Lost in Smog: Airborne Pollution and Visual Breakdown in Kim Abeles' Mountain Wedge (1985-87)

This presentation focuses on the photographer and multi-media artist Kim Abeles’ early work Mountain Wedge (1985-87) and how the project negotiates between the visual representation and the bodily experience of toxicity in Los Angeles. From February 1985 to March 1986, Abeles took 274 photographs from her studio in downtown Los Angeles in hopes of capturing only a small wedge of the San Gabriel Mountain. Smog from industrial production and automobile use made photographing the mountain difficult, if not impossible. For Abeles, the absence of the San Gabriel Mountain in her did not simply disrupt a visual experience but eroded a sensibility of place. To eventually photograph the mountain wedge, Abeles walked sixteen-and-a-half miles as the crow flies to the foot of the mountain. Photographs of the mountain obscured by the smog and the arduous physical trek undertaken by the artist collapse into a techno-corporeal sensing of pollution within Los Angeles. With developments in environmental justice scholarship in mind, I show how Abeles’ work marks a significant disruption in how toxicity was represented and understood in the late 1980s. I argue that the overwhelming presence of toxicity, as represented in Abeles’ photographs, meets a tipping point where the logic of solely visualizing pollution breaks down. The friction between the visual and bodily politics of toxicity within Abeles’ work is reflected in broader categorical instabilities, including shifts in the representation of nature. To overcome visual representations shortcomings, I show how bodily ways of knowing provide an essential component in making toxicity sensible.