Ecocritical Art History

Third Text, 2013

This special issue of Third Text, dedicated to contemporary art and the politics of ecology, investigates the intersection of art criticism, politico-ecological theory, environmental activism and postcolonial globalization. The focus is on practices and discourses of eco-aesthetics that have emerged in recent years in geopolitical areas as diverse as the Arctic, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Europe and Mexico. The numerous contributors address new aesthetic strategies through which current ecological emergencies-including but not limited to the multifaceted crisis of climate change-have found resonance and creative response in artistic practice and more broadly in visual culture. Numerous key questions motivated our investigation: If ecological imperatives are frequently invoked by governments, corporations and certain strands of environmental activism in the name of a post-political 'green' consensus for which nothing less than the life of the planet is at stake, how might critical art contribute to an imagination of ecology that addresses social divisions related to race, class, gender and geography in the North and South alike? How might the concept of biopolitics, as elaborated by figures ranging from Bruno Latour to Vandana Shiva, enable a rethinking of hitherto articulated discourses of eco-aesthetics, especially as regards the relationship between ecological art and eco-feminism, or the art and ecology of democratic political composition? How might cultural practitioners contest the financialization of nature by neoliberal globalization, as analysed in Marxist approaches to political ecology, and how might they provide alternatives to the economic valuation of nature or promote a new articulation of the commons against its corporate enclosure? To what extent are recent philosophical writings associated with the so-called 'speculative realism' movement (for instance, those of

Third Text, 2013

Column in _Capitalism, Nature, Socialism_ Those at the art/science/environment juncture face head-on the challenge of our century, attempting daily to be artists, activists, dialecticians, and scientific practitioners simultaneously. Their fellow travelers are already on board: art critics, robot designers, amateur scientists, professional hackers, and post-disciplinary anarchists. The voices of red-green political ecologists belong in this engagement. The issues raised at this productive nexus call out for a reading that is simultaneously historical and red, ecological and feminist, critical and resistant, dialectical and materialist.

Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology, edited by Hubert Zapf, 2016

In relation to literary ecocriticism, ecocritical analysis of visual art is in a nascent stage. Despite, or perhaps due to, the centrality of idealized representations of nature in the history of art, and also because of the dominance of the gallery mercantile system as the chief means of display and dissemination of works of art, researched and documentary projects on ecosystems and vulnerable cultures and biotic matter, public art performing sustainability, and photographs as critical landscapes, have ben slow to gain attention. A genealogy of significant group exhibitions in museums is followed by focus on current approaches. Visual art is often called upon to effect political change; reified categories of political engagement and aesthetic autonomy are dissolving in more nuanced conceptions of art’s social position and contributions. Issues of agency and materiality are becoming central, as well as environmental justice. The work of critical art historians Malcolm Miles, T.J. Demos, and Emily Eliza Scott are featured.

Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, 2012

Keener Perception (2009) has sought to highlight research in American art history with an ecocritical perspective, the ethical integration of visual analysis, cultural interpretation, and environmental history. Editors Alan Braddock and Christoph Irmscher have questioned how art historians and scholars who care about climate change can respond through scholarly inquiry in a way that fosters solutions through the transformation of environmental perception and historical understanding. They have offered this book as a re-imagination of environmental relations and possibilities for our planet, through its highlighting of environmental contexts of past cultural artifacts, bringing attention to neglected evidence of past ecological sensibility, casting canonical works and figures in a new light regarding environmental concerns, and emphasizing the particular ways in which human creativity unfolds within different environments. They have asserted that ecocritical art history challenges anthropocentrism while fostering a greater awareness of environmental relationships, the predicament of nonhumans, and limits of human dominion. I recommend this book as a model and content resource to inspire both art teachers and curriculum developers to reimagine how we teach about historical and contemporary

This seminar explores recent and contemporary art, primarily from within the United States, that critically engages landscape, ecology, and other environment-related sciences and politics. As such, it is conceived as an intersecting history of art and history of “the environment” in recent decades. We will investigate the extent to which visual artists, as important cultural producers, have addressed and responded to pressing environmental issues, including pollution, climate change, urban sprawl, biodiversity, ecological restoration, biotechnology, waste management, public health, alternative energies, and sustainable design. Rather than claiming to offer a comprehensive survey of environment- related aesthetic practices, the seminar is structured in thematic clusters and treats art as a communication device for studying the environment.

This article redresses an oversight in current eco-theory that offers no means for revising still-persistent conceptions of nature and the natural. It proposes an ecologizing mode of analysis as one corrective. Throughout the essay is an attempt to redeem the human, the artificial, and with them, the city. The argument discovers along the way that in order to profess its non-existence, one must name and thus reify nature, a linguistic curiosity that makes clearer the extent of nature’s ideological reach. This reflexive foil should be taken into consideration by those who find the persistence of nature troubling to the future of eco-theory and eco-awareness.

Arts

This article demonstrates that ecological art is a very specific art form that follows its own methods of creation and, consequently, of dealing with material and its definitions. This view of ecological art is directed by art theory factors and fundamental questions of art history. Therefore, the main question in discussions on material and the functions of art is that of what contemporary ecological art produces in terms of the concepts ‘natural’ and ‘nature-fair.’ By analysing the artists Thomas Dambo, Aviva Rahmani and Tómas Saraceno, this article finds that, compared to various artistic forms that deal with ecology and the environment, ecological art acts more in the physical reality of the environment and ecosystems. Subsequently, what ecological art is actually producing is ‘a nature thing’, meaning a concrete effect on or intervention in the environment with gestures of appropriation, regeneration and coexistence, being above all ‘art for nature.’ The article shows that, in ...

The Art Bulletin, 2021

The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability: Annual Review

Since the industrial revolution, the earth's environmental health has steadily grown worse, arguably approaching a critical state. While science and technology offer innovations to help move towards a sustainable planet, another less obvious field is also working towards a more positive environmental future. Environmental art is defined as an artistic process in which an artist engages with the natural environment. An artistic movement that began in the 1960s, environmental art has gradually evolved into a form that encompasses a large number of ecologically driven works, which allow artists to improve environmental conditions through a more proactive, yet aesthetic role. Environmental art draws on a wide variety of approaches, including ecological feminist principles (Ecofeminism); large, remedial landscape architecture; biosculpture, that incorporates a living components, like water purifying moss; as well as social sculpture that aims to combine environmental conscience with social reform. These works introduce an aesthetic dimension to environmental remediation, incorporating sculptural and design elements. While forming a core element of environmental art since its inception, ecological aestheticism is slowly becoming a more wide spread art form. Presenting various different interactions between artist and environment, this paper will begin with a brief overview of the early environmental art movement that establishes the history of environmental art and contextualises more recent environmentally remedial artworks. It will also discuss some of the different forms of environmental art, to finally focus on the forms that are ecological in focus that repair damaged ecosystems, offer environmental solutions and generally serve a remedial function in a positive environmental future.