A Question of Matter By Morgan Post

March 11th – Friday, May 1st, 2026
Monday – Friday, 2–6pm

Opening reception:
Wednesday, March 11th, 6-8PM

Penumbra Foundation is pleased to present a question of matter by photographer and educator Morgan Post, in which the artist reapproaches his documentary archive of contaminated landscapes– particularly those affected by radiological pollution, transmuting the stability of anthropological imagery to depict the sublime unreality of a nuclearized world.

Measured in terms of half-life, which exceeds all of human history, nuclear waste does not decompose; rather, in its degradation, isotopes produce more isotopes, perpetuating radioactive material into a dead zone of deep time, forever a source of horror lingering on the horizon of our existence. Timeless, this matter with no destiny interweaves with the biological, producing mutated forms of altered life.

Gathering disparate atomic geographies and temporalities, Post’s images survey the remaking of the earth and consciousness by nuclear projects, both military and civilian, and include the ramifications of radioactive mining practices, bomb testing, and waste internment in the Southwestern US, Cold-War era laboratories in the Midwest, power plants in the Northeast, and, most recently, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

Intervening upon his images through inversion, solarization, and distortions that resemble the orange of uranotypes and the colors that appear after detonation, Post reveals states of precarity and fissures through which new material realities emerge, warped and smoldering. Giving up their solidity and weight, landscapes and architectures, and all the phenomena they contain, become part of a spectral realm where the boundaries of places and things are evaporated, but the traces of a shared, nuclear past, present, and future are evident, represented as a state of eternal ongoingness.

Given the magnitude of Post’s subject, so large that it looms abstractly in the imagination, the scale of his black-and-white silver gelatin photographs is paradoxically intimate, and is very close to that of contact prints made from 6x9 negatives, recalling prints by Japanese and American photographers documenting the aftermath of the bombing of Japan. Viewers are obliged to approach the image closely, drawing them into relation with the events that unfold in their darkness, while furthering Post’s political concern of engaging his audience's awareness. 

The gallery hours for this exhibition are Monday through Friday, 2 PM — 6 PM.
Admission is free.

Acknowledgements

Production: Clara Kraus
Technical Assistance: Marisa Lucchese and Titiana Miranda

Penumbra's Exhibition Space is supported in part by the Lawrence Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Ruth Arts, and Joy of Giving Something.