The New Carboniferous Age

The New Carboniferous Age brings our attention to carbon, the “fossil carbon” of coal, to re-think the meaning of its material and cultural presence. Coal’s fossil carbons, once locked away in underground coal veins, now literally mingle above ground with humanity – soot, carbon dioxide, fine particles – in human bodies and lungs, in the built environment, and the technologies that enable it – fossil carbon is present in every aspect of 21st century life on Earth. Reaching across 300 million years, holding a piece of anthracite coal evokes wonder and awe about deep time, nature, and self.

At the cusp of a global energy paradigm shift, carbon’s true cost must be scrutinized and assessed; its past, present and future impacts on human and environmental health must be fully accounted for, not passed off as “externality” to be paid for by others. In the New Carboniferous Age, anthracite coal rejects combustion and embodies future carbon technologies in its aesthetic, self-organizing, nano-scale, conductive, and strong-bonding materiality. It is fuel for the human imagination, a driver of creativity.

The climate emergency is our problem to solve: how to fast-forward a global transition away from fossil fuel. We are tasked with finding new ways of being human, and art can help by engaging the imagination. Art gives form to cultural memory, shared emotions, the grief of loss and change, and opens new perspectives on our deep and recent history, on the realities of the here and now, and on the kind of future we want. We must first imagine, and then create.

The anthracite on display was mined from the Mammoth vein, and generously supplied by Blaschak Anthracite, located in Mahanoy PA.

Andrea Krupp, September, 2024

About the Artist
Andrea Krupp is a visual artist whose practice traces ongoing experiential, emotional, and intellectual engagement with earth, the indispensable site of human existence; and nature, both as a framework for how we experience reality and as the material source of human knowledge. Introspective and articulate, her works employ simple materials, graphic language, and layered semiotics to spark curiosity and wonder; transmit ideas about perception and reality; and contribute to forming a new cultural imaginary of the future.

She graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and holds a BFA with honors in Printmaking. Her position as a rare book Conservator and her expertise in material culture brings historical grounding to her creative practice. In 2017 she was awarded the Independence Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship. In 2018 she was a Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellow in Ireland and an Arctic Circle Residency participant. Her works have been exhibited nationally and abroad and have been acquired by the Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art, Woodmere Art Museum, the Free Library of Philadelphia, University, and private collections. www.andreakrupp.com