The title of the show, Turn off the Sun, alludes to an ominous paradox: on the one hand, it refers to Arizona’s climate (in particular, the extreme heat of a city like Phoenix), and on the other, it assumes that man always controls nature. Although it is technically impossible to “turn off” the adverse weather conditions that affect a specific area, technological progress and Western society’s powerful anthropocentric outlook create the illusion that humans can and must control reality, and that the extrinsic forces that usually impose themselves on the world can be neutralized. Yet the absurd expression “turn off the sun” is meant to indicate that it might be time for us to give up, to “bring the curtain down”—because there is nothing left to do, because we have run out of prospects. Thus, the show problematizes the idea of “progress,” emphasizing the various natural and social contexts that surround us all.

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Turn off the Sun, curated by Heather Sealy Lineberry, Julio César Morales and Michel Blancsubé, presented March 9 – September 7, 2013 at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, ASU Art Museum.