Sustainable art is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. [1] Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wider impact of the work and its reception in relationship to its environments (social, economic, biophysical, historical and cultural).
According to the contemporary art historians 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, which stressed dematerialisation and questioned the functioning of the art system. [2] They also connect the rise of the concept of sustainability to the ending of the Cold War in 1989 and the emergence of a new awareness of the global character of ecological and social problems. [3] 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 treating the landscape like a giant canvas with a bulldozer for a brush. [4] They have questioned the polemical division between 'autonomous' and 'instrumental' art originating with modernism, arguing that it is 'autonomy that gives art, as well as artists as social actors, the potential to be free and able to offer alternatives to dominant ideological paradigms.' [5]
Since 2005 there is a Sustainable Arts Biennale running at Ihlienworth near Hamburg, Germany, curated by the German conceptional artist and curator Samuel J. Fleiner.
There are a range of interpretations over the relations between art and sustainability, besides the term 'sustainable art' promoted by Maja and Reuben Fowkes: Other authors prefer the broader notions of 'sustainability arts' or 'art and sustainability' (e.g. Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg. [6] Still others explicitly rejected the use of the term 'sustainable art', referring instead to 'artistic work that inspires us to think about sustainability" (Margot Käßmann). [7]
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 'Tutzinger Manifest'. [8] An International Symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art took place at Central European University, in Budapest (Hungary) in March 2006. This was the first in a series of international symposia organised by Maja and Reuben Fowkes bringing together contemporary artists, philosophers, environmental sciences and activists to explore common ground around issues such as 'Exit or Activism' (2008), 'Hard Realities and the New Materiality' (2009) and 'Art, Post-Fordism and Eco-Critique' (2010).. In March–April 2007 at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, the Arts Research Network of the European Sociological Association focused its attention on the recent movements and approaches to 'arts and sustainability' at its biennial conference. [9]
Key texts in the emerging field of sustainable art include 'Kultur - Kunst - Nachhaltigkeit' (2002) by Hildegard Kurt and Bernd Wagner, [10] ‘The Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art’ (2006) by Maja and Reuben Fowkes [11] and 'Art and Sustainability' (2011) by Sacha Kagan. [12] A collection of interdisciplinary analyses of the arts and cultures with relationship to sustainability is available in 'Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures' (2008) edited by Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg. [6]
Exhibitions devoted explicitly to "sustainable art" include e.g. ‘Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art’ at the Smart Museum in Chicago in November 2005. [13] For an analysis of the conflictual politics of sustainability and the ambiguity of the term sustainability (which oscillates between "ecological sustainability" and "economic sustainable development," see TJ Demos, “The Politics of Sustainability: Art and Ecology” (2009). [14] For a recent account of the multi-faceted role of contemporary art in highlighting environmental issues, expressing criticism towards unsustainable factors in society, and offering imaginative solutions for the achievement of sustainability, see Maja and Reuben Fowkes's essay on 'Art and Sustainability' in Enough for All Forever (2012). [15]
Modern sustainable artists include artists who are using non-toxic, sustainable materials in their art practices as well as integrating conceptual ideas of sustainability into their work. Washington, DC–based glass sculptors Erwin Timmers [16] and Alison Sigethy incorporate some of the least recycled building materials; structural glass.
Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.
Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically accessible to the public; it is installed in public space in both outdoor and indoor settings. Public art seeks to embody public or universal concepts rather than commercial, partisan, or personal concepts or interests. Notably, public art is also the direct or indirect product of a public process of creation, procurement, and/or maintenance.
Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by which these environmental problems are socially constructed and define as social issues, and societal responses to these problems.
Henryk Stażewski was a Polish painter, visual artist and writer. Stażewski has been described as the "father of the Polish avant-garde" and is considered a pivotal figure in the history of constructivism and geometric abstraction in Central and Eastern Europe. His career spanned seven decades and he was one of the few prominent Polish artists of the interwar period who remained active and gained further international recognition in the second half of the 20th century.
Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes and phenomena in relationship to social concerns. Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions around the world as the social and cultural aspects of climate change come to the forefront.
Andrea Rose Fraser is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of institutional critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is a professor and area head of the Interdisciplinary Studio of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Maja and Reuben Fowkes are London-based curators, critics and art historians who investigate engagements in contemporary art with ecology, climate change and the Anthropocene. Their work also addresses the art history of the former socialist territories of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.
Artpool Art Research Center is an archive, research space, specialist and media library in Budapest, Hungary, dedicated to international contemporary and avant-garde arts, such as Artist's books, artistamp, mail art, visual poetry, sound poetry, conceptual art, fluxus, installation, performance.
Ecological art is an art genre and artistic practice that seeks to preserve, remediate and/or vitalize the life forms, resources and ecology of Earth. Ecological art practitioners do this by applying the principles of ecosystems to living species and their habitats throughout the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including wilderness, rural, suburban and urban locations. Ecological art is a distinct genre from Environmental art in that it involves functional ecological systems-restoration, as well as socially engaged, activist, community-based interventions. Ecological art also addresses politics, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics as they impact the conditions of ecosystems. Ecological art practitioners include artists, scientists, philosophers and activists who often collaborate on restoration, remediation and public awareness projects.
Susanne Tunn is a German sculptor. She is well known for her big sculptures made from stone, but works as well in other natural materials such as tin, wood, concrete, plants or dust. Whether she is working with outsize or tiny formats, they always emit a strong physical effect.
Gabriele Klein is a sociologist, dance theorist and professor at the University of Hamburg.
Marina Gržinić is a philosopher, theoretician, and artist from Ljubljana. She is a prominent contemporary theoretical and critical figure in Slovenia. Since 1993, she is employed at the Institute of Philosophy at the Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. Today, she serves as a professor and research adviser. For her scientific work, she received the Golden SASA sign in 2007. Since 2003, she has also served as a Full Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. She publishes extensively, lectures worldwide, and is involved in video art since 1982.
Sacha Craddock is an independent art critic, writer and curator based in London. Craddock is co-founder of Artschool Palestine, co-founder or the Contemporary Art Award and council member of the Abbey Awards in Painting at the British School at Rome, Trustee of the Shelagh Cluett Trust, and President of the International Association of Art Critics AICA UK. She was chair of the Board of New Contemporaries and selection process from 1996 until December 2021.
Ecovention was a term invented by Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid in 1999 to refer to an ecological art intervention in environmental degradation. The Ecovention movement in art is associated with land art, earthworks, and environmental art, and landscape architecture, but remains its own distinct category. Many ecoventions bear tendencies similar to public works projects such as sewage and waste-water treatment plants, public gardens, landfills, mines, and sustainable building projects.
Aviva Rahmani is an Ecological artist whose public and ecological art projects have involved collaborative interdisciplinary community teams with scientists, planners, environmentalists and other artists. Her projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography.
Daniel Nicolae Djamo is a Romanian visual artist and filmmaker. He finished the courses of the Time-Based Media department of the Bucharest National University of Arts, from Bucharest. He finished the PhD in Visual Arts at the School for Doctoral Studies, from Bucharest National University of Arts in June 2018.
The Museum der Völker in the Austrian Schwaz in the county of Tyrol was founded in 1995 as a cultural association Haus der Völker by Gert Chesi and belongs to the well known Ethnology museums in Europe. After a new construction and remodeling the exhibition operation opened on the 12th of April 2013 as Museum der Völker. Translated the name means museum of the peoples or museum of the tribes.
Boaz M. Levin is a Berlin-based writer, curator and filmmaker. His curatorial work deals with histories of ecology and technology and the ways these have influenced visual culture. Since October 2023, he has served as Co-Head of Program and curator at C/O Berlin, where he co-curated exhibitions such as Valie Export Retrospective, Studio Rex, the Jean-Marie Donat collection, and Träum Weiter – Berlin, the 90er. In 2022, Levin was co-curator of the 3rd Chennai Photo Biennale. In 2017, he was co-curator together with Florian Ebner, Kerstin Meinicke, Kathrin Schonegg, and Christin Müller of the 7th edition of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, which takes place in Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg. He is an editor of Cabinet Magazine's Kiosk. His essay, "On Distance", was published by Atlas Projectos, Berlin, as part of the Next Spring series of occasional reviews. His writing has been published by magazines such as Camera Austria, Texte Zur Künst, and Frieze. He is an AICA, and has been an ICOM member. Levin has curated exhibitions at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Heidelberger Kunstverein, The Jewish Museum Munich, and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, KunstHausWien, and C/O Berlin, among other venues. Levin is the co-founder, together with Vera Tollmann and Hito Steyerl, of the Research Center for Proxy Politics.
Tina Sauerlaender is an independent curator and writer. She is the co-founder and co-director of peer to space, a platform and exhibition hub for curatorial projects founded in Munich, Germany in 2010.
Mara-Johanna Kölmel is a German curator and art historian. Kölmel has been the Head of the Art Department at the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, since January 2024. Her curatorial practice focuses on the intersections of art, technology, and society, addressing pressing contemporary issues through a plurality of perspectives. Demonstrated by the most recent exhibition, as reviewed by SWR Fernsehen.