Finds: Environmental Art

Some years ago, I was visiting a friend and idly pulling books off his shelf. He has an addiction to art books, and the book I picked was one of the more unusual ones in his collection, a book of “environmental art,” sculptures made in nature with whatever materials might be found there—sticks, rocks, leaves, petals, vines, bark, blossoms, berries, whatever. I loved the book and imagined coming upon one of these pieces in situ. Being made from nature, the pieces seemed to exude a fundamental joy in creation, an implicit desire to make something startling and beautiful with no thought of galleries or auctions.

This week I searched for sites featuring environmental art, varieties of which go by names like “land art” and “art povera.”

The place to start might be greenmuseum.org, which includes a rough definition of what falls into this rough category of art and a list of environmental artists. There’s a great deal to sort through there, but at the bottom of each artist page is a link to that artist’s own website.

My friend’s book must have presented the work of Andy Goldsworthy who, I take it, is regarded as one of the pioneers of this art form, though he was not the first. His work is pictured above this post.  Crichton University has a digital archive of his work, and this link will take you to a browsing page where you can view his work by year, by material, and by subject.

Another artist whose work you might have seen in the National Gallery in Washington or elsewhere is Richard Long. He has taken some of the principles of environmental art and moved them inside, creating mandallas of rock that create their own sacred space on the floors of museums.

One specific group of artists in the greenmuseum site worth visiting is called Red Earth, and their “experiments” incorporate ritual as well as installations. If you explore their site, you’ll find number of interesting projects with sweeping curves made of interwoven branches. It’s tough to explain. You have to see it.

It’s difficult to visit these sites without being inspired to try some of this art yourself. I don’t have many opportunities here in Chicago, but I’ve made a few homespun attempts of my own, and the process confirms what these images show—something magical can arise simply from arranging the objects in our lives.