Just over twenty years ago, scientists introduced a term to denote a new geological epoch in which human activity has had a marked impact on the global climate: the Anthropocene. Since that time, the concept of the Anthropocene has been exposed to a wider public audience through expanding environmental studies and scholarship, increasing coverage in the popular press, widespread and fervent activism, and a variety of artistic responses.

Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene is the first major exhibition to examine the Anthropocene through the lens of contemporary photography. Comprised of forty-five photo-based artists working in a variety of artistic methods from studios and sites across the globe, Second Nature explores the complexities of this proposed new age. Collectively, these artists offer compelling visual imagery necessary for picturing the Anthropocene: aerial views of beautiful but toxic sites, collages that incorporate archival photographs to counter colonial narratives, depictions of urbanism on an unimaginable scale, and imagined yet precarious futures. In doing so, they address urgent issues such as vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the deeply rooted and painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma.

Since its emergence, the term “Anthropocene” has entered the common lexicon and has been adopted by disciplines outside of the sciences including philosophy, economics, sociology, geography, and anthropology, effectively linking the Anthropocene to nearly every aspect of post-industrial life. Organized around four thematic sections, “Reconfiguring Nature,” “Toxic Sublime,” “Inhumane Geographies,” and “Envisioning Tomorrow,” the exhibition proposes that the Anthropocene is not one singular narrative, but rather a diverse and complex web of relationships between and among humanity, industry, and ecology—the depths and effects of which are continually being discovered.

Artists
Sammy Baloji (born in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo), Adrián Balseca (born in Quito, Ecuador), Matthew Brandt (born in Los Angeles, CA), Edward Burtynsky (born in St. Catharines, Canada), María Magdalena Campos-Pons (born in La Vega, Matanzas, Cuba), James Casebere (born in Lansing, MI), João Castilho (born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Elena Damiani (born in Lima, Peru), Gohar Dashti (born in Ahvaz, Iran), Sanne de Wilde (born in Antwerp, Belgium), Andrew Esiebo (born in Lagos, Nigeria), Gauri Gill (born in Chandigarh, India), Noémie Goudal (born in Paris, France), Todd Gray (born in Los Angeles, CA), Acacia Johnson (born in Anchorage, AK), Mouna Karray (born in Sfax, Tunisia), Robert Kautuk (born in Iqaluit, Nunavut), Zhang Kechun (born in Bazhong, Sichuan Province, China), Rosemary Laing (born in Brisbane, Australia), Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong (born in Mexico City, Mexico), Anna Líndal (born in Hvammstangi, Iceland), Inka Lindergård (born in Saltvik, Finland) and Niclas Lindergård (born in Sandviken, Sweden), Pablo López Luz (born in Mexico City, Mexico), Dhruv Malhotra (born in Jaipur, India), Laura McPhee (born in New York, NY), Gideon Mendel (born in Johannesburg, South Africa), Hayley Millar Baker (Gunditjmara and Djabwurrung, born in Melbourne, Australia), Joiri Minaya (born in New York, NY), Richard Mosse (born in Kilkenny, Ireland), Aïda Muluneh (born in Addis Ababa Ethiopia), Léonard Pongo (born in Liège, Belgium), Meghann Riepenhoff (born in Atlanta, GA), Cara Romero (Chemehuevi, born in Inglewood, CA), Anastasia Samoylova (born in Moscow, Russia), Camille Seaman (Shinnecock, Born in Huntington, NY), David Benjamin Sherry (born in Stony Brook, NY), Toshio Shibata (born in Tokyo, Japan), Sim Chi Yin (born in Singapore), Thomas Struth (born in Geldern, Germany), Danila Tkachenko (born Moscow, Russia), Rajesh Vangad (born in Dahanu, India), Letha Wilson (born in Honolulu, HI), Will Wilson (Diné/Navajo, born in San Francisco, CA), Yang Yongliang (born in Shanghai, China).

Second Nature / Reconfiguring Nature / Artist Bios

Exhibition Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a 224-page, fully illustrated catalogue, published by Rizzoli Electa, that includes eleven essays on a wide range of topics related to art and the Anthropocene. Contributors include Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Carmen G. Gonzalez, Donna Haraway, Candice Hopkins, Claire L. Hutchinson, Jessica May, Simon Njami, Marshall N. Price, Daniel Richter, Catriona Sandilands, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Will Wilson, and Norman Wirzba.

Organization & Support
Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene is organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, The Trustees of Reservations, Lincoln, Massachusetts. The exhibition is curated by Jessica May, Executive Director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

At the Nasher Museum, this exhibition is made possible by the Marilyn M. Arthur Fund; the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; the Frank Edward Hanscom Endowment Fund; the Prakash and Anjali Melwani Fund; the Derek and Christen Wilson Fund for the Nasher Museum of Art; and Parker & Otis.

New York Times book review on Second Nature
This book, which will accompany a traveling exhibition, offers a sweeping exploration of the vast and mismatched time scales of photography, climate change and 'deep time' of geologic history. Looking is hard; not looking will end up being harder.

- Tatiana Schlossberg, in a review of the exhibition catalogue for Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene

he years 2024 and 2025 mark the sixtieth anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The two Acts transformed life in the United States for many marginalized individuals, including people of color, women, people with disabilities, elders, and others who had not had equal rights in the nation’s history. This legislation was the culmination of nearly a century of work by activists and advocates.

By dawn’s early light reflects on the historical context against which these Acts came into being: the U.S. Constitution’s Preamble and the rights outlined in the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments. Each gallery features selections from the Nasher’s permanent collection that speak to these documents, questioning what it means to form a nation, to have a right to assemble, to own weapons, to pursue the American dream, and to define who “we the people” are.

This exhibition invites us to ask ourselves: what do we hold dear and how are we using our voices to protect those things—our values—when we go to the polls in each election? The exhibition’s title is not only a quotation from the national anthem but also a metaphor for the start of a new day, the hope for fresh possibilities to collectively imagine new futures.

Artists
Kathryn Andrews, Adrián Balseca, Bill Bamberger, Roger Brown, Diego Camposeco, Kennedi Carter, Mel Chin, Dario Escobar, Leonard Freed, Genevieve Gaignard, Scherezade Garcia, Titus Brooks Heagins, Barkley L. Hendricks, Ken Heyman, Henry Horenstein, Dapper Bruce Lafitte, Michelangelo Lovelace, Danny Lyon, Mary Ellen Mark, Vik Muniz, Kambui Olujimi, Bill Owens, Gordon Parks, Fahamu Pecou, Ad Reinhardt, Gary Simmons, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Erika Stone, Lou Stouman, Sage Sohier, Sarah Sudhoff, Hank Willis Thomas, Burk Uzzle, Nari Ward, Antoine Williams, Fred Wilson, Purvis Young, and George Zimbel.

in-ˈskrü-tə-bəl (adjective): not readily investigated, interpreted or understood.

This installation brings together sculptures, drawings and photographs that might be hard for most of us to comprehend. They challenge convention and encourage close viewing. Reminiscent of an ancient and official text, Ion Bitzan’s Old Document of Ownership is comprised of a vaguely recognizable but invented and indecipherable language. Photographs by Brittany Nelson and Letha Wilson employ experimental techniques to challenge our assumptions of photography. Wilson uses materials such as concrete, which oozes out of the photograph in Tent Rocks, to create unconventional landscapes. Nelson’s photographs use digital and analog processes without a camera to make holographic, geometric shapes.
In Necklace CNN, Hirschhorn creates a monumental necklace in the style of hip-hop “bling” using cheap and common materials. By constructing art out of what many people would consider trash, Hirschhorn not only provides commentary on what art is and where its value lies, but he also addresses issues of quality in popular culture. Enlarging the necklace to mammoth proportions draws attention to its gaudiness. As Hirschhorn states, “Enlarging makes the thing empty.” The “CNN” on the necklace refers to the Cable News Network, with its twenty-four-hour news cycle that by necessity creates news when none exists, or repeatedly discusses the same topics until they are hollow words without meaning. Hirschhorn draws an analogy between ratings-conscious reporting and the posturing and social status implied by a piece of jewelry. He highlights the precarious nature of culture when influenced by a desire for the sensational.

The works in this exhibition may appear inexplicable, impenetrable or even paradoxical in nature. When we spend time with each work of art, our eyes start to make sense of them. But we still feel compelled to reflect on our own perception and understanding of the art before us.
- Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

Artists often imbue their works with paradox. Christian Marclay’s Breathless III, a recorder, and Secret, a record, are found objects modified by the artist so that they no longer function. No one can play music on these objects because of Marclay’s simple but irreversible modifications. Colin Quashie and Sanford Biggers also use found objects, combining them with absurdist humor to raise serious questions of identity and history. These inscrutable objects are filled with subtle social commentary to question how we perceive the world around us.

What comes to mind when you think of the history of the United States? The “discovery” of the continent by European explorers? The American Revolution and founding of the country? Westward expansion, or perhaps the turmoil of the Civil War? This re-installed gallery incorporates historical and contemporary works of art from the United States to tell some of these stories and confront some of these myths. The gallery includes a variety of works to encourage visitors to think about how these narratives shape our understanding and may preserve or counter fallacies of nationhood and democracy.

Upon entering the gallery, the visitor encounters canonical imagery of the landing of Christopher Columbus, George Washington crossing the Delaware River, and a portrait of the nation’s first President that encourages us to reconsider the early years of the country. Nineteenth century landscape paintings and photography both celebrated and claimed ownership over the natural beauty of the North American continent. These images, created as Americans moved West, omitted the displacement and massacre of Indigenous populations, and perpetuated notions of Manifest Destiny, the belief that European possession of the continent was given by God. Works such as these were also instrumental in establishing the American conservation movement and a vast system of National Parks. The Civil War was another pivotal chapter in U.S. history, the effects of which continue to be felt today. Included here are historical portraits of significant participants as well as contemporary works that critically address Lost Cause ideology, the belief that the war was fought over states’ rights rather than slavery.

The final section of this gallery tells stories that emerged in the twentieth century, including ones that have framed our understanding of urbanization, the Great Depression and the realities of rural American life. Collectively, these works highlight the struggles and missteps of the democratic experiment and underscore the continuing evolution of our republic.

Art of the Andes features ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and carvings produced by cultures across the Andes region, a 4,500-mile-long mountain range on the Pacific Coast of South America. These objects, many on view for the first time, reveal the diverse and sophisticated artmaking techniques through which ancient Andeans expressed ancestral beliefs and personal and political identities. The wall case provides a comparative view of the ceramic production of several prominent Peruvian civilizations, presented chronologically from left to right. From the colorful painted motifs of the Nasca and the sculptural realism of the Moche to the whistling vessels of the Chancay, the ceramics depict both realistic and stylized animals, people, deities, food, and scenes of warfare, performance, and pleasure.

Numerous objects in this gallery also celebrate the importance of corn, a plant of major significance across the Andes. Chicha, a drink made from corn, was consumed at political and ritual events and poured as an offering to ancestors and at sacred sites. It is still widely used domestically and ceremonially across the region today. While most of the objects in this gallery date from 200 BC to 1500 CE, several pieces demonstrate contemporary Indigenous artistry, especially textile production, and the ways in which the ancient Americas inspire living artists.

The Art of the Americas collection is one of the Nasher Museum’s largest holdings. Many of the objects on view came from the collection of Paul and Virginia Clifford, who donated more than 800 works to the former Duke University Museum of Art in 1973. As part of its mission, the Nasher Museum conducts ongoing research on provenance—an object’s history of ownership—and welcomes any information from the public on works in the collection.

This reinstallation is organized by Julia McHugh, the Trent A. Carmichael Director of Academic Initiatives & Curator of Arts of the Americas at the Nasher Museum, with research assistance from Abigail Hartemink T’25, Annaliese Hermann J.D.’22, Ally Perez T’20, Anna Port T’25, Diana Sanchez T’22, and Gabrielle Tenedero.