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Put a Cork In It [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]
Put a Cork In It [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]
Put a Cork In It [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]

Put a Cork In It [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]

Artist (American, born 1939)
Date1989
Mediumsprayed acrylic, oil and photography on photolinen with cork
DimensionsCanvas: 16 × 20 × 3/4 in. (40.6 × 50.8 × 1.9 cm)
Frame: 21 1/2 × 25 3/8 × 1 3/4 in. (54.6 × 64.5 × 4.4 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman, 2011
Object number2011.11.5
DescriptionA painting on a photograph that pictures four nuclear power stations, each with green painted emissions coming from the containment buildings. The two left buildings are plugged with painted corks, the waste oozing from the edges. From the haze of the two right buildings emerges the word “radioactive.” An actual cork is adhered to the top right edge of the canvas.
Text Entries
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. Put a Cork in It speaks to the artist’s ambivalence about a mode of power that has the potential to contaminate the landscape and the nearby inhabitants. She conveys her opposition to nuclear power by painting corks in the tops of two of the pictured power plants.
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