to address this whole eco art thing

The content that was presented to us this week has “sparked my interest” to say the least. The whole concept of an “eco artist” to me is slightly silly. Just because the artist happens to be interested in ecology and sustainability doesn’t mean they need to be assigned this title. Of course I am fully supportive of the movement, I just feel the title is unnecessary. Wouldn’t it be cooler if an artist made art about whatever they wanted, then if it happened to be about the environment it would still be held to the same standards as any other subject? This whole trend of eco-friendly jobs, products, and lifestyle is great on one hand because it is raising awareness to a problem that really does need to be addressed, but ont he other hand it is doing something foolish- it’s mkaing it a trend. This is one subject that is serious, and as a trend it will lose momentum and popularity eventually. Hopefully “eco artists” such as Colin Ives won’t lose credibility along with the popularity that comes with going green these days.

This week we have heard/read the opinions of four artists. Colin Ives, Christopher Manes, Rachel Dutton, and Rob Olds. From these people we can observe a common interest that they all have- to preserve our earth and all the life forms that reside here. They all share the opinion that the direction mankind is headed at the moment is the wrong way, and that change is necessary. Colin Ives was the first to present his opinion to our class. His work focused mainly on the concept of wild animals who thrive by living among us in urban environments. His work was interesting and super cute, but what i found compelling about the lecture was his view on technology. He seemed to believe that we should use technology to our advantage to raise awareness of this ecological problem that we have on our hands. But isn’t technology the problem in the first place? This is the point of view that artists Rachel Dutton and Rob Olds are most concerned with. They did almost the opposite of Colin Ives even though they both seem to have similar opinions. They rejected technology and art in an effort to study what they believe to be most important- to live off the land and be one with nature. So i guess Their opinion versus Colin Ives’ is slightly different. While they want to “be one with the earth”, Ives just wishes to preserve it.

Now we get to the good stuff: Christopher Manes. The things he had to say during the interview titled “Making Art About Centipedes” made A LOT of sense to me. I loved his ideas of how mankind really isn’t special at all. We really are just a bunch of animals running around on this earth just like anyone else. I’ve always kind of had this idea in my head, but the problem that i always ran into was that humans have developed technology, built civilizations, family units, ect. This always seemed to be obviously superior to animals. I always thought it was what separated us. What i failed to think of and what Manes hammered into reader’s heads in this piece was that animals have crazy accomplishments too! Ones that we could never achieve. “If longevity is what you really care about, then bristlecone pines are the most superior beings. They live for several thousand years.” (page 97) Manes calls to action a new era of art-making not completely centered around humans. This artists named Daniel Richter doesn’t exactly do that, but he does depict humans in a way that keeps them humble yet still complex, with human emotion yet still animalistic and wild. This kind of art is moving in the right direction because it isn’t putting man above nature. He portrays man as a part of nature.

I just love how he manages to find a way to show the energy itself that exists in nature. Of course man is a part of nature, so this seems to make sense.