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A Monthly Culture Matrix For the Cosmopolitan Traveler

Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser: The Bomb


Pioneer Works / New York / Art

“Then a tremendous flash of light cut across the sky,” writes John Hersey. “It seemed a sheet of sun.” This hot white blaze is the first snap of the bomb landing upon Hiroshima, recalled in Hersey’s 1946 New Yorker story, which followed six survivors. None heard the bomb’s roar—almost no one in Hiroshima did. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nagaski and Hiroshima bombings, this exhibition presents a film made by the artist Smriti Keshari and the writer Eric Schlosser, which draws on archival footage and animation. It not only looks at the 1945 atomic bombings of Japan but also delves into the weapon’s history—from inception to contemporary discourse about it—with an eye for the unsettling allure of nuclear machines and explosions, the seductive aspect of white-hot detonation. It also looks at the horror of these bombs, the immense risk of human error, the potential for devastation. A crystalline and chilling examination of technology and destruction. —C.J.F.

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