![Grants, New Mexico [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17396/preview)
![Grants, New Mexico [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17396/full)
Grants, New Mexico [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]
Artist
Judy Chicago
(American, born 1939)
Date1989
Mediumsprayed acrylic, oil and photography on photolinen
DimensionsCanvas: 16 × 20 × 3/4 in. (40.6 × 50.8 × 1.9 cm)
Frame: 21 × 25 7/8 × 1 7/8 in. (53.3 × 65.7 × 4.8 cm)
Frame: 21 × 25 7/8 × 1 7/8 in. (53.3 × 65.7 × 4.8 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman, 2011
Object number2011.11.3
DescriptionA painting on a photograph that pictures Native American miner, wearing miner’s hard hat and his hair in a braid, on left, his arms crossed. Under his right hand his lung, green from toxicity, is visible on his exterior. He stands next to a barbed wire fence with a sign that reads “Caution Radioactive Materials.” On the opposite side of the fence is a green tailings pile that recedes into the distance running parallel to power lines and utility poles in the shape of crosses.eMuseum Notes
In the Nuclear Waste(d) series, Judy Chicago addresses the negative consequences of the nuclear industry in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. These are collaborative works that employ photographs by Donald Woodman of various nuclear-related sites throughout the state, that were then painted on by Judy Chicago. Among the sites the series addresses are the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated; Grants, where much of the uranium was mined for the bombs, causing great health and environmental problems for the Native Americans upon whose lands the mines are located; and WIPP, the waste site in southern New Mexico. Grants, New Mexico references the contamination of the landscape by uranium mining, largely on Native American lands in New Mexico. The green pile pictured is a tailings pile that remains radioactive and that has made the land uninhabitable. The Native American miner pictured holds his lung, which is visible on the exterior of the body, referring to the high occurrence of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses that resulted from poor working conditions in mines.
On View
Not on view![Radioactive for Thousands of Years [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17394/thumbnail)
![Put a Cork In It [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17398/thumbnail)
![Poisoned Power [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17397/thumbnail)
![Gang Bang at the WIPP Site [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17399/thumbnail)
![Eureka, or What’s a Mother For? [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/11027/thumbnail)
![Trinity Site [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17401/thumbnail)
