Adam Reynolds | No Lone Zone + Architecture of an Existential Threat

This past Friday, Pictura was pleased to host the opening reception and artist talk with Adam Reynolds on his series ​‘No Lone Zone’ + ​‘Architecture of an Existential Threat’.

This exhibit brings together two projects examining military might and nuclear power by Adam Reynolds. Although they are made about two entirely distinct conflicts, in different countries and eras, they both bring to light the rooms that have been prepared for the possibility of destruction. Reynolds offers two vantage points from the game of war, that of military action and civilian response. No Lone Zone explores the vestiges of American nuclear bunkers from the cold war era. From these centers, the government would have launched their offensive in reaction to a perceived threat. Reynolds earlier project, Architecture of an Existential Threat goes down into the bomb shelters of Israel, spaces set aside for citizens to take cover in case of an attack. With some of these bomb shelters, Reynolds reveals the volume of the room, and the viewer can brie y inhabit the space while standing in front of the work. With others, he pushes up against the wall, as with the image of a formidable door. This sealed entryway summons a claustrophobic feeling — that there is truly nowhere to go. In the corner of the door frame is a Mizuzah, which is meant to be fixed on the doorpost of every living space in a house of the Jewish religion. This pairing of objects is poignant and dissonant. It suggests that a bomb shelter must also be viewed as a living space. In another photograph, Reynolds frames a couch with a picture of the ocean pasted to the wall above it. For a moment, the ocean is believable, like it’s right there over the wall, and the island in the distance is attainable. A poster of a mirage can become a real mirage in the context of this room, if used to shelter from an attack, when the occupants might find themselves staring at the water on the wall for days.

There is an undeniable oddness in bringing pieces of everyday life into a doomsday space, and this tension resonates through both projects. At times, the human traces found in No Lone Zone read like cave paintings that o er small clues about the men who lived there. Reynolds sifts through and exposes artifacts that may feel like symbols to us now. A game of Battleship, a mural of buck hunting, a memorably triumphalist painting of a nuclear missile breaking through a Russian flag; these things become representations of the power that those individuals wielded and lived with. Everyday life in a place of conflict forms around the real or perceived potential of violence as a daily reality. Although both of Reynold’s projects focus expertly on physical spaces, at their heart, they are about the psychological space of war.


-Mia + Lisa



Photos from the opening and artist talk: