11.30.2012

Adam Cvijanovic’s Post-Natural History at Postmasters Gallery



Discovery of America (installation detail ) 2012
flash acrylic on Tyvek, 15 x 65 feet

Gallery Review by Leila Nadir for ecoartspace

There’s no such thing as nature.

For some, this fact is commonplace: there is virtually no place on earth untouched by human beings, especially if climate change is considered. For others, this fact inspires deep anxiety: What exactly do nature skeptics think trees and glaciers are if not natural? These dichotomous responses to the current environmental condition of our planet usually causes conversation to stalemate. It is rare when a piece of writing or a work of art breaks through this divisive questioning to initiate a genuine dialogue about the complicated relationship of the human species to its physical environment—ecologically, historically, and perceptually.

Adam Cvijanovic’s recent solo exhibition, Natural History, at Postmasters Gallery, which ran from September 8–October 13, exposes the elaborate artifice behind what we call “Nature.” However, his paintings do not adopt a simple, “nothing-is-natural” stance. Rather, they suggest that nature may in fact exist but that humanity’s access to it is filtered by the accumulation of cultural data settled into our minds, shaping how we think, see, and imagine. Whether through advanced communications media or the seemingly isolated movement of a painting brush, anytime we reference or depict “nature,” Cvijanovic suggests, we are circling it, containing it, trying to capture it with our net of compulsive human misunderstanding.

The centerpiece of the show is the sixty-five-foot Discovery of America, which Cvijanovic painted on Tyvek and adhered directly to the gallery walls. The painting involves a collision of three scenes. An artist who has vacated her/his studio is in the process of creating a landscape painting of the western North American coast during the Pleistocene era. The pristine nature in the painting is inspired by dioramas at the Museum of Natural History. Armadillos, saber-tooth tigers, mammoths, and many other prehistoric species roam the mountains and the plains, most of whom disappeared quickly after the arrival of homo sapiens on the continent. Shop lights, 2x4s, a ladder, and a pizza delivery box are scattered about a grey floor, a floor that merges with Postmasters’ own concrete floor, melding artwork and gallery, creating for a feeling of displacement for the viewer—as if we can’t trust our own senses, as if any perception of nature is framed by unstable categories.

Crashing into the pristine nature of Discovery of America’s Pleistocene landscape is a scene of men dashing through the plains on horses, based on a photograph of the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889. Rendered in black-and-white, the cowboys appear to be riding through an old Hollywood Western film, and they cause the canvas to shred and tear, smashing its frame into smithereens. The destroyed continuity of the painting suggests the inability to depict what exactly happened when humanity arrived in North America, or when European settlers pushed aside indigenous inhabitants—as if there were a chronological or geographical gap in our representational abilities. How do we cognitively imagine what life on earth was like before the destruction wrought by our species? The painting’s wooden structure spills out onto the studio floor, where the artist has left quite a few empty bottles of beer. The painting shows that this rupture is momentous, cinematic, but also mundane, the aftermath of which we are all living in today, in a human-dominated planet earth. What more can we do than go have a drink?
White Tailed Deer 2012
flash acrylic on Tyvek
99 x 144 inches (8.25 x 12 ft)

 
Cvijanovic’s other paintings cite far-ranging sources of our contemporary visions of nature, including the romantic Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt, the mythical fantasy of unicorns, and perhaps most relevant to our times, media culture. White Tailed Deer offers a colorful, fall-time forest with an elegant lake in the background. The trees and leaves are nearly realistic, but they contain a hint of the high-contrast colors associated with animated film and video games. Standing in the foreground and framed by bright red leaves is a truly animated character, Bambi, surrounded by his skunk and rabbit friends from the 1942 Walt Disney film. The animals have huge, wide, glowing eyes—the sort that make humans say “Ah, how cute” before bending down to pet the wild animals who, in a real forest, would have no interest in them. Although White Tailed Deer’s collision of traditional landscape painting with a film animation of wildlife is not as stark or as violent as that in Discovery of America, we are reminded of the vast distance between nature and the ways in which our culture and media shape the way we see understand this concept. How many of us have had a friendly, fun Bambi (or Dumbo, Simba, Thumper, or Sebastian) lurking in our unconscious?

In Osborne Caribou, a caribou stands tall and proud atop a pile of bloody, skinned carcasses. That the caribou are gutted with the clean lines of a knife indicates a hunters’ work, suggesting yet another way in which humans relate to the natural world, as food to be eaten. The standing caribou looks hyperreal; the outline of his body is too vivid and smooth, as if Cvijanovic were adopting a photoshop aesthetic in his painting. The caribou looks as though it might move at any moment. The painting raises the question as to whether our encounters with animals have become so dominated by media representations that we expect animals to act like animations.
Osborne Caribou  2012
flash acrylic on Tyvek
99 x 144 inches (8.25 x 12 ft)

 
Natural History is not a clever riff on the American Museum of Natural History nor a nonstop vortex of signifiers nor a self-referential painting about painting, as previous critics have claimed. Those elements may be present, but Natural History goes beyond them to initiate an artistic meditation on the labor and subjectivity behind what we call science and nature, behind the supposed objectivity of the museum. Nature is not a perfect origin or an untouched state in Cvijanovic’s work. It loses that aura of timelessness. Instead, the viewer becomes aware of nature as an elusive quality that is always in a state of becoming and unbecoming, subject to whims, to moods, to the media we have consumed or the beers we have imbibed. Does Discovery of America really depict what the Late Pleistocene Era looked like? Does the Museum of Natural History do better? Or are our understandings of natural history the product of a painter who just ate too much pizza? Cvijanovic’s work asks, are we, as human beings, imprisoned by our own natural concepts, illusions, and designs? Nature might exist but it can only be understood through our limited and malleable human imagination. 

Leila Nadir earned her PhD from Columbia University and works as a post-disciplinary artist, scholar, critic and creative writer. She is co-founder of the ecoarttech collective and teaches in the Sustainability and Digital Media Studies programs at the University of Rochester. For more info, please visit http://www.ecoarttech.org

11.23.2012

Works on Water at the Marin Community Foundation


Works on Water opened at the Marin Community Foundation on October 5th and will be up through February 5th, 2013. This is the second of three exhibitions curated by Patricia Watts of ecoartspace for the foundation over a year period. Included are 30 artists and 120 artworks that address water issues in a wide range of media and focus. Given the extreme water scenario we find ourselves dealing with here in the USA with Hurricane Sandy on the East coast and a severe drought in the Southwest, this exhibition could not be more timely. The foundation offices are open Monday through Friday 9-5pm and admission is FREE. For more information and directions to the foundation please visit the Facebook event page HERE.

Kathryn Miller, Lawns in the Desert, 1994
Includes work by Adam Belt, Aline Mare, Aviva Rahmani, Basia Irland, Brandon Ballengee, Billy X. Curmano, Brooke Singer, Chrysanne Stathacos , Cynthia Hooper, David Maisel, Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler, Esmeralda Ruiz, Gregg Schlanger, Hagit Cohen, Jill Vasileff, J.J. L'Heureux, Kathryn Miller, Kim Stringfellow, Krista Elrick, Linda Gass, Manfred Menz, Mark Brest van Kempen, Mary Bayard White, Raheleh Zomorodinia, Robin Lasser and Marguerite Perret, Sant Khalsa, Sonja Hinrichsen, Sukey Bryan, Tiffany Homes, Victoria Vesna and Anna MacLeod.

To see images of the works please go HERE

9.17.2012

Getting Off the Planet


ecoartspace is proud to present the first in a series of site-based residencies happening throughout the state of New Mexico (2012-2013), a unique project titled Getting Off the Planet curated by ecoartspace founder and west coast curator Patricia Watts and independent curator Jenée Misraje in collaboration with the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI).

A digital dome video work with surround sound titled CARBON X created by New York artist Charles Lindsay in collaboration with visual effects specialist Eric Hanson of xRez in Los Angeles, will be presented to the public Saturday, September 22nd at 2pm at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Digital Dome in Santa Fe, New Mexico. An addition viewing will take place on Tuesday at 9am for the annual ISEA conference during their Santa Fe Day.

Lindsay, a multimedia artist, has been refining his camera-less photographic process for over ten years and was invited by the curators to be in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute in June 2012 to explore how his imagery could be applied in the fully articulated dome at IAIA. Lindsay spent several months in 2011 and 2012 working out of Los Angeles with Hanson rehearsing the 5 min video and while at IAIA this past summer he worked with Ethan Bach the dome director to edit and apply sounds from the region. The content is other worldly you could say, and offers viewers another realm to consider what it means to live in a world where other forms of extraterrestrial intelligence potentially exists. What might they look like, how might their presence be known.

In 2010 Lindsay was selected by the SETI Institute to be the first official artist-in-residence, and has been provided with the opportunity to work with the famous Dr. Jill Tartar at the SETI Radio Telescope in Northern California. 

Getting Off the Planet is a concept that Patricia Watts conceived of as an exhibition in 2008. In 2010 she partnered with Jenée Misraje to research artists and identify funding, then decided to focus on residencies instead. Watts has recently made five trips to New Mexico visiting sites and potential collaborators. It is the curators vision that the invited artists will spend at least a month in New Mexico at a site of their choice, to create work either in the landscape, or derive imagery and ideas from their time in New Mexico to create work later at their home studios. The works will speak to our relationship with the universe and how it informs what it means to be here now on planet Earth from an ecological and spiritual perspective.

The curators are seeking funding to commence residencies with Taro Shinoda (Japan), Aleksandra Mir (UK), Vincent Lamouroux (France), and Roman Keller and Christina Hemauer (Switzerland), as well as five other artists out of 15 artists currently under consideration.

Patricia Watts will present the GOTP project at ISEA on Thursday September 20th at 9am at the Natural History Museum Planetarium in Albuquerque, and will moderate a panel discussion including Charles Lindsay, along with other panelists, in the afternoon at 1:15 in the special events room at the Albuquerque Museum. 













A completion exhibition will take place Fall 2013 at the Santa Fe Art Institute gallery.

See you in New Mexico!!!


http://www.gettingofftheplanet.org

7.18.2012

Beyond Landscape at the Marin Community Foundation


Beyond Landscape at the Marin Community Foundation is the first of three exhibitions being organized and curated by ecoartspace in Northern California for one of the largest community foundations in the nation. The first exhibit which consists of over 160 works by over 60 artists who belong to the Women Environmental Artist Directory or WEAD opened on June 14th and had an opening reception on June 28th. Artworks were selected through a national call on CaFE and were juried by Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Artist and co-founder of WEAD (Oakland, CA); Bonnie Sherk – Artist and Founder & Director of Life Frames, Inc. & A Living Library (San Francisco, CA); Gloria F. Orenstein – Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at USC (Los Angeles, CA); Randy Jayne Rosenberg – Executive Director and Chief Curator for Art Works for Change (Oakland, CA); and Patricia Watts – Founder/west coast curator of ecoartspace (CA).

Since 1996 WEAD has focused on women’s unique perspectives to further understanding of ecological and social justice art. Run by a hands on activist board of arts professionals they published a print directory of artists from 1996-­‐2009, and since 1999, a networking website that includes a biannual critical arts magazine featuring essays by independent writers, curators, and artists. The directory currently has over 300 members.  

The Marin Community Foundation has exhibited art in its office space for nearly the entire 25 years of its existence and has an open floor plan, with large wall spaces and lighting system. The offices are located at 5 Hamilton Landing in a 28,000 sq. ft. former airplane hanger space at Hamilton Airfield in Novato, CA.

Works are for sale to the public through WEAD and 85% of each sale will go to the artist.
Next on the exhibition schedule is a water show that will open early October and run through January 2013. 
Beyond Landscape closes on September 28th.

5.27.2012

Monsantra


Patricia Watts, ecoartspace founder and west coast curator was recently invited to write a short essay for a gallery exhibition catalogue titled Monsantra published by TNG Gallery in Calgary featuring the work of Canadian artist Wendy DesChene and American artist Jeff Schmuki. The essay is online HERE. Since 2006 when she curated Hybrid Fields at the Sonoma County Museum, there have been numerous exhibitions and many artists creating work that explores our food systems. Most recently at the Smart Museum is Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art curated by Stephanie Smith, which closes June 10th in Chicago, and upcoming Fall 2012 Green Acres at the CAC in Cincinnati curated by Sue Spaid.

 "Using GMO seed obtained from the Monsanto Corporation, artists Wendy Deschene & Jeff Schmuki have grafted genetically modified food plants onto remote controlled robotic bases, constructing artificial organisms with no clear heritage or future."

The exhibition runs through June 9th, 2012.


3.08.2012

BiodiverCITY for 5 x 5 in Washington D.C.

Amy Lipton curator for ecoartspace NY has been busy working on BiodiverCITY, her curatorial public art project for 5 x 5 in Washington D.C. opening on March 24th. Hosted by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 5 x 5 includes five international curators who have each selected five artists to participate. The 25 temporary public art projects will encompass all 8 wards of D.C. and the stated goal of the project is to activate and enliven publicly accessible spaces and add an ephemeral layer of creativity and artistic expression to neighborhoods across the District. The 5 x 5 will be presented in conjunction with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, one million plus people are expected to take part in the nation’s greatest springtime celebration.

March 2012 marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. The cherry blossoms are a symbol in Japanese culture that indicates rebirth. The Festival commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the gift of trees from Tokyo to Washington, DC.

Amy has chosen to work with five artists whose focus is on biodiversity both in scientific and cultural terms. Biodiversity refers to the wide variety of ecosystems and living organisms including humans, animals, plants, their habitats and their genes which all contribute to life on Earth. These five artists all take a participatory approach and intend for their projects to engage, inspire and raise awareness about various issues related to the natural environment in the urban setting of Washington D.C. The common goal of these works is to connect people and communities aesthetically by bringing attention to the sometimes hidden relationships between city dwellers, urban nature, human and non human life forms.

If we wiped out insects alone the rest of life and humanity with it would disappear in a few months  - E.O. Wilson, biologist and author of BioDiversity

Tattfoo Tan will create p:ARK, (March 24 - July 20) a large-scale, walkable labyrinth in an open grass field at Yard’s Park along the Anacostia riverfront. The field will be planted with weeds, grasses and whatever volunteer plants grow and left unmowed. Just before the 5 x 5 opening the field will be mowed into a labyrinth pattern. Visitors to the site can walk into this path and consider the differences and relationships between public space, cultivated lawns and weeds. Tattfoo wants his audience to understand that we are all part of nature and migration (including weeds and invasive plants) is a natural process that will continue regardless of the changing positions on immigration. In this way his art hopes to inspire thinking about ways we can all live together in a world that is getting smaller as population increases and people move around globally.

The term weed in its general sense is a subjective one, without any classification value, since a "weed" is not a weed when growing where it belongs or is wanted. Indeed, a number of "weeds" have been used in gardens or other cultivated-plant settings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weed

Tattfoo received a 2010 “Annual Awards for Exellence in Design”, Public Design Commission of the City of New York, for the Rehabilitation of the Bronx River Art Center. He received a public art commission from Percent for the Arts and New York School Construction Authority at PS 971, Brooklyn, New York for his permanent wall installation “SOS (Sustainable Organic Steward) Pledge” in 2010. Tattfoo’s work has been shown by various institutions including; The Queens Museum of Art, The City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute and Project Row Houses, Houston, TX. Tattfoo received a Proclamation Award from City Council, The City of New York for his for his effort, service and artistic contribution to the community.

Let’s change our aesthetic of what is beauty and stop trying to tame nature by poisoning it. Ultimately, we are slowly killing ourselves in the name of cohesiveness, dare to be different and embrace diversity. - Tattfoo Tan

Natalie Jeremijenko will suspend her work, B Bridge (March 25 - July 25) to help butterflies cross obstacles in a busy urban street location. The B Bridge project creates a quiet spectacle that facilitates the lifestyle and environmental services of these beautiful and popular urban cohabitants and demonstrates how we might re-imagine our infrastructure to account for the diverse nonhumans with whom we share territorial resources. Butterflies will bounce along the bridge which makes use of enticing flowering vegetation to safely guide them over a heavily trafficked intersection in order to connect to fragments of habitat. The presence of different species of butterflies and moths is vital to maintain and preserve the biodiversity in urban areas. They represent a significant proportion of pollinators, thus maintaining the diversity chain and gene transfer between plant species.

Urban contexts, surprisingly, are islands of biodiversity -- or as we like to spell it: biodiverCITY. This characteristic of our urban systems is perhaps the most critical in producing a healthy and resilient urban future that is robust to climate destabilization and ecological transformations. - Natalie Jeremijenko

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. Jeremijenko’s projects which explore socio-technical change have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including MASSMoCA, The Whitney Museum and Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, she was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine. Jeremijenko is the director of the environmental health clinic at NYU, Assistant Professor in Art, and is affiliated with the Computer Science Dept.

Embracing the international status of Washington, DC as the capital of the United States, Chrysanne Stathacos will present a public art project titled Natural Wishing (March 20- July 20) to enable participants to connect with “wishing actions” from around the world. The viewing public will be able to take a journey using their own cell phone while riding a city bus or by tying a wish to a tree at various locations throughout DC. Printed wishes will be available to be hung on trees or kept, in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Some of the included trees in this project can be seen at: The Textile Museum, Sasha Bruce, and The Hill Center/ Old Navy Hospital. One can participate in this project by leaving a wish by voice or text, accessed by mobile phone to a QR code or phone number seen on printed posters. Over 200 of these posters will be installed on DC Metro buses from March 20 - April 30th.

Wishing rituals are personal performances; blowing, throwing, speaking, drinking, singing, holding, to name a few. In today’s challenging landscape, one finds the need for hope and wishing as fundamental in order to create a better world . People’s need for hope cannot be underestimated, as often hope provides us a deeper understanding of our mutual interdependence, and results in our world flourishing . - Chrysanne Stathacos

Toronto and NYC based Chrysanne Stathacos’ interdisciplinary art practice draws on photography, printmaking, book-works, video, installation, public art, and participatory interaction. She aims to make new connections between cultures, historical periods, technologies, and environmental issues, which mirror the human processes of change, hope, healing and mortality. Stathacos has exhibited her work extensively in museums, galleries, sculpture gardens, and public spaces internationally including The Wish Machine, presented by Creative Time in Grand Central Station, New York City. She received a 2001 award from the Japan Foundation, for The Wish Machine project, which enabled her to do creative research in India and Japan for six months.

Love Motels for Insects (March 24 - June 10) is an outdoor light installation by Brandon Ballengée for the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. The Love Motel uses ultra-violet lights on enormous blank fabric to attract insects and creates an opportunity for public interactions with nocturnal arthropods, which are not often seen. The sculpture is fabricated in the form of giant dragonfly wings and is intended to construct situations between humans and non-human life-forms. Versions of Ballengée’s black-light sculptures and public nocturnal field-trips have taken place in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. At each location the arthropods leave traces and create abstract pheromone paintings on the fabric surface.

Exploring the boundaries between art, science and technology, Brandon Ballengée creates multidisciplinary works out of information generated from ecological field trips and laboratory research. Ballengée has collaborated with scientists, members of the public and students to conduct environmental research and ecological artworks. His transdisciplinary works involve collaboration with participants from diverse age, economic, educational, and ethnic backgrounds. His artworks have been exhibited in museums, galleries, sculpture parks and public spaces in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. He currently is finalizing his Ph.D. through a collaborative program between the University of Plymouth, England and Hochschule für Gestaltung in Zürich, Switzerland. He is a Professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Working and communicating with diverse groups is vital to the creative process. It allows the works to function as site-specific- not only in geographic terms, but also culturally. This intellectual exchange also permits the work to grow in novel directions guided by group ideas instead of a solitary artist's hand -- like organisms evolving to changing environmental stimuli.
-Brandon Ballengée



Habitat For Artists is a collective project that uses the idea of the artist’s studio as a catalyst for mutual engagement between artists and communities. The “habitats” are small, temporary, 6 by 6 foot art studios installed at a variety of locations. HFA invites local and member artists for periods of residency to work in these small studios. The studios are made from recycled and reclaimed material and are reused for each new iteration of the project. From March 20 - April 27th, HFA at THEARC in D.C.’s 8th Ward will invite D.C. artists and local youth, after school programs and community groups to participate on weekly projects both inside and outside the studio to explore creative expression in a collaborative setting with a changing member of the HFA team each week including artists Simon Draper, Matthew Slaats (Freespace), Chere Krakovsky, Todd Sargood, Michael Natiello, Michael Asbill, and Jessica Poser. An exhibition of works created throughout the HFA residency will be exhibited at the end of April at THEARC's Corcoran Gallery through the Corcoran Art Reach program.

These intimate work spaces not only ask artists working in them to explore their creative needs, BUT also act as a metaphor for our OWN domestic needs. How might we be more creative about our consumption of materials, our use of energy and land? Could we be doing more with less, yet still create a vibrant, relevant society and culture? - Simon Draper, founder of Habitat for Artists.

The four other selected curators for 5 x 5 are: Richard Hollinshead, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK; Laura Roulet, Washington, DC; Justine Topfer; San Francisco, CA and Steve Rowell, Culver City, CA

http://www.the5x5project.com/25-citywide-public-art-installations-to-be-unveiled-in-partnership-with-the-national-cherry-blossom-festival/

TWITTER: @thedcarts @CherryBlossFest
FACEBOOK: /thedcarts /CherryBlossomFestival
WEBSITE: dcarts.dc.gov nationalcherryblossomfestival.org

2.01.2012

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE




Water water everywhere and nor any drop to drink. This seems to be this years climate change theme as we are now experiencing first hand how an increase in the evapotranspiration cycle is leaving us with both flooding and arid landscapes. ecoartspace is currently working on three water programs this year, building on an online exhibition entitled WaterWorks, which we curated in 2006. And, ironically, this winter has been one of the driest on record in the USA according to the National Weather Service.


On February 11th, Saturday from 1-3pm, Amy Lipton will moderate a water panel at  Cathedral Church Saint John the Divine, Donegan Hall, Diocesan House in New York City. The panel discussion entitled Visions for Water: Ecological Artists Modeling Solutions for our Challenged Water Systems includes Lillian Ball, Jackie Brookner, Betsy Damon, Fredericka Foster and Aviva Rahmani. It is presented in conjunction with The Value of Water: Sustaining a Green Planet, an exhibition at the Cathedral running through March 25, 2012. RSVP to amy@ecoartspace.org


Opening March 1st at the San Joaquin Delta College LH Horton Jr. Gallery, ecoartspace has curated eight site works for the exhibition Delta Waters. Jan Marlese, the Gallery Director in Stockton, California invited Patricia Watts last spring to identify mostly California artists who already had, or who would create, art works specifically addressing water related issue unique to the Delta Region. The San Joaquin Valley is a complex terrain of highly regulated water rights in one of the most historically fertile and productive food regions in the world. Artists include Linda Gass, Cynthia Hooper, Basia Irland, Kimberlee Koym-Mureira, OPENrestaurant, Esmeralda Ruiz, Tao Urban and Jane Wolff. Five of the eight installations are being created specifically for this exhibition.


On March 8th, there will also be a panel discussion at Delta College Tillie Lewis Theatre with Barbara Barriagan-Parrilla, Director of Restore the Delta; Lloyd Carter with Save Our Streams Council; Cynthia Hooper a video artist in Delta Waters; and Paul Ustach a SJDC science professor. Watts will moderate the discussion.

And, that's not all, coming up this fall Patricia Watts has also been invited to curate a residency and exhibition entitled Shifting Baselines for the Santa Fe Art Institute addressing water scarcity in the Southwest including Cynthia Hooper and Hugh Pocock. Additional artists from the region will be selected for the exhibition that will open early 2013.

1.30.2012

ecoartspace archive

Over the past two years ecoartspace has focused on creating an archive of ephemera and video interviews of ecological artists' work. We have also been invited to contribute several essays for publication with increasing interest.


Our most recent essay, Public Art Ecology: From Restoration to Intervention, co-written by Amy Lipton and Patricia Watts, is for a new book entitled The New Earthwork: Art, Action, Agency edited by Twylene Moyer and Glenn Harper and published by International Sculpture Center Press (distributed by University of Washington Press). In this essay we reviewed long-term projects by artists Mierle Ukeles, Patricia Johanson, Mark Brest van Kempen and Jackie Brooker; and also highlighted recent temporal works by Eve Mosher, EcoArtTech, Amy Franceschni+Future Farmer and Tattoo Tan.



Patricia Watts has published an essay which is a start to a book she would like to write on ecological performance art. Entitled Performative Public Art Ecology you can read it online in the Women Environmental Artists Directory magazine, Issue #4 entitled No Time For Complacency edited by Susan Leibovitz Steinman, co-founder of WEAD. In this essay Watts examines important performance based ecoart with early examples beginning in 1970 and follow its evolution up to 2008. The works featured illustrate an evolution from the gestural, poetic, or conceptual, towards more practical actions that provide tools for sustainable living.


Another recently uploaded piece online is an interview with Watts for the #5 Winter Issue of Mammut magazine entitled Some Kind of Nature, published out of Los Angeles and edited by Matthias Merkel Hess and Roman Jaster. In the interview Hess and Watts discuss The Ebb and Flow of Ecology and Art. The magazine is available as a high or low res download and can be viewed as an online flip book (very sustainable), each for FREE.


And, to start 2012 off on a good funding foot, ecoartspace was awarded a grant from the Arnow Family Fund in New York to do new interviews for our video archive and to edit footage from interviews we did in 2010-11. Interviews with Mierle Ukeles, Buster Simpson, Susan Liebovitz Steinman, Betsy Damon and Bonnie Sherk are now in the works. These are two hour interviews that will be available for research purposes and will also be edited into approximately 5 minute videos for exhibition purposes. Previous edited interviews with Patricia Johanson and Jackie Brookner can be viewed on the ecoartspace YouTube site HERE.

We are going to be using our blog as the main ecoartspace website for now until we build a new site this year, and are also looking to create a digital catalogue of our first 12 years (1999-2011), pending funding.


1.18.2012

Urban Sustainability by Jessica Kimmel, ecoartspace intern 2011-2012



The Urban Sustainability program at Antioch University in Los Angeles encourages a multi-disciplinary approach to solving issues of scientific and societal importance. The core requirements for the degree include courses in systems thinking, environmental literacy, social justice and a hands-on approach to fieldwork. The program also provides graduate study in urban ecosystem science, activism and advocacy, environmental education, sustainable practices, and research methods. A large component is our fieldwork studies-- contributing an opportunity to explore and develop skills to our rigorous studies and the experience to prepare for our ambitious futures. In my first semester of fieldwork in 2011, I selected two site projects including ecoartspace with Patricia Watts and Green Public Art with Rebecca Ansert, both out of Los Angeles.

During the 36-unit degree program, I am participating in a series of residencies that consist of classroom instruction, guest lectures and elective seminars. Antioch has a long-standing commitment to social justice in the community that has allowed me to consider utilizing methods and theories of social sciences toward solving complex sustainability related concerns. The class has toured the port of Los Angeles, examined L.A.’s public lands struggle the beach in Malibu and hiked through Ramirez Canyon, toured Venice on bikes with Bikerowave, and visited the Burbank Recycling Center and Puente Hills Landfill. These tours have created a really valuable platform for the free exchange of ideas pertaining to making our contribution more sustainable.

Antioch’s Urban Sustainability program will operate as a vehicle for the study of urbanization and its ecosystemic impacts. As social scientists, educators and communicators, I believe we must similarly examine how environmental hardship is socio-economically distributed. Environmental justice, climate change and land use provide us with excellent context. In the multi-disciplinary tradition, I have long studied and admired leading environmental artists such as Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. I applaud how progressive-intellectuals have successfully used various mediums to communicate complex ideas in accessible terms. Adams used photography to capture the beauty of the American landscape and bring awareness to the necessity of its protection. Photography is one of my academic and personal concentrations and as a master’s student my hope is to create an intersection of creativity and activism to initiate lasting changes.

This year was also my first experience curating an art show. I was the student organizer of this years annual Artistic Uprising at Antioch, which took place on November 18, 2011. It was such an incredible experience for me to have and has allowed me to grow in ways I never dreamed of. Working on a project of such importance to the campus and AULA community, continuing the tradition as the fourth annual exhibit, and leading my peers through a successful show has given me a sense of fulfillment and validated the direction I’ve chosen. The art show was started by Cindy Short in 2008. Proceeds from art sales and other activities at the event benefit The Bridge Program. Bridge provides a college education for low-income adults in the Los Angeles area, at no cost to the student. The program pays their tuition for 15 college credits with all other necessary expenses included: books, supplies, bus tokens, and even meals on the evenings of classes.

Through the opportunities Antioch has given me, I have been able to witness first-hand the impacts and influence art can have in support of a sustainable existence on the goals of urban sustainability. It is my hope to contribute my efforts to mobilize artists in the pursuit of spreading the message of environmental consciousness. I will also be exposed to professionals outside of science and academia that are working to promote the goals of sustainability by participating in the environmental movement. My goal is to encourage environmental discourse in the local community and solidify artists as relevant stakeholders in the environmental dialogue. Through project management, artist interaction and social media, I have a unique opportunity to contribute to ecoartspace’s operation, success and continued legacy as an invaluable and effective environmental resource. I admire what ecoartspace stands for and am thrilled by their initiatives for promoting and reaching sustainability. I am excited to be a member of their team and hope that our efforts together can transcend social, economic and political boundaries.

1.03.2012

2012 has Arrived


As we prepare for exhibitions, projects, and program for 2012, we realize that our website has not been updated in two years. In the coming weeks we will post a review of our 2011 activities. Stay tuned, we have our largest and most interesting projects happening this year!!!