Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson: The Only Show in Town

You’d think the impending extinction of a species might provoke despair, or a warning, or SOMETHING, but that’s not the case with the Bell Gallery’s antiseptic exhibit about the impending apocalypse for saltmarsh sparrows. The species, found in the upper part of Narragansett Bay, will go extinct as high tides get higher, the baby birds drowning when their eggs hatch. Collaborative duo Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson have produced a project that is neither informative nor emotionally compelling, and it’s also not much to look at on a purely visual level – video, ceramics, and some garishly ugly photographs, one or two of which are inexplicably seventeen feet high. It’s maddening.