The Pioneering Artist Climate-Heroes

The artist-activists who predicted the climate crisis

Lydia Figes, 12 November 2019 (Dazed)

“…[B]efore climate change became a central marketable subject matter for major blockbuster exhibitions, there were artists creating a visual vocabulary for the perilous effects of human action on the environment…Initially stemming from the aesthetic principles of minimalism, environmental art, earthworks, or land art, first emerged as a concept in the 1960s and 1970s, when artists like Walter De Maria, Nancy Holt, and Robert Smithson, among others, approached landscape as a raw, sculptural material…

Helen Mayer Harrison, Newton Harrison, “Untitled” from Greenhouse Britain (2011)© MoMA-click to enlarge

[NILS-UDO has been active in the field of environmental art since the 1960s…[and sensitizes viewers to the ephemerality and endangerment of nature…[HELEN & NEWTON HARRISON took on climate change with] ‘The Survival Pieces’ (1970–1972) or ‘Greenhouse Britain’ (2007–2009) – an exhibition about rising sea levels…[ALAN SONFIST’s ‘Time Landscape’ (1965–1978–present) was] a ten-year project that acted as a ‘living monument’ to the indigenous botany of New York…

Alan Sonfist, "Time Landscape", 1965-1978-present© Alan Sonfist Studio-click to enlarge

[BETTY BEAUMONT’s 1978 to 1980 ‘Ocean Landmark’] transformed 500 tons of coal-waste – an ocean pollutant – into a lush underwater ‘fish garden’ for marine life off the coast of Long Island, New York…[JOSEPH BEUYS’ 1978 and 1982 works were manifestos] against capitalist consumer culture, and proposed policies now adopted by Green political parties…[AGNES DENES] work represented a capitalist, profit-driven economy against a broader backdrop of world poverty and hunger – a system of inequality that has been the driving force behind global warming…

“A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill”, Downtown Manhattan, 1982, John McGrailCourtesy of Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York-click to enlarge

[Since the 1970s, BUSTER SIMPSON] has been creating environmental artwork whose aim is not just to present problems but to offer ecological solutions…[Beginning in the 1990s, MEL CHIN expressed] growing concerns with environmental pollution…[From 2006, DIANE BURKO] has used scientific data [and the traditions of 19th-century romantic landscape painting] to show the rapid disappearance of glaciers and coral reefs…” click here for more

Diane Burko, “Grinnell Overlook 1” (2009)© Diane Burko-click to enlarge

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