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THE MAGAZINE HERITAGE
Art serving the environment
Though the union of "art" and "sustainable
development" seems rather vague, it has to
be admitted that it is "on trend" and that
when we look into it, this association is
ancient, legitimate and, very simply, natural.
But what does "art and sustainable development" really
mean? "It would be better to talk about the environmental
question, which is a broader, less political term,"
says environmental aesthetics specialist Nathalie Blanc,
Director of Research at the CNRS (French National Centre
for Scientific Research), and author, among other books,
of "Ecoplasties, Art et Environnement", written with art
historian Julie Ramos. "There are several relationships
between art and the environment, not merely one.
There are militant artists for whom ecological issues are
the central question. Their activist approach makes use
of posters and networks. Others, sensitive to the materiality
of places, speak poetically of an environmental form
of aesthetic through their works. Still others work with
scientists and create set-ups for maintaining the environment."
For example, Gilles Bruni, Mark Dion, Olafur
Eliasson, herman de Vries, and even Atelier Van Lieshout,
Alexis Rockman, Iain Baxter&, Lucy+ Jorge Orta, go
beyond practices mingling art and science. These go
hand in hand with a historical approach as well, like that
of the American artist Alan Sonfist, who collaborated in
the layout of new parks in New York, which he enriched
with work on the memory of biodiversity through his
project "Time Landscape" (1965-1978). Others use
symbols and the way works can trigger something in our
consciousness. For instance with "Dynamo-Fukushima"
presented at the Grand Palais in 2011, the plastic artist
Yann Toma invited us to pedal away on bicycles that lit
up light bulbs. A participative work designed to transmit
artistic energy in a gesture of solidarity with Japan. A
sensitive application of the "social ecology" and "grey" or
mental ecology advocated by the philosopher Félix
Guattari… In a word, all these proposals have the merit
of engaging a dialogue with viewers, who can then
provide their own interpretation. And some of the ideas
aren't new. The American land art movement appeared
in the Sixties. Does this mean that Robert Smithson was
expressing a strong ecological awareness of nature in his
"Spiral Jetty" of 1970? "His relationship with nature was
ironic, and at its expense," says our specialist, Nathalie
Blanc. Nevertheless, by creating external environments,
and by drawing attention to industrial dumps within
natural landscapes, land artists broke new ground. As
with many fields, recognition was slow in coming. Nearly
thirty years went by between the first works and the
49 soils from different areas of Japan, water from Chamarande
and small glass dishes, Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the
artist Adaptation for the estate of Chamarande.
© Laurence Godart