Invisible Planet – An Art Exhibition on Environment Issues
From thematic concerns, cultural metaphors, to poetic expressions, lifestyles and other aspects, artists living in Yunnan are calling people to respond to, think and concern themselves about the increasingly serious environmental problems. Because behind our ways of production and living, that we are so accustomed to, we are modelling the unique Planet we all share together.
Curators: Luo Fei, Wang Bei
Artists: Alfred Vaagsvold(Norway), He Libin, Jia Yi, Li Ji, Lei Yan. Liu Yifan, Martin Haarr(Norway) Su Jiashou,Vera Regina van de Nieuwenhof(Netherland), Paper, Xue Tao, Xiang Weixin, Xiong Wangxing, Ying Borui, Yan Wan, Zi Bai, Zhu Lanjing, Zhang Jingxi, Zhang Hua
Opening: 2017-11-4, 20:00
Duration: 2017-11-4——2017-11-26，11:00-21:00, Sundays off
Opening performances by He Libin and the Paper Group
Host: TCG Nordica
Address: ChuangKu Loft, Xi Ba Road 101#, Kunming
Tel: 0871-64114691
www.tcgnordic.com
//Lectures//
Lecture I: Art Expression and Ecological Ethics
Guests: Li Ji, Xue Tao, Luo Fei
Language: Chinese
19:30–21:00, Nov 8th, 2017
Li Ji’s painting: The Last Nature
Lecture II: Crossing borders, traversing cultures
Speaker: Vera Regina van de Nieuwenhof (Netherland)
Language: English and Chinese
19:30–21:00, Nov 14th, 2017
Vera Regina van de Nieuwenhof on her bike trip
//English Corners//
2017-11-1, 19:30-20:30
Topic: Pollution
Pollution is an increasing problem in our world. How can we solve it? What is our responsibility as a group and as individuals?
2017-11-15, 19:30-20:30
Topic: Meat Production and Consumption
In today’s society we eat more and more meat. This can be bad both for our health and for the planet. Should we change our eating habits?
2017-11-22, 19:30-20:30
Topic: Economical Growth vs the Planet
As the world becomes richer, the planet becomes sicker. How can we continue to grow economicaly and at the same time take care of our planet?
Zhang Hua, “Reconstruction”
Invisible Planet
By Luo Fei
1
According to encyclopedic dictionary, the term “the environment” consists not only of such substantial factors as air, water, soil, plants, animals and micro-organisms but also concepts, systems, codes of conduct and other nonquantifiable elements. There are both natural and social components to it, including abstract concepts as well as living life forms. Strictly speaking, it often refers to the sum of all environmental elements relative to mankind as the subject.
The environment which human beings depend on to live, especially in terms of natural ecology, has undergone unprecedented changes since the Industrial Revolution two hundred years ago. The globalization that started in the eighties of last century has made the Earth a community of people closely connected – a global village. While humans enjoy the fruits of industrial civilization and globalization, together with other living bodies on this planet they are also suffering from environmental pressure and threats due to the exponential growth in population and consumption, such as global warming, a sharp drop of biodiversity, nuclear pollution, and land desertification and so on. In 2002, Paul Crutzen, a Dutch Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, presented the concept of “Anthropocene”, a new geologic time scale characterized by the drastic effect of human activities on the Earth, mostly the carbon dioxide emissions which have surpassed any other generation. This means that geologists thousands of years in the future will be able to draw a clear line of human activity according to the traces of rocks and sediments. Just like people nowadays can determine the touches of the Jurassic dinosaurs and the Cambrian explosion. Edward O. Wilson, a leading biologist at Harvard University, says: “we (human beings) are the first species to become a geophysical force (in the history of life on Earth).” As contributors to the Earth ecosystem, humans are being transformed while they are giving the planet a make-over.
In this context, since the 1970s, eco-environmental issues have begun to attract attention and discussion in Western arts and cultural studies. People have realized that there is a need for ecological criticism and that art can’t be appreciated as it should be when bypassing the fields people live in and their cultural connotation. Through ecological and ethical criticisms artists, curators, and critics are reexamining ever increasing desertification, and reviewing the contradiction among natural deterioration, the sharp decrease of animals, and human invasions. As a result, a series of important exhibitions and works that lead avant-garde art movements were born, such as Arte Povera, Earth-Art, and Ecological Art. The visual narratives and reflections on the environment by the artists have become something we simply cannot ignore today. It has also become another ethical perspective for us to interpret in the arts today.
Alfred Vaagsvold, Tsunami project, Sweden 2008
2
At its fundamental level, artists’ concern for environmental issues, as subject-oriented judgement, is to use artistic media to arouse people’s attention on the sensory and cognitive levels to present environmental issues. Examples are wildlife themed photographs by Liu Yifan, Xiong Wangxing and others that present the alienation and injury that human action afflicts on animals. Xiang Weixing, by digital post-processing, put wild animals into the living environment of cities, presenting a sense of expectation as well as absurdity. Lei Yan made birds out of paper to reflect the end of the animals when they hit a glass wall in the cement jungle. Su Jiashou‘s oil paintings showcase the tension of flying birds in the air and plastic waste on the ground. Yan Wan’s paintings are about the potential impact of industrial pollution on people’s mental state.
At a cultural level, the environmental problems are treated, like diseases, as metaphors by artists to develop their deeper critique for reality. In this regard, chemical suits were used by Yin Borui to highlight the sense of isolation. Jia Yi‘s paintings show the isolation of people who wrap themselves like trees. Zi Bai’s pictures show mountains of human waste reminiscent of the “Junk Republic” on the Pacific Ocean. Not only is it threatening the aquatic organisms, but through the food chain, it will come back to human beings. As a symbolic image, this work also points to the inner hunger of men, universal and ever unsatisfied. The “Tsunami” project by Norwegian artist Alfred Vaagsvold was an earth art program which lasted for multiple years. It was implemented in different locations throughout Norway, both in churches, villages, cities and on coasts. Thousands of pieces of used clothing formed dramatic scenes one after another. Like sites of invasion and conquerings by “others” (humans or aliens). Or it can likewise be seen as the threat of excessive consumption and overproduction.
Excessive production and consumption have inspired artists to reuse discarded daily items and develop a powerful voice of materials. The installation “Shake”, by Xue Tao, was made of waste newspapers to present a collapsing yet stable form. This work has a lot to do with the inner shock of the artist from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. The opposite of poverty and roughness is the standardized luxury. In this consumer era, people embrace glistening, eye-catching and streamlined things. In the paintings by Zhang Jinxi, human beings themselves become the polished glass products, delicate and fragile. The pictures appear to be nostalgic, while the nothingness that characterized the spirit of the consumption era could not be more obvious. Through his lens, Norwegian artist Martin Haarr recorded the odd calm left by human activities in nature. The animals’ feeding bags piled up in the fields are like a giant insect. The waste of human life stuck in the rock crevices are very much like scattered human organs.
photo by Martin Haarr
As a strategy of postmodern art, artists employ the images from established art history to describe current issues. “The Last Nature” Series I and II by Li Ji are parodies of Goya’s “The Third of May 1808” and Jean-François Millet’s “The Angelus” respectively. They are to show how humans at the top of the food chain domesticate and slaughters animals on a massive scale. Zhu Lanjing put “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains”, a classic painting by Wang Ximeng of China’s Northern Song Dynasty, in the context of cities, making the quiet and ethereal painting into one of hustle and bustle.
Artists also express their innermost expectation by creating ideal environments. In his performance art “Nest”, He Libin built up a huge birds nest with withered branches and stayed in there. It is just like Friedrich Hölderlin famously put it: “Poetically Man Dwells”. Zhang Hua used the architectural waste like stones and steel bars to “reconstruct” landscape and courtyard-like paintings, to offset the wretchedness of reality with fragmented poems.
As a conceptual form, environmental protection encourages people to change their lifestyles, to pay attention to the sustainable management and development of resources on Earth. Recently, the Dutch artist Vera Regina van de Nieuwenhof spent a year and a half riding from Amsterdam to Tokyo. She passed by Kunming, then later returned and settled here. She made a cyclist installation with the inner tubes of bicycles to appeal to people to travel green and to rediscover their inner power.
3
From thematic concerns, cultural metaphors, to poetic expressions, lifestyles and other aspects, artists living in Yunnan are calling people to respond to, think and concern themselves about the increasingly serious environmental problems. Because behind our ways of production and living, that we are so accustomed to, we are modelling the unique Planet we all share together.
October 2017
Translated by Xiao Diming
Proofread by Liya Norling Åslund
Painting by Ying Borui
