Alexis Rockman, Bridge 2006, Via Artnet

On view at Salomon Contemporary is Thunderdome, an exhibition of the work of Alexis Rockman running concurrently with the major retrospective of his work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, A Fable for Tomorrow. While a direct comparison isn’t made outright by the Salomon, Thunderdome references George Miller’s 1985 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, a post apocalyptic action film starring Tina Turner and Mel Gibson. The Thunderdome in the film is “a sanctioned arena, where aggressive human behavior, a basic part of evolutionary history, can be played out without devastating consequences to the planet.” This is a useful reference with which to begin to explain Rockman’s work, which in fantastic detail imagines the world after centuries of human abuse, without the protection Miller’s Thunderdome would offer. The exhibition can also be seen as the gallery becoming Rockman’s Thunderdome, a space where the artist foretells of the dangers of human environmental cruelty, depicting the wreckage using scientific forecasting and hyperrealist painting technique.

More story and images after the jump…

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