Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has mounted 1200 bicycles in a magnificent floor to ceiling installation as part of a solo exhibition in Taipei.

The artist likely has no environmental statement to make with this installation, but these days it is hard to look at so many bicycles without being put in mind of the energy and transport questions that so many people are working to resolve. Can we really build a successful energy policy on a huge installation of renewables just like this huge installation of bicycles? Or is the mountain to high to climb and talk about moving to a solely renewable energy policy simply the pipe dream of impractical idealists?

Ai Weiwei has gained global fame for his dissident attitude to Chinese authorities. This has earned him persecution by the authorities, destruction of his studios, charges of owing multimillion dollars to the Chinese tax authorities and recurrent arrests and periods of disappearance. The bicycle installation led me to look for any of the artist’s works that addressed environmental issues directly.

An installation entitled “Trees” & “Rocks” (image below) has been interpreted by some to be an allusion to the environmental damage being caused by China’s rapid rate of development. Others, have interpreted the work as the simple recreation of a meditative space.

I spent my days enjoying some wonderful art, being astonished by art that was bland or crass – or both – and looking for art that engaged in the issues related to our environment. There was none that I could find. In this major art event where contemporary artists engage with the issues of the day, art engaged with environmental issues simply did not exist. Why?

Maybe we should just face the facts – we are being supremely unsuccessful in getting people engaged in environmental issues beyond the level where they politely acknowledge that there seems to be an issue and then swiftly move on to what, for them, are more pressing issues. All research confirms that environmental issues are low down on the list of people’s concerns and shrinking in relevance.

The most impressive installation in the Biennale was, by far, Thomas Hirschhorn’s Crystal of Resistance for the Swiss pavilion. The artist has created a web site about the installation.  If you are so inclined (and, in my desperation, I was), you can interpret part of Hirschhorn’s installation as containing an environmental message.

For the pavilion, the artist created a massive and almost overwhelming installation. Masses of discarded objects – TV sets, mobile telephones, plastic chairs, and so forth were covered in masking tape and assembled, seemingly haphazardly, throughout the pavilion. Other spaces contained other paraphernalia of modern life – magazines, car tyres, mannequins, discarded drinks cans and so forth.  There were even  taxidermied animals seemingly surrounded by the detritus of modern living.

Finally, there were arrays of photographs of what we may call ‘modern life’. Among these some of the most shocking images of war, oppression and human devastation.

The installation was tightly packed and visually overwhelming. One had to carefully walk through for fear of knocking something over. The experience felt similar to being in an overstocked and totally disorganized junk shop with no clues or guidance as to how one should proceed, what to look at in what order and what to make of it all.

This is the cleverness of the installation. Hirschhorn’s idea is that we are, today, surrounded by visual, auditory and material stimuli that are almost overwhelming. What do we actually ‘see’ when we go about our daily business? Maybe all we see is that which confirms our own world view. We ignore or act as mere spectators for most of what goes on around us – including the pictures of horror that the artist strung up in his installation and which most people looked at, no doubt found disturbing to various degrees but then just moved on to the next visual stimulus and got on with their lives.

For me, desperate to find some semblance of environmental engagement in the whole of the Biennale experience, Hirshhorn’s installation made powerful statements about our consumption, our unsustainable way of life, even the threat to other forms of life. But I saw all that because I wanted to. I was looking for it and therefore I saw it. The artist did not show it to me.

Of the millions who visited the installation, how many saw and took away an environmental message? How many even noticed or lingered next to the taxidermied marmot or eagle? If the research about environmental concerns is right, then it will be very, very few. There are many things that one can see and read into Hirschhorn’s installation and the reality is that very few people are attuned to seeing an environmental message. And even for those who did, they no doubt reflected briefly and then moved on to the nearest, chic Venetian restaurant where they ordered the deliciously grilled fish of the day – most likely a highly endangered species.

Whether or not Stezaker had this in mind when, scalpel and glue in hand, he created these collages, Badger has a point. We fetishize natural beauty spots and turn them into a product for our consumption – whether as romanticized image or as a pilgrimage destination for the faithful. The product is starting to become so valuable and so rare that, like a unique painting or crown jewel, it is now surrounded by fences and patrolled by guards with mere people only allowed in under strictly controlled circumstances – and after having bought their ticket.

Little or none of the “Nature” that we consume is ‘real’, ‘unspoilt’, ‘genuine’ or whatever else we choose to call it. Armies of scientists and technical specialists work every day to ‘conserve’ it and keep it beautiful and ‘natural’ in much the same way, suggest Stezaker’s images, as we have armies of plastic surgeons working to conserve celebrities’ faces and bodies.

Yet, Nature is a product that many of us still want to have and want to consume – in one form or another. The character, shape and form of that product has changed and will continue to change over time. We will adapt to those changes but, I suspect, we will continue to seek and enjoy that product and will continue to want it to be available.

The Prix Pictet is one of the most prestigious photography contests. This year’s theme was Growth and it is interesting that most of the photographers chosen as finalists chose to portray Growth in negative terms – the pursuit of Growth as something that is damaging our planet. How long is this attitude sustainable? How long can the environmental movement keep portraying itself as the enemy of growth and development and still maintain enough public support.  My suggestion is – not for long. It is time that the environmental movement went beyond the politics on “NO” to a less conflicting and more constructive future.

Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan – also previously reviewed in this blog – were finalists in this year’s Prix Pictet.

Huang Xu, a Beijing born artist, collects plastic bags from the endless rubbish heaps now to be found in China and, using 3D scanners normally used by archeologists, digitally re-models them to create these wonderful images.

Plastic bags are an interesting phenomenon of modern life. At some level, they represent economic development, technological advance and convenience. Today, they have become an almost universal symbol of consumption and unsustainable waste. Yet, they are also one of the few areas where we have seen much progress with the introduction of re-usable, re-cyclable and biodegradable bags now being widely available and in common use.

These delicate images of have often been said to evoke the imagery of fine Chinese silk – a material which evokes positive connotations. It’s not clear to me why plastic bags should be seen as a sign of excessive consumption and silk should not.

Rather than simplistically interpreting Huang’s work as a sad commentary on consumption, waste, and pollution, maybe it should lead us to reflect on the difficulty, and fruitlessness, of drawing borders between economic and technological development and excessive consumption and waste.

Barbara Kruger asserts that her art may not be social commentary but simply ‘observation’.  Intentional or not, it comes across as commentary to most people – and pretty pointed commentary at that.

The artist has, over the years, addressed many issues including women’s reproductive rights, how development squeezes out lower income people, etc., etc.  Our culture of consumerism and excess consumption has, however, occupied a central role in her work. The “I shop therefore I am’ image (above) is from the 1980s, but the theme is continued and expanded in her exhibit entitled “Plenty”, currently showing in East Hampton, NY.

“You want it/You need it/You buy it/You forget it.” are the words plastered on the ceiling in large, squeezed letters.  On the walls “Money makes money and a rich man’s jokes are always funny.”

As this review in the New York Times points out, it is difficult to see this exhibit as anything other than cutting criticism of the very audience likely to be visiting this exhibit in The Hamptons.

But perhaps the best commentary on our unsustainable consumer lifestyle emerged by accident; an artwork that was not an artwork at all but can hold its own with the best of Barbara Kruger’s work.  Her exhibit “Plenty” came to an end (as exhibits do) after running in LA.  I came across the announcement below on an LA culture web site.  Maybe our age of plenty has indeed come to an end and we haven’t yet noticed.

“I had been hired to photograph a town in the process of being erased. The American Electric Power Company had paid residents of Cheshire a lump sum to leave, never come back and never complain in the media or in court if they became sick from environmental contaminates spewed out by the AEP plant. The company was buying itself a lawsuit-free future.”

Having completed the project, Epstein could not get Cheshire out of his mind and embarked on a project called American Power. “I wanted to photograph the relationship between American society and the American landscape, and energy was the lynchpin.”

The result of the project is a set of images of the creation and consumption of power in America. The images starkly show how both energy production and its consumption are inextricably intertwined with everyday life in America.

Some of the images serve as somber reminders of the perverse ways in which America uses its power and its cultural relationship to these uses. One such photograph is that of a now disused electric chair affectionately known as ‘Old Sparky’.

Other images show the huge and irreversible impact that power generation has had on the landscape.

Just as revealing as the photographs themselves are the difficulties that Epstein encountered as he toured the country creating these images. He describes ‘systematic harassment’ as he tried to photograph power plants and other installations: “Law enforcement officials more than once ran me out of town when I had done nothing remotely criminal. The result was that from 2003-2008 – a span that coincided with the Bush era – most of where I went in the United States to work I went in fear.”

And, in case harassment was insufficient, here is a description of one incident when he was stopped for questioning: “..an unmarked car arrived. A middle aged man in a suit and tie stepped out and flashed his ID : FBI. “You know,” he said, “if you were a Muslim, you’d be cuffed and taken in for questioning.” Long live the land of the free!

The project is now the subject of an interactive web site that aims to collect people’s views and start an online discussion around the question – What is American Power?

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.

Of his various series, two stand out.

The first is called “Running The Numbers – a portrait of consumer mass culture“.  In these two series, Jordan takes a specific number of items – a number with meaning – constructs an image with these items then photographs the image.

For instance, Shark Teeth is a collection of 270,000 fossilized shark teeth put together to construct an image of two sharks.  270,000 represents the estimated number of sharks that are killed every day around the world for their fins.

"Shark Teeth" - Full Image

Detail of fossilized shark's teeth that make up the previous image

“Midway” is a series of photographs that is emotionally much more striking than Running the Numbers.  Jordan describes this series as follows:

“These photographs of albatross chicks were made on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.”

From Series "Midway"

From Series "Midway"

I find the contrast between these two series interesting.  Running the Numbers is essentially an intellectual exercise based on shocking statistics and converted into cleverly constructed images.  Midway appeals to our raw emotions. It is a simpler series that depicts terrible consequences of our consumption. Because it’s clever, Running the Numbers is probably more likely to appeal to the art establishment.  In fact, one piece was recently included in an exhibit at the Royal Academy in London about human impact on the planet.  But, if the objective of this art were not to appeal to the artistic elite but to convince people that these issues are important and that some action is needed, which of these two series is likely to be the more effective?  I know where I’d be putting my money.