David Brooks at MOMA PS1. Photo: New York Times

David Brooks has, it seems, been intrigued by deforestation for some time. The work below was presented in an exhibit entitled “New Perspectives in Contemporary Art” organized jointly by Affirmation Arts and Columbia University. The piece is entitled “Breathtaking Vistas of Deforestation” and the medium described as “60 laser copies laminated and sanded’ (yes, truly).

With the increasing importance being given to deforestation as a contributor to climate change, such work may acquire increased relevance.

“Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline”

He was the first to develop the idea of ‘social sculpture’ – an integration of sculptural work into everyday social activity and – at its extreme – the idea that society as a whole was to be regarded as one giant work of art.

In environmental terms, his best known work is ’7,000 oaks’. Starting with the planting of a single oak tree in Kassel, Germany in 1982, he initiated a project that culminated in the planting of 7,000 oak trees in that city over the following 5 years. This was a substantial artistic and ecological intervention with the goal of changing the living space of the city.

Joseph Beuys's first tree planted in front of the Museum Fridericianum

The project exemplified Beuys’s idea that social sculpture was a participatory process that could, itself, transform our social environment.  The idea of artwork that intervenes and itself becomes part of our landscape or social fabric has since been taken up by a many of today’s conceptual artists.

Beuys’s work was not universally admired.  His passion for social change and his belief in the power of art as the agent of change was described by some as ‘simple-minded utopian drivel‘.

Love him or hate him (and there are plenty of either), Beuys’s lasting influence is undeniable.  in 1988, the Dia Foundation installed 5 oaks in New York City claiming them as a ‘continuation’ of Beuys’s project. British artists Ackroyd and Harvey collected acorns from Beuys’s oaks, re-planted them and exhibited the saplings as part of “Earth: Art of a Changing World” a recent exhibition at the Royal Acedemy, London.  What these works lacks in originality they maybe make up for as a tribute to the impact of Joseph Beuys and his lasting influence on social and environmental art.

A 'continuation' of Joseph Beuys's project in NYC - Dia Foundation.

Starting out as one of the now infamous YBA’s (Young British Artists), Hirst started to become well-off when he found that he could produce and sell in endless numbers paintings that were nothing more than a series of colored spots on canvas.

LSD

These paintings gave the first hint of Hirst’s skill at mocking the art world while still making money out of it.  He titled the paintings LSD and made clear that he only ever painted five of them himself the rest being done by assistants, particularly Rachel Howard.  “The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel” he famously said.  Yet the collectors kept buying them and his assistants kept churning them out.

Sponsored by Charles Saatchi, Hirst went on to bigger things. He was claimed to have developed an obsession with death and started producing large works like his now famous dead shark in formaldehyde titled “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”.

To me it seems less of an obsession with death but rather an incredible skill to create enough hype and outrage surrounding his work to enable him and his agents use the mechanisms of the art market to make a lot of money.  Hirst developed this skill so well that he could produce anything and it would sell for large amounts in what had become an uncontrolled consumption mania.  For instance, “Lullaby Spring”,  a 3 metre (10 ft) wide steel cabinet with 6,136 pills sold for $19.2 million to the Emir of Qatar in 2007.

This approach culminated in his production of a diamond encrusted skull that he aptly titled “For The Love of God”.  I can just hear him chuckle – “For the love of God, how much can I get them to part with for this do you think?” The answer was $100 million – though that price was paid by a consortium that included Hirst himself.

For The Love Of God

In one final ironic act in September 2008, Hirst mounted, through Sotheby’s, an auction of his own work, bypassing his agents.  The auction was appropriately entitled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” (by which I assume he means the checks he was going to collect) and included one piece that could not have been a more in-your-face mockery of the worship of the false god of consumption than a dead calf with gold hooves in a gold and glass tank of formaldehyde.  Titled “The Golden Calf”, the piece sold for $18.6 million.

The Golden Calf

If he could have orchestrated it himself, it would probably have been the finest work of art of his whole career.  But he didn’t.  It happened by chance.  The week that Hirst raised $200 million from his solo auction, Lehman Brothers collapsed and the whole financial system came crashing down.

To my mind, Damien Hirst’s career epitomizes our culture of utter waste and pointless consumption.  The world events surrounding his final auction were the perfect dénouement to illustrate the unsustainability of it all.  Hirst is one of the cleverest artists to exploit our blind consumption culture all the way to the bank and, in my opinion, he has always done it consciously and with a mockery that was barely veiled.

In a unique activist, social work of art, The Ultimate Holding Company, a co-operative based in Manchester, England, has just completed a project entitled ext Inked.  They created a set of drawings individually illustrating one hundred of the most endangered species in the British Isles.  They then asked for for 100 volunteers each to have one of these drawings tattooed on their skin thereby becoming ‘permanent ambassadors’ of that species.

Ink Drawn Images of 100 Endangered Species

It turns out that the organizers received large numbers of applications from volunteers of which they could only select 100. Many of these applications contained heartfelt messages expressing a wish to get involved in a lifelong conservation campaign.

The selected volunteers were all tattooed in November this year – the bicentennial year of Charles Darwin’s birthday.

Volunteer being tattoed

Not only was this a bold and highly ambitious undertaking but some may be surprised by the large number of volunteers who demonstrated a passion for conserving the biodiversity of their country.  For many, the extinction of species and the inexorable destruction of biodiversity are abstract concepts of little relevance in their everyday lives. This successful experiment shows that there are many who care about this issue with a lifelong passion.

A 'Permanent Ambassador' is created

The Ultimate Holding Company describes itself as “a co-operative exploring the modern city through critical cross disciplinary art and design practice. We specialise in turning artist-led concepts into ethical design solutions, exclusively for organisations driven by their values not their profits.” They have undertaken a significant number of projects with many clients and partners.

“Forest Tunes: The Library” is an installation consisting of collected items, photographs, video, text and a book.

The centerpiece of The Library is a collection of items held in over 150 boxes.  Stacked in an installation that mimics a library, each box contains an item, usually a botanic specimen of some sort, from the many that the artist has collected over more than a decade.  Box by box, the collection patiently, and somewhat depressingly, builds a story of inexorable destruction of natural landscape.

A Library Of Nature Destroyed

The artist collects the specimens as part of her daily work. Each box contains a relic of nature destroyed and is accompanied by an explanation, a remembrance if you will, of the events, the damage and destruction, that led to the specimen being collected and stored.

The Library - Detail

Leaves from a banana tree (below) commemorate the cutting down of a banana plantation. Cyclamen bulbs are a testament to the thousands of natural cyclamen habitats destroyed through development and road building.  Here are some of the words that accompany these specimens:

“The Jewish National Fund does not transplant the plants, nor does it organize rescue operations to remove thousands of cyclamen, asphodel, narcissus, and iris bulbs that were found on the path of the road.  If we multiply this by the number of new roads paved over the years, the result is clear.”

Banana Plantation Destroyed

Shai Zakai has built a reliquary of nature destroyed; a memento mori to the seemingly inevitable death of all things natural in the destructive wake of human expansion. When installed in an otherwise empty space, the black shelves, black boxes and black floor create a funereal atmosphere that is the polar opposite of the life, fecundity and color of the nature that was.

Last year, she embarked on HighWaterLine – a conceptual art project exploring the impact of climate change on New York City.  She calculated the high water line following a rise in sea level by 10 inches. Using white chalk paint, she walked round the whole city marking this high water line and, by implication, the parts of New York City that would be submerged. Where she was unable to paint a line, she planted lighted beacons.

The aim of the project was, clearly, to raise awareness of one of the impacts of climate change on New York City. During her 5 month walk across the city she engaged with people on the streets, explained what she was doing and what the issues were, handed out leaflets, ran discussion workshops and embarked on other outreach activities to bring attention to the issues.

As a work of art, HighWaterLine could not be further from the elitist and exclusive world of the art gallery or the museum.  Its aim is to intervene in the daily life of ordinary people:

“High Water Line seeks to engage people on the street, in the neighborhoods where they live, work and play. People will encounter the chalk line and the beacons while going about their daily lives. The work is an intervention in routine – the public’s as well as my own. This aspect of the piece ensures catching the public’s attention, and it provides easy and direct access.”

The completed project showed that meaningful parts of New York City would be submerged if we continue on the current climate change trajectory

Eve Mosher has addressed climate change in other projects.  In one installation, a series of colored strings stretched across a space from one map to the next. They represented the mass displacement of people that will result from the effects of climate change.