Now over to @matsfridlund for ‘What is Global Nuclear Culture? Understanding Nuclear Energy’ #NuclearEnergyCulture #NuclearCulture #NuclearEnergy #HenryMoore #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund 1/12 It is time to take Jeff Hughes’ 2012 question ‘What is British #nuclearculture?’ from the national to the #transnational sphere in a study of the #Anglo-American conception & global reception of Henry Moore’s #ColdWar sculpture “Nuclear Energy”. #BSHSGlobalHist 
@matsfridlund 2/12 ATOMIC ART: “Nuclear Energy” is with #IsamuNoguchi’s “Memorial to the Dead, #Hiroshima” (1952) & #AndyWarhol’s “Atomic Bomb” (1965) “paradigmatic examples” of when “modernist artists deviated from their apolitical position to take a political stand”. #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund 3/12 ANGLO-AMERICAN CONCEPTION: In 1963 @UChicago (UofC) commissioned English sculptor #HenryMoore to commemorate “birth of the atomic age” by a monument to the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction in #EnricoFermi’s 1942 UofC #ManhattanProject experiment #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 4/12 NUCLEAR TRIUMPHALISM: UofC’s #WilliamHMcNeill wanted “a place of pilgrimage for all the world; holy ground in the true modern sense; a monument to man’s triumphs, charged with high hope and profound fear just as every triumphant breakthrough has always been.” #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 5/12 MOORE MEANINGS: Moore said “one might look at the round helmet-like top of the piece and visualize a man’s skull. This could represent man’s mind". His own conception was of hope, “that it is something like a cathedral or church.” #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 6/12 UNVEILING: 1967 Moore’s “Atom Piece” became UofC’s “Nuclear Energy” with multiple meanings: militaristic, mushroom cloud, frightening, grandeur, awe-inspiring power, evolution symbol, or “nothing more menacing that a giant mushroom supported by several legs” #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 7/12 NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: Even before Chicago’s new monument was unveiled, Moore’s nuclear sculpture’s imagery & meanings were globally disseminated & generated by pictures, descriptions & reviews of the new nuclear motif in journals, catalogues & newspapers #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 8/12 MULTIPLE ATOM HEADS: From 1964 Moore increased circulation by casting 119 & 15 cm bronze maquettes in editions of 7 & 12 respectively that he sold or gifted globally to collectors, companies, museums & friends further creating entangled global nuclearities. #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 9/12 SATELLITES: Contrary to UofC’s statue, the statuettes circulated meanings locally, nationally, globally through exhibitions & sales, with one maquette donated to #TateGallery travelling in most international exhibitions. #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 10/12 ORBITS: One collector was Cold Warrior #NelsonRockefeller who pushed a #falloutshelter program, called nuclear weapons “weapons of freedom” & his statuette Moore’s “Atomic Bomb” with changing garden locations & was lent to #MoMA & #BrookhavenLaboratory. #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 11/12 UNSTABLE DYNAMIC MEANINGS: In 1991 a row erupted in #Hiroshima city council whether the “major attraction” of the city’s art museum since 1987 was “an anti-war sculpture or a glorification of the atomic bomb” leading to its removal from permanent display. #BSHSGlobalHist
@matsfridlund @UChicago 12/12 ENDGAME: Global nuclear culture 1964-91 comprised of mushrooms clouds from thousands of art representations & 1425 nuclear tests. To fully fathom the Cold War we need to understand both these matters & their meanings. #BSHSGlobalHist
