Sustainable art

Sustainable art has emerged as an art term that can be distinguished from environmental art or land art. Environmental art refers to a niche position within contemporary art and is associated with direct attempts to rectify the effects of environmental degradation, or art that is instrumentalised as a tool in environmental campaigns. The sustainability of art refers to issues that are of relevance to contemporary art as a whole.

Overview

There are a range of interpretations of the term 'sustainable art' available to artists and curators working with the concept of 'sustainability'. While some authors propose a strong concept of 'sustainable art' (e.g. Maja and Reuben Fowkes), other authors prefer the broader notion of 'sustainability arts' (e.g. Kagan and Kirchberg). [Eds Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg (2008). "Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures". Frankfurt am Main: VAS. ISBN:978-3-88864-440-5] Others avoid the direct use of the term 'sustainable art', referring instead to 'artistic work that inspires us to think about sustainability" (Margot Käßmann). [Margot Käßmann. "The Spirit of Sustainability." Berlin: Rat für Nachhaltige Entwicklung.]

The dilemma of sustainability was influentially described in the Bruntland Report in 1987 as "how to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Sustainable art is therefore the goal towards which artists concerned with the implications of sustainability for artistic practice are moving.

Sustainable art can also be considered to be art that is in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. [Maja Fowkes and Reuben Fowkes (2006). "Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art". Praesens: central European contemporary art review. 1 (5-12) ISSN 1588-5534.]

Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wider environmental impact of the work and its reception.

History

According to the art critics and curators Maja and Reuben Fowkes, the origins of sustainable art can be traced to the conceptual art of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with its stress on dematerialisation and questioning of the functioning of the art system. Sustainable art adopts, according to these authors, a critical position towards some key practitioners in the land art movement of the 1960s, who showed little concern for the environmental consequences of e.g. treating the landscape like a giant canvas with a bulldozer for a brush. [“Art and Ecology – Economy Special Issue” (2006). Praesens: central European contemporary art review. 1. ISSN 1588-5534.]

Professional discussion of the relationship of contemporary art to notions of sustainability blossomed across Europe in the early years 2000, with e.g. the conference of the German Society for Political Culture (Instituts für Kulturpolitik der Kulturpolitischen Gesellschaft e.V.), in January 2002 at the Art Academy of Berlin, and the so-called 'Tutzinger Manifest'. [ [http://www.kupoge.de/ifk/tutzinger-manifest/kun.htm Kultur - Kunst - Nachhaltigkeit ] ] An International Symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art took place at Central European University, in Budapest (Hungary) in March 2006. This was the first of a series of annual symposia and events at the interface between artistic and environmental thinking. In March-April 2007, the Arts Research Network of the European Sociological Association focused its attention on this new movement at its biennial conference. [Volker Kirchberg, Sacha Kagan and Christoph Behnke (2007). "Final Report: ESA Research Network for the Sociology of the Arts". Lüneburg: Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. ISBN:978-3935786485]

Key texts in the emerging field of sustainable art include 'Kultur - Kunst - Nachhaltigkeit' (2002) by Hildegard Kurt and Bernd Wagner [Eds Hildegard Kurt and Bernd Wagner (2002). "Kultur - Kunst - Nachhaltigkeit". Klartext-Verlag. ISBN:978-3898610933] and ‘The Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art’ (2006) by Maja and Reuben Fowkes. [See also: Maja Fowkes and Reuben Fowkes (2004). "Unframed Landscapes: Nature in Contemporary Art". Unframed Landscapes. Croatia: Zagreb: HDLU. 5.ISBN 953-6508-17-6.] A wide-scale inter- and transdisciplinary analysis of the arts and cultures with relationship to sustainability has been conducted in 'Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures' (2008) edited by Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg. [Eds Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg (2008). "Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures". Frankfurt am Main: VAS. ISBN:978-3-88864-440-5]

Exhibitions devoted explicitly to "sustainable art" include e.g. ‘Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art’ at the Smart Museum in Chicago in November 2005. [Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art exhibition catalogue (2005). Chicago: Smart Museum of Art.]

See also

*Environmental art
*Land art
*Systems art
*Sustainability
*Sustainable design

References

External links

* [http://greenmuseum.org/ Green Museum]
* [http://cultura21.net/ Cultura21: international network for cultures of sustainability]
* [http://www.rsa.org.uk/arts/ Arts & Ecology ]
* [http://www.sustainableart.co.uk/ Art and the Environment]
* [http://artandsustainability.wordpress.com/ Sustainability and Contemporary Art]
* [http://www.new-arts-frontiers.eu/ New Frontiers in Arts Sociology: 2007 ESA Arts Conference]

* [http://www.new-arts-frontiers.eu/images/final_report.pdf Final report of the 2007 conference of The ESA (European Sociological Association) Arts Research Network]