ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENTS IN ART AFTER 1960

CONTEMP ART ‘12

ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENTS IN ART AFTER 1960 poster presentation

BURCU GÜNAY

1.INTRODUCTION All through art history, the artist has used the problems and issues of the society he/she lives in as materials of art. One of the most significant problems is the “environmental pollution” which does not imply an environmental problem in itself any more since starting with the advent of industrial revolution; it is escalating more and more in our era and has alienated the nature and mankind form each other. The artists who have created the language of art from the society they live in throughout art history cannot turn a blind eye to the concept of environmental pollution in an ecological approach.

2.THE CONCEPT OF ENVIRONMENT In general terms, environment is defined as “the sum of physical, chemical, biological and social factors that can directly or indirectly affect the human activities and living beings immediately or in time” (“Environmental Policy”, Keleş, HAMAMCI, 1993, p: 32). Environment, in this sense, is the unity of all biological, chemical, physical and social elements that can affect all living and non-living things.

3. THE BIRTH OF ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM Ecology defines the discipline that investigates the relationships of organisms with their environments and with each other and its objective is to study the mutual interaction process between all types of plants-animals in the world and their environment. Organisms need a specific number of living and non-living factors in the environment to continue their existence. Ecology which is interested in the interaction between these two types of factors is a science that grasps nature in its deepest sense and strives for taking its future under guarantee. The examination of the relationships between mankind and its environment shows that Neanderthals were defenseless against nature and natural events but mankind, defined as the animals with the ability to think, has declared itself as the master of the nature since the Ancient Greeks. This type of living beings, who were powerless at first, have risen to the level of power that can supervise and destroy the environment with the advent of science and industrialism in the 19th century. Associations such as “Man and Biosphere” run by UNESCO, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUNC) and Green Movement have started to grow since 1970s to keep the ecological balance.

4. ENVIRONMETALIST MOVEMENTS IN ART AFTER THE 1960s “A tree, a piece of land left to fallow, each river that is not poisoned, fighting against each amelioration plan can be seen as ultra realism now, not romantic (“Beuys Activities”, U.P.S.D., 1992, p: 90).

Environmentalist approaches are regarded in a plane constituted of social, 185

CONTEMP ART ‘12

economic, politic and aesthetic problems instead of being regarded solely form a biospheric angle since the 1960s. Environmental problems are believed to have a social and aesthetic will that is not based only on environmental pollution” in this structure defined as “three ecologies” by Felix Guattari (“Postmodern Image”, AKAY, 1997, p: 185). In this context, nature expressed for centuries by the artists through traditional methods such as painting and sculpture has started to be transformed into a real space for art since the 1960s and artists have put their signature on environmentalist trends in Guattari’s social ecology, mental ecology and environmentalist ecology network. As American artist Robert Smithson also expressed; artists who use “earthmovers instead of brushes” have worked in land installations whose production is temporary (“Trends in 20th Century Western Art, ANTMEN, 2008, p: 251). The challenging of gallery spaces by the artists and environmentalist movements have laid the foundation for this approach. The environmentalist movement which is expressed with terms such as land art, earth art, environmental art and ecological art has estranged itself from urban style and embraced the nature as a result of doubts and displeasure arising from urban life shaped by capitalist systems. The artists who come together in this trend have directly intervened in nature with natural materials such as stones, soil, sand and water and have employed documents such as photos, videos and maps in order to document the questioning of nature due to the transient nature of the process. The artists who have virtually created “an artistic topography” by their field trips, walks and actions have brought interpretations to the issue of distancing of individuals form the nature.

For instance Robert Smithson, who embraced this approach, addressed the concepts of “mankind-nature-industrial development and destruction” through his installation in Great Salt Lake, Utah in an area once petroleum was drilled.

In his work titled “Spiral Jetty”, the artist created a spiral jetty from stones, soil and salt crystals in an area filled with petroleum residues and he documented his work with the help of photos. This installation created in an industrial zone questions the dichotomy of mankind-nature and displays the stance of the artist regarding environmental pollution. Alan Sonfist’s soil amelioration and forestation project “Pool of Virgin Earth” created in a chemical waste zone is among the works of Ecological Art. The artist contributed to nature’s renewal process by subdividing the land that was left infertile due to chemical wastes and bringing it back to interaction with life.

In addition to artists’ nature restructuring projects, there are trends to transform nature to pieces of art by direct manipulation and intervention. American artist Michael Heizer’s work of 1969 titled “Double Negative” formed by moving more than 244.000 tonnes of soil by earthmovers on the two sides of a valley to form two deep trenches in Nevada Desert is an attempt to show his stance against museum spaces and his contribution to “increase physical experiences of bodies with the natural environments” (Kastner, 1998, p:54); Walter De Maria’s work titled “The Lightning Field” that focuses on the generation of electrical flows caused by metal/steel posts arranged in a wide desert expanse at about 200 m above the sea level and Richard Long’s work titled “A line in Himalayas” that aims to highlight geography, distances, measurement and maps; in short, the man and the nature through articulating lines in the nature can be found among the environmentalist 186

CONTEMP ART ‘12

activities of artists.

RESULT As a result, the activities artists generate in the nature could be interpreted as focusing on the sensitivity of artists to earth which has increasing environmental problems as well as on the distance of urban people from the nature.

REFERENCES AKAY, Ali. 1997. Postmodern Image, Bağlam Press, p: 7 ANTMEN, Antmen., 2008. Trends in 20th Century Western Art, 1st Edition, Sel Press, Istanbul, p: 254, 255.

BEUYS Joseph, 1992. Beuys Activities, UPSD Publication Series, Istanbul, p: 90 KASTNER, Jeffrey., WALLIS, Brian., 1998. Land and Environmental Art, Phaidon Press KELEŞ, Ruşen., HAMANCI, Can., 1993. Environmental Policy, 5th Edition, Istanbul, İmge Bookstore Press, s: 32.

187