the United States of America, Harry S. Truman, ordered the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the rest of the world was awakened to the specter of the nuclear apocalypse: a new and unimaginable force had been unleashed and the threat that all life could come to a sudden and horrific end became a reality.

August 6, 2005 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the bombings and in conjunction with a series of commemorative events in New York City, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ATOMICA: Making the Invisible Visible pays homage to the power of art and its continuing relevance to engage the public in a dialogue about war and peace.

ATOMICA brings together a group of international artists of different backgrounds and generations in an interactive dialog on the subject of nuclear threat, which is as much of a presence today as it was 60 years ago. This exhibition features artists for whom the nuclear narrative has provided inspiration for their entire artistic production, in addition to other emerging and established artists who under the current political climate have found a voice and mechanism to express their discontent. From didactic to sublime, this exhibition is an awareness platform from where the audience can, in response to a past catastrophic event, understand and react to a present and future danger.

In conjunction with the ATOMICA exhibition, a continuous program of film and video screenings will feature rarely seen documentaries and films by Stefano Cagol, Oleg Chorny and Gena Khmaruck, Andreas Samland, Motohashi Seiichi, Stephen Sotor and Trace Gaynor, Mark Waller, Kathleen Sullivan, Robert Richter, Stan Warnow, and Muratbek Jumaliev and Gulnara Kasmalieva.