Carol Peligian: "Too Hot to Handle"

New York City-Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial practice is pleased to announce a May 30th screening of Carol Peligian’s 2021 Video Too Hot to Handle, followed by a panel discussion moderated by curator and filmmaker Christopher Atamian. The panel will include Peligian, Atamian, and three expert climate scientists—Alexandra Boghosian, Bärbel Hönisch, and Gisela Winckler—who also participate in the video itself. The event takes place during the run of Peligian’s exhibition titled Shift and Lift, curated by Tamar Hovsepian, which includes sculpture, paintings, and videos. The show was recently profiled in Hyperallergic.

Too Hot to Handle features nine climate scientists and explores how information is gathered and transmitted between scientists, as well as how this information is either accepted or ignored by the public, depending on the position the speaker occupies in society. Women make important discoveries and contributions to earth science but do so against a backdrop of traditional expectations and roles. Paradoxically, while women have been historically cast in the nurturing and caring roles that Mother Earth now requires, they are also objectified and reified in order to uphold consumer culture. In Too Hot to Handle, scientific information is delivered by glamorized, glossy-lipped, “gossiping” female scientists who reveal in multiple languages the truths they have uncovered about the planet. The viewer is asked to examine whom they listen to and trust as scientists, whom they cast as caretakers, and how to resolve the tensions that unconsciously arise when women occupy these roles. The work provides a lesson in challenging stereotypes. It encourages viewers to question their own assumptions about gender and to extend their understanding of the roles that women currently play in our global society.

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New York-based artist Carol Peligian produces breathtaking work and belongs to a côterie of powerful women who continue to influence the global contemporary art historical conversation. Her practice is based in Long Island City, and includes painting, sculpture, installation, and video. Her work can be viewed at: www.atamianhovsepian.art/carol-peligian-press-release and www.carolpeligian.com. 

Alexandra Boghosian uses in situ measurements, remote sensing and AR/VR to study the modern ice sheets. She frequently collaborates with artists. She’s an Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), was a 2020 TBA21-Academy Ocean Fellow and a recipient of the 2021 Lotos Foundation Prize in Arts and Sciences.  

Gisela Winckler applies isotope analysis to sediment and ice cores to understand the earth system in the past and apply those lessons to earth’s future. She is a Lamont Research Professor at LDEO, and the first Climate Scientist in Residence at Columbia’s Journalism School. She was recently elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  

Bärbel Hönisch specializes in paleoceanography, using geochemical analyses of seafloor sediments to study past ocean temperatures and acidity, and their relation to past CO2 in the atmosphere. She is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and the recipient of the American Geophysical Union 2018 Willi Dansgaard Award. 

New York-based writer, filmmaker, and curator Christopher Atamian co-founded Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice (AHCP) in 2022 along with his colleague Tamar Hovsepian. The practice invests in long-term collaborations with artists, nurturing and developing rigorous and experimental practices to bring vital new voices to the public. Through its creative curatorial focus, AHCP mobilizes art’s unique ability to address the state of our global reality today and our future. AHCP is committed to supporting underrepresented voices creating outstanding art and to being a platform for alternative and innovative ideas to flourish.