Three Responses

Over the last five years, Michael Krondl’s work has become increasingly multi-disciplinary. Yet, while his use of media has expanded, the subject of the work has remained overwhelmingly focused on water: melting ice, rising tides, storm surges and the desire to create works which at once immerse his audience, whilst conveying the immense scale of the climate crisis. In other words, the work is ongoing. Three recent responses follow.

These first two (above and opposite) focus on New York’s East River, not far from where the artist lives, using drawing and film.

‘Here, I would like to convey not only the power and threat but also transcendence of nature. I am often reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s experience of being glad to the brink of fear, which I interpret as meaning that fear and beauty are one, that the sublime cannot exist without both. Our hubris has let us forget the awe and humility we should feel when confronting nature, its fearful majesty, its overwhelming power, our own fragility. In all the discussion of carbon targets and alternative fuels, I think this is often lost. There is hope, I think, in understanding our limits rather than just our power.’

Below, Melt is a large-format printed photograph of Iceland’s Sólheimajökul glacier – which has retreated over one kilometre over the last decade due to global warming. ‘While the work clearly addresses the climate emergency, I am less interested in eliciting a rational, reasoned response from the audience than I am looking for a personal, physical – even visceral – reaction from the viewer that bypasses higher intellectual functions and goes directly for the midbrain. My intent is to create an intersection of the somatic and the conceptual where human frailty isn’t merely theory but a potential and immediate danger. I don’t want people just to talk about the fear of climate change but to experience it.’

Krondl is a Czech-born, New York-based installation artist. He uses a variety of media, including large-scale photographs and film. During the coronavirus pandemic, the artist turned to making large charcoal drawings, finding the need to engage physically with the art object. The subject of the work is our troubled relationship to the natural world, as a society and as individuals.

Krondl was born in Prague, grew up in Toronto, and studied at New York’s Cooper Union (BFA, 1984). His work and public installations have been presented internationally.