Green creators

The disruptions induced by human activity on the terrestrial ecosystem are undeniable. In his work An Ecological Art. Plastic Creation and the Anthropoceneart historian P. Ardenne intends to explore the approaches adopted by different artists in the face of this ecological situation in the moment of the “anthropocene”, a term currently in vogue in publishing circles, but with which the author says he is in reality not very comfortable.

What can visual art contribute to thinking about ecology and what forms are suited to its approach? P. Ardenne does not intend to give in to the call of visual fascination for the morbid, to which the visual arts are too often subjected. The risk? That these spectacular forms will arouse a simple cathartic effect on the public, without leading to a real ecological commitment. In his critical study of apocalyptic reason, Michael Foessel wrote: “The current danger does not lie so much in the apocalypse as in the appearance of a new form of insensitivity. The ascetic devoid of the world organizes his life around calculation and prediction in order to no longer confront contingency. He has internalized the catastrophe in order to no longer see it.” Being sensitive: this is a form of prerequisite for artists that P. Ardenne timidly suggests calling eco-artists Or “green” creators (p. 11). Making sensitive is just as important: the question raised here is that of the effects that art can claim to have on the society from which it comes. Faced with their public, do artists have an ethical responsibility with regard to the need for urgent action, and if so, what are their possibilities of contributing to it through sensitive forms of creation?

What Ecological Art Is Not

Without claiming to rewrite the history of art or, nor, to deliver injunctions on what would be the right way to create in our contemporary world, P. Ardenne simply tries to understand what practices can be associated with ecological art. It is not enough to work in nature or with the living: in this regard, Land Art, which developed in the 1960s, a period in which the author situates the beginnings of art carrying a “green” message, is particularly revealing. The diversity of approaches attached to this movement makes it possible to precisely identify one of the major arguments of this work based on the distinction between “hard” works and “soft” works (p. 72). The former are characterized by their aggressiveness and violence towards the ecosystem in which they are installed (irreversible destruction, lasting pollution, removal of matter). The “soft” works, however, do not significantly affect this ecosystem.

The example given is that of the artist Denis Oppenheim who, in 1968, dug concentric furrows in the snow on the border of the United States and Canada, at the limit of the two time zones, to evoke the passage and arbitrary delimitation of time (Annual Rings1968, Fort Kent, Maine). This work traverses its site in an ephemeral and delicate manner. In contrast, the kilometer-long copper bar driven into the Earth by Walter de Maria (Vertical Earth Kilometer1977, Kassel) is the symbol of the artist’s despotic appropriation of the Earth. “Earth though you are, I make of you what I want,” says the artist. “I act as I please and take you at will. A rape?” (p. 73)

The criterion of gentleness isolated here by P. Ardenne is therefore not based on any artistic value, but on a posture of respect which aims to provoke, in the public, a feeling of philiaof friendship towards the natural environment. In the context of the current ecological crisis, this feeling is transformed into an attitude of compassion: in his introduction, P. Ardenne immediately puts forward the idea of ​​”concern” and “care” (care). Very quickly, a dimension of responsibility is added: it is a question of healing the wounds of the disease inflicted by human beings on the Earth, but also, perhaps, of initiating a process of repair. “How can we live in a sick world without simply surviving it and, from this sick world, what can we do to restore its health?” (p. 12).

Become an actor

P. Ardenne gradually tightens his argument to also dismiss projects that are certainly “soft”, but address the ecological question in a non-head-on manner. Ecological art artists have fully become aware of the reality of the context of their creation, and go beyond clinical observation or the denunciation of the disintegration of the world to move into the time of action. Their work causes an upheaval in the relationship of the artist and the public to the work of art and a collective awareness of the ecological emergency.

In this, if the work is not militant, it is necessarily articulated with reflections touching on our modes of societal and political organization. P. Ardenne calls for a new creative impulse based on ethics, within which the artist demonstrates a personal investment of the order of a higher morality, that of vital preservation and attention paid to the Earth. The process of reception – the broadest possible – holds a place of major importance in this mode of operation of art, this new creative economy, since the public must, if it is also responsible, become an actor in this situation.

Reviewing ethics

At first glance, one might regret the catalogue form that this work takes, to a certain extent: a series of more or less isolated initiatives. The reader – particularly the art historian, accustomed to historiographical classifications – may be surprised, even frustrated, by this fairly systematic review of individual proposals. But P. Ardenne justifies his refusal of simplistic labeling and the attribution of “reductive, overly classificatory” labels (p. 9): he claims an approach of a natural documentary which he announces, of course, as incomplete. The indefinite article of the very title of the work, An ecological artindicates: it is not a question of federating these proposals into a coherent movement, quite the contrary. The author is sensitive to the risk of ” greenwashing » corollary to any form of stamping and is keen to adopt « the greatest analytical and semantic caution. » (p. 9) « Step by step », he documents the specific attitude of different artists at a given moment. A synthesis on the theme of « an ecological art » would here be an exercise that is not only impossible, but also inappropriate. It is not a movement, but a multitude « of plastic forms and sensitive elaborations. » (p. 7) This approach respects the integrity of each approach and also allows us to evoke many artists whose ecological commitment is of a partial or punctual nature within their work.

P. Ardenne nevertheless structures his work in three parts, distinguishing large “families” of artistic initiatives that he presents gradually, towards an art that is as ecological as possible. The first, “taking a nature bath”, evokes the relationship with the Earth and the immersion of the artist or his art in nature. The second, “towards eco-creation”, introduces a real conscious ecological claim on the part of the artists. Finally, the last part, “step-by-step towards useful art”, this time enters fully into a process of action within the environmental fight and the search for concrete results. The major notions ultimately retained by the author are revealed in full: ethics, responsibility, commitment. It highlights artists “whose entire work, this time, will be intended to promote the ecological cause.” (p. 11)

If we always keep this idea of ​​gentleness in the background, we understand that this commitment cannot be limited to shock actions. Useful art, in its diversity, often reveals itself in the form of work in situephemeral, punctual, local and socially and politically anchored in the chosen place. Ethical art is not widely publicized: it does not seek critical, institutional or financial recognition. “It does not need to be elected to the extent that it does not claim artistic domination, but is based on the logic of human and planetary necessities.” (p. 183) Its very diverse plastic forms can range from the most traditional practices (and anchored in the visual) to the invention of new expressions, which P. Ardenne describes as contextualintegrating both the natural processes themselves and the public. In terms of material realization, apart from the respectful integration into the ecosystem mentioned above, the determining criterion does not concern the work, but its workmanship, the condition being that it “does not result in an excessive carbon footprint.” (p. 261)

P. Ardenne is formal: theIce Watch by Olafur Eliasson (2015, Paris), an artistic and media coup of the COP21has a “scandalous” ecological cost (p. 261). What the author is expressing in this way is that the symbolic impact of the work is no match for its carbon footprint. Here lies the whole question: at a time of urgency for ecological action and its effects, what is the symbolic weight of art worth? “What can art do in this part? Nothing, or so little. Let us understand, nothing or very little in terms of concrete effectiveness.” (p. 7) This ineffectiveness is further reinforced by the chilling dedication of the work, in memory of three activists killed in combat, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Vital Michalon and Rémi Fraisse, “martyrs of the ecological cause, our scouts” (p. 5).

So what is the point of art? The author evokes in the introduction a fight desperate (p. 7). However, throughout this work, he reaffirms the role of the artist in the fight for a better world, notably through his exemplarity. Eco-artists, those who not only have a responsibility like all of us, but also feel this sense of responsibility, are determinedly developing research that goes in the direction of the ecological fight. They adopt a constructive attitude, a fight through the sensitive and the symbolic. But this fight cannot be waged at any ecological price.

This reading provokes a deep skepticism towards the functioning of the world of commodified art, characterized by the enormous ecological impact of the productions and movements of the materials of production of the works, of those of the exhibitions, of the nomadic lifestyle of the artists and of the world of globalized art. But also a feeling of distrust towards the artistic initiatives which, although called “contemporary”, continue to work outside the context of their time, that of the urgency of the situation.

Anthropocenarism

As for the art historian, does he not also have a responsibility to exercise in the face of these creations that P. Ardenne describes as demonstrative, militant and exemplary (p. 262)? In conclusion, he delivers an effort at synthesis on another history of art in progress, proposing the neologism of “anthropocènart” (p. 260). He does not propose a new grand narrative, but highlights a mode of sensibility that is still too little explored. The author specifies that he has no illusions about the slow penetration of these initiatives into the conventions of taste in art history. We are in a moment of transition – a time necessary for changing mentalities. This work is a call to get out of it: it lays the foundations of a field of investigation to be developed. P. Ardenne says it from the first page, his approach is part of “a spirit of clarity, information and a call for more in-depth research.”