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rtists since antiquity have depicted nature in countless ways. While
nature has certainly been one of the most universal sources of
inspiration for artists, in 20th century Western art it has not been a
predominant aesthetic issue or force. In the late 19th century Hudson
River School artists such as Frederick Church, Thomas Cole and Albert
Bierstadt made spiritually inclined, transcendent landscape paintings
reflecting a relationship of communion with nature. Most contemporary
art connected with this tradition is perceived as nostalgic, as having a
post-industrial longing for a non-existent mythological place. A
romanticized view of nature is no longer available to us today as weve
devastated and depleted our natural resources.
"The dispassionate eye" of Cartesian perspective culminating in 20th
century Modernism has taken us away from an holistic view of nature
towards a more detached, interior, subjective psychological space. The
outcome of this type of Modernist thinking has resulted in an art
dislocated from life and obsessed with a scientific notion of absolute
truth, technological progress and the separation of humanity from the
rest of the planet.
Some of the earthwork and land artists from the 60's and 70's and
socially conscious artists like Joseph Beuys began the process of
rectifying Modernism's detachment. However, the subsequent cynicism of
80s and 90s Post-Modernism has offered little genuine change and has
not taken art out of its isolationist position. Contemporary art
discourse does not include much discussion regarding spirituality,
mysticism or reverence for nature because the prevailing belief has
been that irony is the only tool available to negotiate the highly
mediated world. The challenge today is to invent a new paradigm, one
which makes room for mythological thinking in art. Artist Mel Chin has
accomplished this in his work Revival Field by combining science,
mythology, ecological activism and aesthetics. This approach is not a
fall back into superstition but a healing vision with an outward focus.
This exhibition uses the organizing figure of the garden through which a
variety of works can be brought together. Some of the artists approach
the subject in a contemplative or ritualistic manner, such as Nils Udo's
Zen-like arrangements of natural found materials, Roy Staab's ephemeral
reed sculptures, Chrysanne Stathacos' performance based Flower Mandala
and Joanne Howard's laboriously strung Cicada sculpture.
Others take a
more active interventionist approach as with Mel Chin's reclamation
work, Revival Field , Aviva Rahmani's, 9 year long restoration
performance work, Ghost Nets., Betsy Damon's
revolutionary river
cleansing park, the Living Water Garden
and Kathryn Miller's
transformation of urban blight under a freeway, The Grasslands Project.
Jackie Brookner's
moss sculpture Prima Lingua, which detoxifies water as
it filters through it and Tim Collins/Reiko Goto's
Aachen Water Mark
using living willow plants to cleanse water in city fountains are
examples of works that use both metaphor and actual bio systems to
demonstrate ecological principles at work.
Like many of these artists,
Joan Bankemper and Susan Leibovitz Steinman work collaboratively with
community groups, local residents and school students to create garden
projects that bring renewal to formally degraded sites. Agnes Denes',
monumental Tree Mountain in Finland invited 11,000 people from around
the world to each plant a tree, creating the first man made virgin
forest.
Artists, Paula Hayes and Janet Pihlblad, use living, growing and
changing plants to create sculptures and installations, as does Peter
Coffin in his sound installation with plants, Perfect If On and
composer/performer Ben Neill in his projected environment with plants
and interactive sound, Green Machine. Michele Stuart used plants,
flowers, and earth to create her mural painting, Paradisi and David
Chow paints giant flowers of enormous beauty and translucency.
Figures such as the garden, flowing water and light, and the tree of
life and knowledge can all be found in ancient Biblical and medieval
mystical texts which involve sun and moon cycles, star formations, tides
and seasons. The artists in this exhibition are working with these
natural transformative processes towards a new vision- one that is
ecological, cyclical, feminist and holistic, opening up the possibility
of a new landscape, an alchemical garden.
These artists are involved in a re-engagement with nature that goes
beyond representation to an active participation with the living cycles
of nature. Connected to but revolutionizing the landscape tradition,
these are works without an horizon which are not concerned with viewing
nature from afar but rather of engaging with it directly. These works
embody a broader concept of art in its relationship to nature, one which
is informed but not limited by science, history and critical discourse.
The most pressing issue of our day and certainly into this new century
is the global environment. The intent of this exhibition is to raise
environmental awareness by presenting works that transcend current
issues in much contemporary art that is addressing popular culture. This
process is one of healing in a physical and metaphysical sense. The
theme is a synthesis of our post-Newtonian age with its deconstructive
practices and decentering electronic technologies with the symbolic
past, the proto-scientific age of alchemy which referenced an even more
ancient prehistoric time when art and nature were not so clearly
distinct from one another.
Amy Lipton
April 2002
Beacon, NY
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