Native Flags project in Miami

Miami-based artist Xavier Cortada will present his artwork Native Flags at the Verge Miami Art Fair Dec. 3–6. The goal of the project is reforestation and awareness of global warming and its impact on political jostling for control of the Northwest Passage. Cortada planted his green flag at the North Pole this past summer, essentially claiming the territory for reforestation rather than global shipping routes.

More about the project at the ecoartspace blog and xaviercortada.com.

New Mexico Art & Ecology BFA and MFA program

{An installation being constructed by the University of New Mexico art and ecology students.}

The University of New Mexico has a BFA and MFA program in art and ecology. I'm not sure when it started, but from their website, it seems that the program builds on previous eco-art classes and the university's Land Arts of the American West program.

Read all about it at art.unm.edu/ecology.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that if you go to the UNM Art and Art History homepage, the genres listed are:

> painting and drawing
> photography
> ceramics
> sculpture
> art history
> printmaking
> electronic arts
> art and ecology

I have to say that I'm surprised (and sort of enjoy) that this is an area or genre of study now. But I hope that it doesn't result in other students thinking less about how ecology and environmentalism might play a role in their work.

From my experience, dividing students into specific genres has it's positives and negatives. I'm thankful that I've studied in schools that are relatively open to interdisciplinary work while also engaging the medium-specific skills and information, if a young artist needs that in their work.

To a certain extent, any genre or "area" serves the needs of an academic institution, but I've always thought of eco-related art as spanning existing genres and would be hesitant to define it as its own medium. While eco-art may have its own concerns, I've been noticing that many young artists today—regardless of genre—think a lot about the environment and how artists can make work about it. As a result, much of the art that interests me isn't overtly or obviously tied to environmentalism, but I believe it is there as an undercurrent.

Here's hoping that this new program can help students find new and interesting ways to think about art and the environment, and that the "art and ecology" area adds to UNM's other areas of study.

Mammut Magazine launch this Saturday at La Brea Tar Pits

Please join me this Saturday, Nov. 14 for the Mammut Magazine launch.

We'll have readings, sloth bear t-shirt drawings and other activities from 11 am til about 1 or 2 pm.We'll be at the picnic tables in front of the Page Museum at 5801 Wilshire Blvd, 90036.


MAMMUT #3 is about megafauna—a term that loosely applies to large mammals
including the namesake of the magazine, the extinct American mastodon.
We asked contributors to offer a personal perspective on megafauna and
how they are represented, used as symbols, or offer a way to
understand our own lives.

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY:
Otis Bardwell, Kelley Brooks, Deena Capparelli, Colleen Corcoran,
Akina Cox, Christopher Smith, Nic Hess, Teira Johnson, Christine S.
Lee, Erica Love, Matthias Merkel Hess, Gerard Olson, David Prince,
Gundula Prinz, Jacob Tillman, Mathew Timmons, Alejandro Turell, Erica
Tyron and Claude Willey.

Cover Design by Andrew Zaozirny.

Mammut is edited by Matthias Merkel Hess and Roman Jaster.

RSVP to Release Event on Facebook.

Download the magazine PDF or order a printed copy at mammutmagazine.org

More Malibu Beach Safaris

Just in from the LA Urban Rangers mailing list: More Malibu Beach Safaris this summer. I wrote about going on one of these safaris last year, and highly recommend it.

Here's the info:

====================

The Los Angeles Urban Rangers announce:

MALIBU PUBLIC BEACHES SAFARIS--SUMMER 2009

Tired of Zuma and Surfrider? Want to find and use the other beaches in Malibu--The twenty miles that are lined with private development? These safaris show you how to find, park, walk, picnic, and sunbathe on a Malibu beach legally and safely. Each safari visits two different beaches. Skills-enhancing activities include sign watching, trailblazing the public-private boundary, a no-kill hunt for accessways, and a public easement potluck.

We are offering three safaris in east Malibu:

SUN Aug 2, 11:00am-2:30pm
SUN Aug 16, 9:00am-12:30pm
SAT Aug 22, 3:00pm-6:30pm

Safaris are free. Spaces are limited. To sign up, e-mail info@laurbanrangers.org w/name, # of people, and preferred date.

A downloadable "Malibu Public Beaches" guide is available at http://www.laurbanrangers.org/.

Hope to see you at the beach!
Los Angeles Urban Rangers
www.laurbanrangers.org

========================

Wildflower Works followup

I've received a few emails alerting me that I had information wrong in my previous post on Chapman Kelley's piece, Chicago Wildflower Works.

Here's a shot from 1992, taken well before the park was altered by the city of Chicago. The image was provided by the artist.

And the shot I used in my previous post was taken after the piece was altered in 2004.

In addition, here's a watercolor proposal for the piece done in 1984.

And a photo of the park with Frank Gehry's concert pavilion in the foreground. A curving pedestrian bridge connects that pavilion to the altered garden by Chapman Kelley.

Although I was a bit confused on this originally, seeing all these images has greatly helped me understand Chapman Kelley's federal appeal that his site-specific installation is original art under the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act. In September 2008, a Chicago Federal District Court said the park piece did not meet the definition of original art, and this spring, Kelley appealed that decision. More than half of the wildflowers were removed and as you can see in the photos, the ovals were altered to a long rectangle with one oval in the middle.

For really good reaction and analysis of this court case, there have been two excellent posts on the Arts and Ecology Blog here and here. Also, there's a good post from 2007 on the Aesthetic Grounds blog.

As an artist and gardener, my heart is definitely with Chapman Kelley on this appeal. How terrible to see a garden that you designed and helped maintain for decades get ripped up? The main thing seems to be managing expectations—something the city did horribly by not working with the artist when deciding to alter his work.

Some might say this is simply landscaping but somewhere in there (and I guess this is the point of the court issue) there's the line between art and landscaping, artist rights and the rights of the city or whichever institution manages site-specific art.

If anything, I'm glad some of the wildflower park is still there and maybe a compromise can be reached to expand or do the best to return the Wildflower Works to it's original proposed format.

Artist's Wildflower Park is not Art

{Chapman Kelley's wildflower park in Chicago. I think this is a before shot? Correction: This is the shot after the piece was altered.}

...or at least the courts say so.

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what is going on here, mostly because I haven't seen before and after shots, but artist Chapman Kelley is appealing a court decision stating that his 1.5 acre wildflower park is not "original art." The city of Chicago altered the park in 2004, removing half of his installation, and Kelley subsequently sued the city for $825,000.

Here's a bit more from artinfo.com:

Kelley is asking the federal appeals court in Chicago to overturn a ruling that his 1.5-acre wildflower piece, in which the flowers are planted in the shape of an ellipse, was not original enough to warrant protection under U.S. copyright law. The City of Chicago reduced the work by over half in 2004, to the dismay of the artist. Kelley says the destroyed wildflowers were valued at $825,000, and he wants the city to pay him for the damages.

There's also this story from April '09.

As I mentioned before...some photos of the park now would really help me figure out what's going on. It is interesting to follow and see if gardens will or will not be considered something that can be copyrighted.

> More work at chapmankelley.com.

Tree Museum in the Bronx

The Tree Museum, a project celebrating 100 trees and the stories of 100 people, will be up this summer in the Bronx to commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Grand Concourse, a boulevard in that neighborhood.

Created by artist Katie Holten, you can read all about it at treemuseum.org or in the nytimes.

The Tree Museum will be up from June 21–October 12, 2009.

Which -cene Are We In?

Are we heading into an era of a homogonized plant and animal communities, brought on by our global economy that moves everything around, whether it is goods, animals or bacteria and fungus?

In an article titled The Sixth Extinction in the May 25, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about the mysterious disappearance of tree frogs from Panama and Costa Rica, which scientists now believe is caused by a fungus that we've unknowingly helped jump continents. In the article, I was struck by a term used to refer to the epoch we live in: the homogenocene.

Last year, I made a post about the anthropocene or geological epoch defined by humans. The homogenocene is also all about us and refers to the declining biodiversity and diminishing ecosystems left in the wake of human development. When talking about the natural world, what's important is to realize that every living thing on earth will have to go through the bottleneck of human development. The assumption now is that many species will die out, leaving us with a diminished natural world David Quamman has called the Planet of the Weeds.

{New York Weed (Longspine sandbur), ink on paper, 30 x 22 inches, 2005 by Katie Holten.}

Whatever we call it (my vote is for homogenocene, although it seems that both terms have an extra syllable that makes it hard to pronounce) this is a topic artists have been working with recently, such as the Katie Holten drawing above.

What role can artists take as scientists report on this undergoing mass extinction? One route might be helping understand how to live in this increasingly homogenized natural world, or how to begin carving out localized economies and ways of living. Or making sense of and helping communicate about what is lost.

I have to be honest though, reading about mass extinction makes me feel that almost all artistic effort and work is futile in the face of these global problems. Humans are already the ultimate weed and the planet is simply becoming one giant self-portrait. And rather then tending it like a scruffy garden or arboretum, I'm afraid we might end up with one big lawn.

The Publicity Plant

Amsterdam-based artist and grad student Sander Veenhof has come up with an interactive and innovative way to spread the word on his name: A plant where the light only switches on when someone blogs, twitters or does a google search for his name. The project is an attempt to grow a "graduation bouquet" of flowers for Sander's July 1 graduation.

Here's what the flowers looked like a few minutes ago when I did a google search to turn the light on:


These plants look like they need a little love...why not help this guy out by doing some google searches? As a fellow graduate student in art, I can understand the need and desire to get your name out there. Guess that's why I'm enjoying playing right into his project by making a blog post about his project.

Since this is grad student work, I'll also jump right in with my critique: I need more transparency. What kinds of flowers are there? How long does the light switch on when his name is searched or blogged? Do different searches/posts/etc result in more or less time? Won't the plants be all fucked up if they are not controlled for some semblance of normal daylight hours? (However, I do like the immediacy of turning the lights on immediatly....)

Check out the Publicity Plant at www.sndrv.nl/publicityplant/

Perpetual Motion 2009

Here's a nice video by artist David Prince. A dead tree is turned into a super-awesome perpetual motion machine!

Check out other projects by Prince at davidprince.org.