Some persistent questions about art and action

While I was on vacation over the last couple of weeks, I had time to think over some of the questions that came up in my last few posts and the comments they elicited–what is environmental art, how do art and the environment influence each other, should art inspire environmental action. Whether or not art should inspire action, I would like to think that it can and will, that it is one force that can help bring about some change. Which led me to the question of how that kind of inspiration occurs.

There is a significant difference between work that tells you what to think, and work that makes you think, but the line between the two isn’t sharp.

The Cool Globes are certainly in the first category.

Peter Mars, "Mr. Polar Bear Goes to Washington"

And the message of each is reinforced by a plaque explaining what principle it is illustrating—the need for public transportation, recycling, etc.

At the other end of the continuum I would place El Anatsui, a Ghanaian artist who weaves spectacular tapestries out of such things as discarded bottle tops and labels.The first time I saw one of El Anatsui’s pieces at San Francisco’s De Young Museum, it left me breathless. It wasn’t a piece with a “Message,” but it demanded that I look at it more and more closely. And when I realized that it was made of bottle caps, I couldn’t help thinking about all the discarded stuff in the world.

El Anatsui, Emerging Fault Lines

Brandon Ballengee, an artist who has been collaborating with research scientists and creating work that highlights the loss of biodiversity, seems to fall somewhere between the two extremes. Ballengee’s works are images of natural organisms under some environmental threat. Some make this point quite dramatically;

Cleared and Stained Multi-limbed Pacific Tree frog Aptos, California.

others could be easily mistaken for abstract art.

Brandon Ballengée, The Spiny Diatom Chaetoceros affine collected along the Turkish coast of the Red Sea, 2001

And what about Ichi Ikeda’s 2006 Moving Water Days, in which people backpacked water “to the future while going back and forth between upper streams of the [Kedogawa] river and the mouth of the river”?

Ichi Ikeda, Moving Water Days

Which, if any, of these works is most likely to inspire some environmental action? The globes are clever, engaging, and creative. They’re not profound, and only a few invite an aesthetic exploration beyond the immediate surface message. But they do convey their message quite effectively. Once viewers leave the exhibit, however, will they have been moved enough to remember the message and do something active?

Is work that makes you think, rather than telling you what to think, more likely to make you act? The works by El Anatusi and Ikeda, and some of Ballengee’s, moved me considerably, and have left me with some enduring emotional imprint. Will that translate into action?

So what’s the upshot of all this rumination? I seem to have more questions than when I started, but that’s not a bad thing. All these questions are important for both artists and environmentalists, and help us make our way in a threatened environment. I’d be very interested to hear any one else’s thoughts on these issues.