Ecological art takes centre stage
On the growing number of exhibitions on environmental issues since the Covid crisis.
"In the face of ecological and climate crises, can art be a catalyst for change, a force for mobilising society? Eric Tariant poses the question in his article for the June 2023 issue of Connaissance des arts magazine, taking a look at the countless works of art for sale created to inform, raise awareness and propose concrete action. Between poetry and activism, ecological art exhibitions are not to be outdone, and are flourishing just about everywhere this year. Let us be the judge. "Le chant des forêts" can be seen until 22 July at the MAIF Social Club in Paris. A sensitive, visual and sonic journey through the heart of the woods, like a polyphony, it invites visitors from the roots to the canopy, from Europe to Latin America, to "get lost" in the real and imaginary ecosystems of the forest. Joining us here are the audio-naturalist composer Fernand Deroussen, the photographer Thierry Cohen, the visual artist Emilie Faïf, the sculptor Florian Mermin, as well as Tatiana Wolska, Félix Blume, the Peruvian collective Fibra, Romain Bernini, Beya Gille Gacha, Thierry Boutonnier...
After Eva Jospin's works of art for sale were presented on the art market via Art Basel from 15 to 18 June, others will be lighting up Avignon this summer and until 31 December, as well as Belgium until 15 July in the exhibition "Eva Jospin. Panorama" at the Fondation Thalie, presenting the work of the French artist for the first time in Brussels. "The "Panorama" exhibition takes visitors on a poetic stroll through her sculptural work, an invitation to reverie with its Rousseauist overtones of landscape fragments and fanciful architectural elements. The artist's skilful hands unite the works of man and nature, from the Balcony, whose intricate ironwork is dressed in finely-cut lianas, to the Cardboard Grotto, which conjures up the imaginary worlds of architectural folly and eighteenth-century landscaped gardens. Inspired by the monumental fountains of ancient Rome, which became fashionable ornaments in parks and gardens during the Renaissance, the rockwork theatre of a Nymphaeum over three metres long sits majestically at the heart of the exhibition, revealing all the artist's mastery," writes Nathalie Guillot, the exhibition's curator.
"Dans l'épaisseur de nos lisières, là où naissent les dragons" (In the depths of our borders, where dragons are born) is an exhibition that unfolds throughout the Château de Chamarande, in the Essone region of France. It takes visitors on a journey through nine artistic universes, each of which, in its own way, illustrates a particular relationship to the notion of "territory". Whether through drawing, painting or sculpture, or through performance, video or textiles, each artist invites visitors to immerse themselves in a new form of 'territory', one that doesn't fit neatly into traditional categories. The dream and the real, the lived and the remembered, the sensitive and the intelligible, space and time all come together in their works to form new constellations, brief and unprecedented. The artists featured are : Cathryn Boch, Jordi Colomer, Suzanne Husky, Michèle Magema (accompanied by Julie Crenn), Kathleen Petyarre (accompanied by Stéphane Jacob), Abraham Poincheval, Eric Tabuchi & Nelly Monnier (ARN), Capucine Vever and Brankica Zilovic.
"L'île intérieure" can be visited on the island of Porquerolles until 5 November. Like a mise en abîme of the insularity of the Villa Carmignac in Porquerolles, the exhibition, curated by art historian Jean-Marie Gallais, explores a whole area of art that seems to detach itself from reality to offer dizzying plunges into inner worlds. More than 80 works by around fifty artists, from public and private collections, the Carmignac collection and productions, sketch out the dotted lines of an inner island, with each visitor filling in the gaps in his or her own way. While contemporary art has never been so political and in touch with the world, a whole strand of creative activity - painting in particular - seems to be detaching itself from it, offering dizzying plunges into inner worlds and retreats. What does this departure from reality mean today?
At the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris, you'll have to look for poetry elsewhere than in the title of the exhibition running until 31 December: "Climate Emergency". It has the merit of being clear. The exhibition offers an overview of the mechanisms that aim to reconcile a dual imperative: decarbonisation and the resilience of our societies. Its aim is to show that the fight against global warming must mobilise all the players in society if we are to achieve a low-carbon world by the second half of this century. At the centre of the exhibition, the Data of the Future data visualisation system, inaugurated in 2021, invites the public to imagine and glimpse the possible futures of our planet. The film is divided into three sections: humans and figures / a planet on its reserves / a climate under surveillance. Paleoclimatologist Jean Jouzel is the scientific curator of this new permanent exhibition.
"Wolfgang Laib. The beginning of something", in Stuttgart. Now that's more intriguing. Whether it's harvesting pollen for his famous minimalist works with their bright yellow ground or the meticulous handling of his beeswax sculptures, respect for nature is Wolfgang Laib's driving force. Since the late 1970s, the artist's thinking and work have been questioning our being and acting in fragile living spaces. Although the pioneers of ecological art in the United States at the end of the 1960s were Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, Nancy Holt, Patricia Johanson and Alan Sonfist, and this form of art spread to Europe and reached a milestone in 1982 with the planting of thousands of trees organised by Joseph Beuys as part of Documenta in Kassel, the German artist is no less a pioneer and is now at the cutting edge of current affairs. In this exhibition, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart presents works of art from all the phases of his creation, including his "rice houses" and ziggurats, a selection of drawings and a pollen field. The most recent works, the Towers of Silence, are also part of the presentation. This completes an important axis of the collection, since Wolfgang Laib is well represented in the Kunstmuseum's inventory with some exemplary works. The Growing Room, for example (in the basement of the collection), permanently installed since 2005, is one of only seven of its kind in the world.
And don't miss Prune Nourry's extraordinary Mater Earth installation. Amid the vines of Château La Coste, near Aix-en-Provence, a figure of fertility made of unbaked clay mingles with the ashes of recent forest fires...