![Eureka, or What’s a Mother For? [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/11027/preview)
![Eureka, or What’s a Mother For? [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/11027/full)
Eureka, or What’s a Mother For? [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]
Artist
Judy Chicago
(American, born 1939)
Date1989
Mediumsprayed acrylic, oil and photography on photolinen
DimensionsCanvas: 16 1/4 × 20 × 3/4 in. (41.3 × 50.8 × 1.9 cm)
Frame: 21 1/2 × 25 3/8 × 1 3/4 in. (54.6 × 64.5 × 4.4 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 number2011.11.7
DescriptionA painting on a photograph that pictures the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) with a thinking figure painted in the top of a tower saying “Eureka.” Spilling underneath the building are many barrels of nuclear waste that seep into the ground.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. Eureka, or What’s a Mother For? pictures the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which is shown disposing of radioactive waste into the earth as a man in the top of one of the building’s towers ponders something and remarks, “Eureka.” Chicago’s reference to a mother figure in her title can be interpreted as a lament for the violence done to the land, imagined as a female body (Mother Earth), by the radioactivity; or to the saying “Necessity is the mother of all invention,” suggesting that the scientist or engineer pictured in the “ivory tower” has used his knowledge and expertise to invent something destructive.
On View
Not on view![Gang Bang at the WIPP Site [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17399/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)
![Radioactive for Thousands of Years [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17394/thumbnail)
![Grants, New Mexico [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17396/thumbnail)
![Trinity Site [from the series Nuclear Waste(d)]](/internal/media/dispatcher/17401/thumbnail)
