Christina Mazzalupo plans for the end of the world in apocalyptic exhibit in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Mixed Greens
531 West 26th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through January 5, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-331-8888
www.mixedgreens.com
www.christinamazzalupo.com
If you’re reading this, then most likely the world did not come to an end on December 21, 2012, as supposedly predicted by the end of the ancient Mayan calendar. That would merely be the latest in what has been a long line of individuals and organizations wrongly proclaiming that the end is here. New York–based artist Christina Mazzalupo has compiled an extensive collection of these prophets of the apocalypse throughout history in her latest solo exhibition at Mixed Greens, “Prognosis: Doom.” The rather obsessive Mazzalupo has created wall boxes filled with toe tags detailing in tiny lettering and pictures such purveyors of doom as Cotton Mather, Helena Blavatsky, Edgar Cayce, the Amazing Criswell, Jim Jones, and John Wesley, along with such potential methods of destruction as asteroids, famine, plague, alien invasion, bioterrorism, and global warming. In one corner she has drawn the site-specific mural “And the Sea Was No More: Dependent and Independent Variables,” listing several things that might help one survive the apocalypse, from glowsticks, burn cream, and duct tape to fiskars, armor, and bio-transport modules. She also examines news reports that exaggerate and sensationalize events and includes a pair of videos, one in which she visits a Brooklyn mother who has turned her basement into an extremely well stocked fall-out shelter, while the other blasts a dizzying array of apocalyptic words at the viewer while Harry Partch’s “Delusion of the Fury” plays on the soundtrack. It’s all very funny as well as fascinating, although those with a deep-seated fear of death might not agree. “Presently, the belief that humanity itself is playing a role in its own demise is being taken more seriously,” Mazzalupo writes in an artist statement. “The question arises of whether this shift in mentality is in fact the ‘apocalypse’ we are presently facing. Can a greater awareness and awakening be in store?” Mazzalupo’s show is certain to entertain, educate, and, perhaps, make you go out and buy some supplies just in case one of these myriad predictions ends up having even the tiniest kernel of truth in it.