Never before has time flown so fast. Processes that once spanned millions of years now unfold within mere decades. In 1947, Isamu Noguchi proposed the construction of Memorial to Man in the desert, a vast land-based work of art, a colossal relief resembling a human face, visible from space. This monolith was intended to stand as a vestige of a civilisation vanquished by nuclear fire, its eyes fixed on a new haven that the few refugees would seek on the red plains of Mars. Yet, the fantasies to call ‘Planet B’ our home have vanished into the ether. We are left with but one Earth. An awareness of both the catastrophic agency wielded by humanity and the inevitable doom that awaits the order as we know it demands an altered perspective on human activity – a perspective stripped of anthropocentric hubris, more in tune with the ‘non-human’ and closer to geology than the humanities. Only when we change our perspective and understand that we live simultaneously in ‘more than one dimension’ will we able to see the consequences of the processes that took place after the Neolithic Revolution (and later the Industrial Revolution and the post-war economic acceleration). The gifts that so-called Civilisation brings us are also our poison. Eat Death! proclaimed the American artist Bruce Nauman in his ominous work of 1971.
We are living in a time of planetary change that affects each and every one of us, without prejudice. Climate change impacts all spheres of life, including the way we think about art – the systems of its production and distribution, its social function, and its relationship with other disciplines, primarily science. In 2020, at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, we were preparing for the opening of the exhibition titled The Penumbral Change. Art in the Time of Planetary Change. This exhibition brought together artistic works from the last five decades based on observations and visualisations of the changes underway on planet Earth. It was intended to provide a space for discussion on ‘managing the irreversible’ and new forms of solidarity, empathy, and togetherness in the face of the climate crisis. The inauguration of the exhibition was postponed just a few days before its scheduled opening on 20 March 2020 due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic. We were all too aware of the cruel irony of this situation – the consequences of belligerence towards nature, which lay at the very heart of the exhibition’s discourse, had led us into an institutional stasis, sealing the exhibition’s fate even before it could welcome its first visitors.
The title of the exhibition is taken from the 2014 book The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. In this work, our current era is referred to as ‘the Penumbral Period’ and ‘the Penumbral Age’ and defined by a character from the future as ‘[t]he shadow of anti-intellectualism that fell over the once-Enlightened techno-scientific nations of the Western world (…), preventing them from acting on the scientific knowledge available at the time,’[1] which led to tragedy. We bear witness to this process: scientific findings have ceased to command the conclusive authority they once held, failing to spur the populace into action. ‘Science becomes belief. Belief becomes science. Everything becomes nothing. Nothing becomes everything. All can believe and disbelieve all. We all can know everything and know nothing. Everyone lives as an expert on every subject. No experts live on any subject,’[2] wrote the American writer and historian Ibram X. Kendi in The Atlantic while analysing scepticism about climate change or even denial of this threat (the so-called climate denialism). The crisis of the culture of experts and scholarly pursuits is accompanied by the burgeoning resurgence of fundamentalist movements. These groups refute doctrines such as the theory of evolution, the harmfulness of smog, and the deleterious effect of humankind on the climate. Evidently, the arsenal of statistical data, graphic representations, and shocking photographic and video accounts from areas blighted by ecological ruin no longer capture the collective imagination in a sufficiently compelling fashion.
Artists’ observations often resemble scientific ones, yet they seldom assail the audience with a barrage of numbers, sharply rising infographic bars, or lurid portrayals of poverty and devastation. Art wields an array of strange tools (Alva Noë, 2015) that we can deploy to discern the ‘signs in heaven and on earth’. When the customary implements of dialogue and persuasion falter, artists grant us a ‘leap of imagination’, working with emotions and confronting the incomprehensible and the unknown. Art can come to our aid by harnessing the power of imagination, at times more effectively than the tools developed by science and environmental policy. What may serve as another significant example from the twentieth-century art history is the work of Joseph Beuys, not only a charismatic visual artist but also a co-founder of the German Green Party. Beuys pushed to erase the boundaries between the artificial and the natural, advocated for interspecies dialogue, and drew inspiration from shamanism and animism. He encouraged various forms of direct action through artistic happenings, including protests against tree felling, ‘die-in’ protests, and mass oak tree-planting initiatives. The artist also set up the Green Tent in Hamburg – a place for information about protecting the planet from destructive human activities. At the Green Party’s launch in 1980, Beuys announced: ‘In the future green tents will need to be raised everywhere all over the planet! They will be the incubators of a new society.’[3]
One of the main historical references for the Penumbral Age was the activity of the OHO Group, a Slovene art collective active from 1966 to 1971 (although it must be borne in mind that these markers of foundation and dissolution are merely fluid and somewhat arbitrary constructs) and described as ‘transcendental conceptualism’. In the initial phase, the members of the group were dedicated to Reism, a philosophical art project based on a non-anthropocentric view of the world and the discovery of things as they are, without any hierarchy of importance and beyond designating functions. They engaged in the creation of ‘popular art’, which was to be made available on matchboxes sold at bazaars. During the second phase, they explored the potential offered by new art, drawing on Arte Povera, Land Art, Conceptualism, Anti-Form, and so forth. Many of their endeavours took place in nature, involving poetic and ephemeral interventions, utilising readily available materials such as strings or sticks. In the final phase, members of OHO sought to transcend the confines of art through radical educational practices, esoteric exercises, and agriculture. The group’s makeup underwent changes, particularly in its formative period, when OHO operated more as an artistic ‘movement’, engaging representatives of diverse disciplines: poets, filmmakers, sculptors. The documentation presented in the exhibition focuses on the final phase of the group’s existence. The film Summer Projects 1970 provides an overview of the group’s actions, conducted in various personnel configurations outside the gallery space, described by means of diagrams and instructions. In 1970, the OHO Group was invited to participate in an exhibition titled ‘Information’ at the MoMA in New York. In response, the artists focused on activities they termed šolanje [training] and organised two summer sessions in the villages of Zarica and Čezsoča. Rather than working on specific projects, they approached communal living, cooking, walking, and the very act of breathing in a conscious, conceptual manner, seeking patterns of behaviour and relationships with each other and with nature. These were primarily exercises in mindfulness, through which they honed their own perception of OHO as a ‘collective body’. At the time, the idea of abandoning art and completely changing the way they functioned in society was being fervently debated. Come April 1971, the core members of the group moved to an abandoned house in the countryside of western Slovenia and established a commune called the Šempas Family. There, they continued their erstwhile explorations in the field of posthumanism, spirituality, and land art through meditation, cultivation of the land, daily drawing sessions, weaving, ceramics, and animal husbandry. Yet, a year hence, the Šempas Family disbanded, leaving but one member in the countryside: Marko Pogačnik, who continues his work for the local community and natural environment to this day, also undertaking attempts at ‘earth healing’ through ‘lithopuncture’, a method of his own crafting.
The Penumbral Change exhibition spanned five decades and served as a testament to the heightened reflection on environmental concerns in art during the transitional period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as in the second decade of the 21st century. The former was marked by the intensification of pacifist, feminist, and anti-racist movements, along with the emergence of the contemporary environmental movement. In 1970, Earth Day was celebrated for the first time, while 1971 witnessed the founding moment of Greenpeace, and in the ensuing year, the international think-tank, the Club of Rome, published The Limits to Growth report, which outlined the existential challenges posed by the relentless depletion of natural resources. The same period saw the emergence of new artistic phenomena such as Conceptualism, Anti-Form and Land Art (also known as Earth Art). By introducing a ‘geological’ approach to art, artists utilised ephemeral, organic materials or aimed for the complete dematerialisation of the artwork. Many ideas proposed at the time forever altered perceptions of the role of art institutions and the relationship between artistic practice, professional labour, and activism. Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who integrated caretaking and motherhood into her artistic practice; Bonnie Ora Sherk, who transformed urban wastelands into green oases; or Agnes Denes, who combined art with cybernetics and agriculture – all were harbingers of a countercultural revolution that ultimately faltered and failed to fulfil the hopes placed in it.
For us, Land Art represents much more than a trend in Western art typical of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following the ideas of the Pakistani artist and activist Rasheed Araeen and drawing on his eco-aesthetic programme, we seek ‘global art for a changing planet’. Araeen is the creator of sculptures, installations, performances, and theoretical texts. After moving to London in 1964, he began to combine his artistic pursuits with political activism (which included joining the Black Panther Party) and a critique of colonialism and globalisation. In 1978, Araeen founded the magazine Black Phoenix, revived in 1987 as Third Text, which remains one of the most important publications dedicated to the history of art from a postcolonial perspective to this day. Araeen formulated the programme of eco-aesthetics in a series of essays collected in a volume titled Art Beyond Art. Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century, published in 2010. In it, he advocates transcending the supremacy of Homo sapiens as a species and unleashing ‘the creative energy of the free collective imagination’.[4] Araeen’s programme is staunchly anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist. The very system within which art operates comes under critical scrutiny as one that perpetuates hierarchies, glorifies growth and progress, is propelled by the intellectual fuel of modernity, separates creative energies from the processes of everyday life, and petrifies them into the form of ‘narego’ – the narcissistic ego of the artist. Araeen employs the terms nominalism and cosmoruralism. The former is about artists setting in motion useful processes, carried out by local communities – fluid, enduring, based on sustainability. In 2001, for example, Araeen used his engineering expertise to propose the construction of a dam in the desert of Baryuchistan, which would retain water from seasonal rivers and thus improve the living conditions of the nomadic population. The dam would serve as both a sculpture and a fully functional engineering solution. The second proposal, cosmoruralism, presents an overall vision of a network of cooperatives and eco-villages based on equitable cooperation between the global North and the global South, which would result, among other things, in the reforestation of the Sahara Desert. The exhibition features drawings related to both concepts: a project for a farm harnessing energy from monsoon winds (nominalism), and selected maps from the Mediterranea series, the Mediterranean Union, a new form of economic and cultural cooperation between Europe, Asia, and Africa, where an extensive railway network serves as the primary mode of transport (cosmoruralism).
The artistic endeavours associated with ‘canonical’ Land Art, such as Richard Long’s ‘Throwing a Stone around MacGillycuddy’s Reeks’, wherein the artist follows a stone as it hurtles forward, Robert Morris’s plans for ‘terraformations’, or Gerry Schum’s television programme (a glimpse into the fusion of new media and the dissemination of ‘organic’ art cultivated in the midst of deserts or forests), coexisted in the exhibition alongside works from the 21st century. These latter works served ecological education (Futurefarmers, Ines Doujak, Center for Land Use Interpretation), embodiments of protest (Suzanne Husky, Frans Krajcberg, Akira Tsuboi) or spirituality and esoterica (Shana Moulton and Nick Hallett, Teresa Murak, Tatiana Czekalska and Leszek Golec). Field recordings are a particularly useful tool for raising awareness and documenting changes in the natural environment. One of the participants in the exhibition, AM Kanngieser (based in Wollongong, Australia) – an academic, radio producer and sound artist – works on issues of climate justice, political geography and ‘listening’ to the Anthropocene/Capitalocene, primarily through sound research. AM Kanngieser was born and spent her early childhood on a boat sailing the Pacific. She recalls the sounds of the ocean intermingling incessantly with the crackle of the shortwave radio operated by her father, a sailor and electrician. Kanngieser’s works comprise field recordings, interviews, and various forms of sonifying scientific data. Concurrently, the artist delves into issues such as the use of voice and sound in political protests and the history of radio as a tool of resistance and self-organisation. In addition to sound installations, AM Kanngieser is the author of numerous texts, lectures, and audio dramas concerning violence against Indigenous communities and the natural environment in the Pacific region, linked, for instance, to deep-sea fossil fuel extraction or the consequences of nuclear testing in the 20th century. The exhibition features a sound installation (outside the building, overlooking the Vistula River) based on early morning field recordings on the atoll Tarawa, with the capital of the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific. The republic is on the frontline of climate change, with sea levels rising there by 3 metres, regularly submerging the island in salty water. The water infiltrates homes, hospitals, drinking water wells, fields and gardens, destroying crops. AM Kanngieser comments: ‘The Kiribati people I spoke to are reluctant to leave their ancestral land where they have lived for a thousand years. Some elders told me they would stay there no matter what. If it’s God’s will, nothing can be done. Kiribati’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is disproportionately small compared to the impact the islanders are facing today.’[5] According to climate projections, Kiribati will be completely submerged by 2050.
Within the sphere of interest of environmentally conscious artists lie issues such as climate debt, post-anthropocentrism, the inevitable depletion of fossil fuel reserves, the repercussions of unchecked accumulation of wealth and economic growth, planetary ecocide and colonial exploitation. All of the above serve as a backdrop for Land Art. We therefore propose that the term should encompass a broad panorama of artistic practices concerning human relationships with other species, inanimate matter, and the planet as a whole, as well as non-artistic actions undertaken by artists and activists (from community gardens to advocacy for Indigenous peoples’ rights and the establishment of political parties). In this context, Land Art is not confined to any specific medium, material, or geographical region. It can also encompass activities that do not operate under the label of art. One example would be the ice stupas in Ladakh – engineered by Sonam Wangchuk. These glacial stupas have a fascinating form and a clearly defined function: to provide water for the inhabitants of the desert situated at the foot of the Himalayas. Rainfall is scarce in the desert areas above 3000m, and agriculture depends on water from seasonally melting glaciers that flow down from the Himalayas. Currently, due to global warming, the water no longer reaches the villages at the foot of the mountains, or does so abruptly, destroying buildings and bridges. To create the ice stupas, Wangchuk and his team use the forces of gravity and the difference in temperature between day and night. They use a simple system of pipes to carry water from the peaks down to the villages in the valleys. The ice cones, which are several metres high, melt slowly, providing farmers with water until early summer. Another beneficial side-effect of the construction of the ice stupas is the drainage of lakes formed by the sudden collapse of large chunks of glacier, which block the flow of water and cause flooding. Legend has it that Ladakh has specialised in ‘cultivating’ glaciers for centuries. In the 13th century, an ice dam is said to have been used to stop the invasion of Genghis Khan’s army.
Living in the midst of an ever-deepening crisis is forcing us to fundamentally rethink the entire system of social organisation and to confront dilemmas of an ethical and existential nature (from climate migrations to burgeoning class conflicts). The world of art, with its hallowed museums and conceptualising rituals of organising things and ideas, is no exception (to paraphrase the slogan of the Youth Strike for Climate: ‘No museums on a dead planet!’) and requires profound systemic transformations. We regard our involvement in this discourse as the museum’s imperative, not a mere trend or art-world fad. Against the backdrop of the so-called ‘ecological turn’ or the voguish appeal of ‘Anthropocene art’, we emphasise the steadfastness of environmental reflection, rooted in continuity and responsibility. As an example of actions imbued with planetary imagination, we can mention the story from 1970, when a group of Buddhist monks from the Shingon and Nichiren schools, along with three lay companions (referred to as a hippie, a Christian, and a student), embarked on a pilgrimage across Japan, from Toyama to Kumamoto. They took the name Jusatsu Kito Sodan, meaning the Group of Monks Bringing the Curse of Death. This episode stands as one of the most radical yet poetic ecological and anti-capitalist manifestations in Japanese history. Armed with instruments made from conch shells and books containing Abhichar curses (based, among other sources, on Vedic rites from the 9th century), the monks travelled from factory to factory, establishing camps and performing rituals. Their intention was to bring death upon the factory directors through prayers. The activities of the Jusatsu Kito Sodan were a response to environmental pollution and mass poisoning in Japan, following a series of epidemics in the mid-1960s. This period saw the emergence of new diseases, such as itai-itai, caused by cadmium contamination in rice paddies, a side effect of coal mining. Japanese industrialists, linked to American business interests and shielded by the government, remained unpunished. One example was the operations of the Chisso Corporation, which – aware of its detrimental effects – discharged mercury-laden wastewater into the Shiranui Sea for thirty-four years, resulting in poisoning of thousands and the severe Minamata disease. The actions of the Jusatsu Kito Sodan can be analysed as a radical artistic experiment or a performance merging spirituality with concern for human and environmental well-being. According to Buddhist beliefs, particularly in the Shingon tantric school, humans are part of the cosmic environment, on equal footing with other life forms.
Undoubtedly, art will not shield us from catastrophe, yet it serves as a means to equip ourselves with peculiar tools for the labour of imagination and empathy. In her seminal manifesto of 1969, Mierle Laderman Ukeles posed the question: ‘After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?’[6] In artworks of recent decades, we seek not only visualisations of processes unfolding on our planet but also potential proposals for the future. If ecological catastrophe is indeed imminent (a sentiment surely echoed by the inhabitants of thoroughly devastated Pacific islands such as Nauru or Banaba), we collectively wonder if we will ever manage to tidy up this planetary mess and rebuild relationships with other sentient beings. Can we start anew?
[1] N. Oreskes, E. M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Columbia University Press, New York 2014, pp. 59-60.
[2] I. X. Kendi, ‘What the Believers Are Denying,’ The Atlantic, theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/what-deniers-climate-change-and-racism-share/579190/ [access: 12.09.2023].
[3] J. Beuys, ‘The Green Tent. Joseph Beuys and the extended concept of ecology’, e-flux, https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/69282/joseph-beuysthe-green-tent/ [access: 29.02.2024].
[4] R. Araeen, Art Beyond Art. Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century, Third Text Publishing, London, 1910, p. 39.
[5] E-mail correspondence between the authors and Anja Kanngieser, 24 December 2019.
[6] M.L. Ukeles, Maintenance Art, Queens Museum, New York, until 19 February 2017 after: J. Cavalier, ‘Who picks up the garbage after the revolution? On maintenance as art’, The Art Newspaper, 27 October 2016, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2016/10/27/who-picks-up-the-garbage-after-the-revolution-on-maintenance-as-art.
