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Art & Ecology:

Photoessays: Art and the Earth



Changing Views About Art and the Earth

Transition to Ecological Art

by Don Krug and Jennifer Siegenthaler

As early as the 1960s, growing numbers of artists turned their attention to the environment, the processes of nature, and the land as a setting for artistic expression. Hans Haacke (b. 1936) was one of the first to focus on nature's processes and systems with his Condensation Boxes (1963-1965), Plexiglas containers encapsulating distilled water. Water droplets formed on the interior surfaces of the boxes, providing a visible and constantly changing record of the thermal and barometric conditions.

In the mid-1960s artists began moving their art out of their studios and galleries and into the landscape, in many instances actually engaging the land as a sculptural medium. This type of art became known as earthworks. Among the best-known earthworks were Robert Smithson's (1938-1973) Spiral Jetty, made in the same year as his death in a plane crash, and Christo's (b. 1935) Running Fence (1976). Spiral Jetty was a 1,500-foot-long, fifteen-foot-wide spiral formation composed of 6,650 tons of rock that projected into Utah's Great Salt Lake. The lake has since risen to submerge the earthwork. Running Fence consisted of an eighteen-foot-high structure made from white nylon fabric strung on steel cables between posts. The work formed an undulating white line through twenty-four miles of countryside in northern California's Sonoma and Marin counties. While both earthworks may have drawn public awareness to the land, art historian Barbara Matilsky has pointed out that not all environmental art is environmentally sound, nor does it necessarily carry an environmental message. Spiral Jetty involved the extreme manipulation of nature resulting from the use of a bulldozer and dynamite. Because of the intervention of environmentalists, Christo was forced to modify his design, leaving areas of the fence open for animal passage. Visitors to the fence were restricted to paved roads so as not to damage the region's ground cover.

Environmentalism suffered a serious setback in the 1980s, when the United States federal government became more responsive to the demands of industry, development, ranching, mining, and logging. The budget of the EPA was slashed during this period and programs to develop alternative energy sources were discontinued, such as solar and wind power.



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