Lastgaspism: Art and Survival in the Age of Pandemic is an exhibition that grows out of the book of the same name. The book is a collection of interviews, critical essays, and artist portfolios that consider matters of life and death having to do with breath, both allegorical and literal. Bringing into mutual proximity the ecological, political, public health, and spiritual crises of our time, the book considers the compounding nature of these events and their impact upon one another. 

The exhibition includes work that addresses the police murders that gave rise to the “I Can’t Breathe” slogans of the movement for racial justice, makes visible the life-taking and life-remaking force of the COVID-19 pandemic, and grapples with the white nationalist streaks fueled by fear of demographic suffocation. Exhibiting artists consider the climate and social emergencies that afflict US society, and look for available peace in our new age of perpetual biopolitical chaos. For these artists, the ‘last gasps’ of a dying order starkly expose the either/or that stands before us: either we breathe or we die. In photography, video, printmaking, and other media, the artists of Lastgaspism highlight a host of pressing subjects both critically and with compassion, to help us make sense of the interlocked crises of the unfolding present.