"The radical edge": art's agency in ecological disasters

“From the 1960s through most of the 1990s, the Left considered environmentalism to be ‘soft politics’. While the bold action of Greenpeace and the extremes of 'eco-terrorism’ had to be acknowledged, for the most part those who supposedly cared more for the earth and its creatures/creations than for people's revolutions were perceived as acting from a kind of political suburbia. Today, sparked by indisputable proof of human agency in climate change, the environment is in the centre foreground. It has become the radical edge.”

Lucy R. Lippard, “Beyond the Beauty Strip”

Vassilis P. Karouk, "Prima Materia", 2016, HD video (work commissioned by curator Nadja Argyropoulou for PCAI)

One of the most interesting subjects within the complex context of environmentalist concerns is the engagement of the arts; the cultural discourse and political debates that have been developed; the urgencies identified by theorists and artists alike and the rich visual vocabulary that has overwhelmed the relevant terrain. In the short excerpt quoted above, art theorist Lucy Lippard had pointed to one of the largely unexamined ‘traumas’ in the various perceptions of environmentally engaged art.
Lippard’s poignant approach was prevalent in a three-week experiment, envisioned as a “festival” and organized in Delhi, India in 2008, and expanded via a blog and several contributions. Curator Pooja Sood, and her team attempted to “interrogate the teetering ecology of the city through the prism of contemporary art”. This eco-urban laboratory of 2008 has been just one of numerous fascinating examples of the ecology-art entanglement. There is a rich background and related bibliography as to the transition from the eco-aesthetics of the 60’s and 70’s [Land Art, Eco Art, Earth Works, the art of pioneers such as Robert Smithson, György Keppes and Gustav Metzger] to the political ecology of the ‘90’s and 2000s where artists have investigated the nature-culture complex and matters of sustainability, social justice and economic growth. In the recent end of such a rich genealogy, art seems to have deepened and widened its approach like never before, with the input of anthropology, social theory, queer studies, science, pedagogy and activism and in order to address the broader sociocultural disasters. In this respect “environmental art” as a niche cultural category, is being now considered obsolete. Texts, theoretical interventions, exhibitions of various formats and worldwide art curatorials emerge as acutely aware of environmental developments; they re-imagine possible solutions and provide important links with political formations, economic theories and other major humanitarian crises (such as the refugee crisis and the wave of displacements it produces).

Felix Guattari’s concept of “ecosophy” – the three related ecologies of environmental, mental and social worlds and their mix into a life-changing practice – has been re-introduced via its readings by the arts and enriched by the experiences of 21^st century life.

This blog has already made note of the important work developed by cultural/political theorists, such as T.J.Demos, via writing, teaching and curating.

Eva Papamargariti "Always a body, always a thing” , still from single-channel video, sound, color, courtesy of the artist, 2016-2017 work commissioned by curator Nadja Argyropoulou for PCAI

Dynamic platforms such as World of Matter, devise a new kind of ecological knowledge commons while artists -founding members like Ursula Biemann travel the planet and investigate environmental catastrophe in a way that is both poetic and acutely political.  

In big art Institutions around the world - such as Documenta13 and Documenta14 or the Serpentine Gallery Marathons among many others, the expression of indigenous peoples meets with queer practices, with the struggles for economic equality and socially minded art works, thus producing new ecologies of co-existence or “sympoeisis”.

In my native Greece, one of the countries of the so-called “art periphery” and vis-à-vis neoliberal narratives of ‘growth’ and ‘development’ and the failure of the governance of the Left, the project/exhibition “Paratoxic Paradoxes”, recently curated by Nadja Argyropoulou, has commissioned international artists to reflect on present toxic realities and wasteful politics with the aim to shift attention to the extractivist dystopia clouding the future of all crisis-ridden countries.

Artist Angela Melitopoulos’s image works have repeatedly engaged with the perils of extractivism, either investigating the gold-mining industry in Greece or the passing between states of time and place as evidenced in the refugee camps.  

Excerpt from the video ‘Unearthing Disaster - Corridor X - Postscript to an Unfinished Journey - SOS Halkidiki’ (2:41)

It is true that environmentally engaged art AND art oriented environmentalism can equally generate a wide web of events ranging from revolutionary interventions to spectacular gestures; In a stunning performance, Greenpeace coordinated with Ludovico Einaudi to play the piano in a remote region of the Arctic, currently one of the most fragile and threatened ecosystems on Earth.

There are arguments and counter-arguments to be raised pro and against each and every case. Yet the most important thing is to keep in mind that art can suggest unpredicted ways to rethink the politics of ecology; it can expose nature’s tight binds with culture, technology, economy; it can imagine “the radical edge” into existence.