Chapter 9: Environmental Art Flashcards
Agnes Denes
- hungarian-american artist
- Rice/Tree/Burial (1968): planted rice = vitality, chained trees = human disruption of natural processes, and buried haiku poems = land inspires human creativity
International Art Show for the End of World Hunger
- Denes (1982)
- 2 acre wheatfield was planted one block from Wall Street
- it yielded 1000pounds which were distributed to 28 cities
Tree Mountain: A Living Time Capsule
- Denes
- 11,000 silver fur trees protected by Finland for 400 years until they become old growth
- evolving interactions between the artist, human participants, and other-than-human agents
Environmental Art
- Bullot, 2014: all works of art that address environmental topics; regardless of medium, style, and position advocated by the artist
- Thornes, 2008: works either representing the environment pictorially as an image, scene or landscape or demonstrating a non-representational, performative, or participatory approach to the natural world
- Indigenous artforms constitute the first environmental art
- Some megafaunal species shown in Indigenous rock paitnings are now extinct; such as thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and the fat tailed kangaroo
Dampier Rock Art Precinct, Western Australia
- 1 million petroglyphs (rock drawings) ranging from 4,000 to over 30,000 years old
- threatened by natural gas extraction
- contains the Burrup Peninsula/Murujuga
Environmental Visual Art
paintings, drawings, illustrations, etchings, photographs, prints, textiles, sculptures, etc. that depict the environment, more-than-human life, people-land relations, ecological issues, and sustainable futures
Strolling About in Spring (Zhan Ziqian)
- 6th century AD
- ink composition
- nature’s sublime power
- diminutive human forms in a rugged alpine habitat
The Triumph of Death (Pieter Bruegel)
- 1562
- bottom is crowded with skeletons, coffins, and people
- top depicts and ecologically ravaged scene of blackened trees
- radically diversified landscape painting
Environmental Sculpture (Blanc and Benish, 2017)
- Sculptures depicting the environment, more-than-human beings, or cultural-natural systems (ex: Indigenous totem poles)
- Sculptures designed to memorialize, harmonize with, or intensify a particular place (ex: Gormley’s 51 Lake Ballard sculptures)
- Large scale sculpture that immerses the observer and produces an architectural microhabitat (ex: Fite’s Opus 40 that took 37yrs to complete)
Land Art (The Tate)
- art made directly in the landscape
- sculpting land itself into Earthworks/making structures in the landscape using natural materials
- Ex: Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake
Site-specific art
emphasizes the indivisible relationship between the work and its site and demands the physical presence of the viewer for completion
Andrew Goldsworthy’s Sculptures
- detailed site specific installations using rocks, pebbles, leaves, branches, snow, etc.
- ephemeral/short lived
- Taking a Wall for a Walk (1990)
Eco-art
- brings environmental consciousness to bear on artistic practices by addressing the sociopolitical forces that impact the natural world
- Wallen, 2012 believes ecological artists inspire respect for the environment by shunning Anthropocene values and nurturing processes of renewal
- the work itself becomes a self generating ecosystem (Living Water Garden, Damon)
6 key features of ecoart
- emphasizes ecological relationships
- dialogue with science
- engagement with natural elements
- restoration of degraded habitats
- commitment to educating the public about ecological issues
- formulation of new possibilities for interspecies ethics, community transformation, urban sustainability, and personal healing
Eco-feminist art
- advocates the importance of non patriarchal values to the regeneration o the biosphere
- Deborah Mathew (2001)
- collaborate with the regenerative cycles of nature and aspire to nurture sustainable Earth systems
- Agnes Denes, Nataile Jeremijanko, Eve Mosher, and Shai Zakai
Barry Thomas’s Vacant Lot of Cabbages (1978)
- illegally planted 180 cabbage seedlings in the shape of the word CABBAGE
- anarcho- activist
- protest against he lack of green space in Wellington
- cooperative action
Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field
- 1971-1977
- New Mexico
- 400 steel poles positioned in a grid pattern
- changes appearance when viewed from various angles
- the land is not the setting for the work but part of it
What does Bullot (2014) say is the primary function of environmental artworks?
tracking, broadcasting, emotions manipulation, cooperative action, environmental reflection, and art science collaboration
Tracking and Broadcasting
- recording information about a particular place over time
- public dissemination of the info
Emotions Manipulation
an artwork’s ability to induce empathetic feelings that result in cooperative action
Cooperative action
action on behalf of ecosystems
Environmental reflection
an artwork appreciator’s reflective process
Art-science collaboration
enhances viewer awareness o f scientific knowledge by bringing insights from the social and natural sciences to bear on art and its interpretations
Eliasson’s Weather Project
- Tate Modern, London
- combines lightning, projection, haze machines, aluminum, and scaffolding to generate a climactic experience for viewers
