How is it possible, I wondered on my birthday last year, for a crisis that was declared in 1970 when I was just mastering cursive writing to be raging still stronger in 2010 when I turned fifty? With evidence of global climate change mounting and my increasing frustration over the culture of consumption that I inhabit, I was convinced we were heading to hell in a handbasket with human beings in the driver's seat. As a museum curator, my response was to organize an exhibition, at once defiant and resigned, that would serve as a tombstone for my species. I suggested the title From Earth Day to Doomsday.
Box office figures tell us that people love a disaster movie, so why not a disaster exhibition? The show would start with masters of photography Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, two artists who were deeply enamored of the American wilderness and passionate about preserving it. A concise survey of efforts by photographers over the following decades, such as Robert Adams, Mark Klett, Robert Glenn Ketchum, and Richard Misrach, would provide a context for the heart of the show, a selection of very recent work. These images by artists working in the first decade of the twenty-first century would bring viewers up to the present day and the end of time, which some believe will occur in 2012 based on the Mayan calendar. Voilá, a beautiful and eloquent swan song from our artists to a culture that couldn't be bothered to listen!
In the end, I did organize an exhibition with many of the elements described above. But it has a different title. As I was working on the project, the pictures and words of the artists I met really moved me and melted away some of my pessimism. One of the things that had so piqued my interest was the persistence with which these photographers kept trying to communicate with us. Like someone doggedly trying to make conversation in a foreign language, they tried a variety of approaches over the years -- beauty, humor, horror -- to catch our attention. The earnestness of such gestures seemed rather poignant and I felt a little sorry for them in their innocence. Couldn't they see that no one was listening? I decided to find out what motivated them, what they thought art could do, what they believed they were contributing.
None of the works I selected for the show have proffered solutions to any global crisis, but many of them show examples of people working cooperatively with nature, nature working cooperatively with us, or things that are out of balance and need rethinking. Rather than proposing answers, their aim is to motivate us to think about our choices and their impact, and to forge a path forward based on our own conclusions. I quickly found that my own taste in choosing bodies of work for the show tended toward variety rather than cohesiveness. Frankly, it seemed ludicrous to try to identify some kind of definitive trend in work that is essentially about how unmoored and imbalanced we are as a society. That is the trend!
One of the most obvious threads connecting the artists in the show is that all have chosen to use creative expression to address issues of concern about the environment. Another thing that connects them is the clear priority of asking questions rather than offering answers. Initially this suggested an unfortunate lack of utility in the discourse, reducing the pictures to something of an academic exercise. But then I realized that this is their precise strength: asking questions and getting us engaged in that process. The visually rich, non-prescriptive nature of these photographs is precisely what allows them to act on us. Anecdote and subjectivity are perhaps better suited to creating a climate of receptivity than is information presented in a factual, objective way. Emotion, memory and other types of non-linear experiences can be gateways to fresh perspectives. I'm on board with art that invites me to think and feel but doesn't supply predetermined conclusions. I think what the artists are suggesting is that the answers lie with me and thee.
The exhibition Earth Now: American Photographers and the Environment is on view at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe from April 8 through October 9, 2012.
Katherine Ware is curator of photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art. She previously served as curator of photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and as assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She celebrated the first Earth Day in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, and will observe the forty-first Earth Day at her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
All photographs courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe.
Top photo: Subhankar Banerjee, "Three Potential Bluebird Homes; On My Way to the Railroad," Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009
Ibrahim Abdul-Matin: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet
How we have changed as a nation engorged on images!! You would have to plaster the airwaves and every billboard ala the Obama HOPE poster, until every American recognised your nature "Poster Child" image, and then the campaign and symbol ala the red cross symbol, would have to continue to bang the drum for years...
I carry a modicum of regret that I felt unable to continue participation effectively in an ongoing solution over there. "… my increasing frustration over the culture of consumption that I inhabit (ed)." lead me to take shelter in a quieter and more peaceful local. Nowadays I know exactly what you meant by "Like someone doggedly trying to make conversation in a foreign language …"
"I'm on board with art that invites me to think and feel but doesn't supply predetermined conclusions. I think what the artists are suggesting is that the answers lie with me and thee."
Katherine - Your first paragraph answers your last. When using phrases like, "I'm on board with art that invites me to think and feel...", and, "...answers lie with me and thee.", I say, where's your emotional content?
How about saying, "This is a G-dammm nightmare. Artists of the world unite and fight these Earth vampires with every ounce of strength you have. If you don't, the already slash and burn tactics used against the arts will escalate manifold. The arts are proving to be next to useless in the world we live in where pictures are so waterlogged with language they're just more meaningful mush, albeit valuable to those who deal in such finery and brutality in a palatable manner."
And yes, I'm quite aware of the exquisite beauty of Elliot Porter's work, and the intensely devastating effect of Richard Misrach's work. It's just not enough anymore. The stakes have gone much higher than what individual artists can do at this point in the endgame of Earth.