"In The Ethics of Earth Art, Amanda Boetzkes analyzes the development of the earth art movement, arguing that such diverse artists as Robert Smithson, Ana Mendieta, James Turrell, Jackie Brookner, Olafur Eliasson, Basia Irland, and Ichi Ikeda are connected through their elucidation of the earth as a domain of ethical concern. Boetzkes contends that in basing their works' relationship to the natural world on receptivity rather than representation, earth artists take an ethical stance that counters both the instrumental view that seeks to master nature and the Romantic view that posits a return to a mythical state of unencumbered continuity with nature. By incorporating receptive surfaces into their work - film footage of glaring sunlight, an aperture in a chamber that opens to the sky, or a porous armature on which vegetation grows - earth artists articulate the dilemma of representation that nature presents."--pub. desc.

Since its inception in the 1960s, the earth art movement has sought to make visible the elusive presence of nature. Though most often associated with monumental land-based sculptures, earth art encompasses a wide range of media, from sculpture, body art performances, and installations to photographic interventions, public protest art, and community projects. In The Ethics of Earth Art, Amanda Boetzkes analyzes the development of the earth art movement, arguing that such diverse artists as Robert Smithson, Ana Mendieta, James Turrell, Jackie Brookner, Olafur Eliasson, Basia Irland, and Ichi Ikeda are connected through their elucidation of the earth as a domain of ethical concern. Boetzkes contends that in basing their works’ relationship to the natural world on receptivity rather than representation, earth artists take an ethical stance that counters both the instrumental view that seeks to master nature and the Romantic view that posits a return to a mythical state of unencumbered continuity with nature. By incorporating receptive surfaces into their work—film footage of glaring sunlight, an aperture in a chamber that opens to the sky, or a porous armature on which vegetation grows—earth artists articulate the dilemma of representation that nature presents. Revealing the fundamental difference between the human world and the earth, Boetzkes shows that earth art mediates the sensations of nature while allowing nature itself to remain irreducible to human signification.

The definitive survey of Land Art and contemporary environmental art, now available in paperback

This book can be viewed as a series of investigations into the ongoing imbrications of the practices of art, ethics and education as conducted within each author’s specific context of practice as artist, educator, researcher. It constitutes an international anthology of explorations that are by no means exclusive but conscious of the ongoing iterations, mutations and individuations of relations between art, ethics and education, which, in turn, seek to expand how we might conceive these terms as practices. This ongoing evolution reminds us that as practices art, ethics and education are always incomplete processes affected by and affecting their specific milieus and environments. Chapters within the book cover a wide range of ethical questions and educational contexts, broaching subjects as varied as higher education, artificial intelligence, animal ethics, transcultural encounters, collaborative art, the education of senior citizens and experiences of conflict. Art, ethics and education are not conceived in terms of established orders, representations, ideals, criteria or bodies of knowledge and practice, but rather in terms of dynamic, relational processes and their potentialities, that arise within specific locations, cartographies and ecologies of practice. The notions of art, ethics and education are viewed in terms of assemblages that have the capacity to generate new modes of practice that may question established values and advance new overlappings of aesthetic, ethical and political relations. Contributors are: Dennis Atkinson, Hashim Al Azzam, John Baldacchino, Bazon Brock, Carl-Peter Buschkühle, Sahin Celikten, Ana Dimke, Brian Grassom, Leena Hannula, Brian Hughes, jan jagodzinski, Timo Jokela, Mira Kallio-Tavin, Joachim Kettel, Guillermo Marini, Catarina Martins, Joe Sacco, Francisco Schwember, Juuso Tervo, Raphael Vella and Branka Vujanovic.

This book explores the ways Robert Smithson’s art revealed and defamiliarized the constructs of rational reality in order to allow radically speculative alternatives to emerge. In this way, his art is conceived as a true fiction that eradicates a false reality. By tracing the web of correspondences between Smithson and science fictional, speculative and mystical modes of thought, Rory O’Dea explores the aesthetic encounters engendered by his art as a means to warp the contours of reality and loosen the boundaries of being human. Given the current and impending catastrophes of the Anthropocene, which represents the ever-expanding planetary shadow cast by humanism, the possibility of being other-than-human posited by Smithson’s art is a matter of urgent concern. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, American studies and environmental humanities.

An argument for the centrality of the visual culture of waste—as seen in works by international contemporary artists—to the study of our ecological condition. Ecological crisis has driven contemporary artists to engage with waste in its most non-biodegradable forms: plastics, e-waste, toxic waste, garbage hermetically sealed in landfills. In this provocative and original book, Amanda Boetzkes links the increasing visualization of waste in contemporary art to the rise of the global oil economy and the emergence of ecological thinking. Often, when art is analyzed in relation to the political, scientific, or ecological climate, it is considered merely illustrative. Boetzkes argues that art is constitutive of an ecological consciousness, not simply an extension of it. The visual culture of waste is central to the study of the ecological condition. Boetzkes examines a series of works by an international roster of celebrated artists, including Thomas Hirschhorn, Francis Alÿs, Song Dong, Tara Donovan, Agnès Varda, Gabriel Orozco, and Mel Chin, among others, mapping waste art from its modernist origins to the development of a new waste imaginary generated by contemporary artists. Boetzkes argues that these artists do not offer a predictable or facile critique of consumer culture. Bearing this in mind, she explores the ambivalent relationship between waste (both aestheticized and reviled) and a global economic regime that curbs energy expenditure while promoting profitable forms of resource consumption.

Grand Winner of the 2014 Nautilus Book Awards Thoughtful observers agree that the planetary crisis we now face-climate change; species extinction; the destruction of entire ecosystems; the urgent need for a more just economic-political order-is pushing human civilization to a radical turning point: change or perish. But precisely how to change remains an open question. In Earth-honoring Faith, Larry Rasmussen answers that question with a dramatically new way of thinking about human society, ethics, and the ongoing health of our planet. Rejecting the modern assumption that morality applies to human society alone, Rasmussen insists that we must derive a spiritual and ecological ethic that accounts for the well-being of all creation, as well as the primal elements upon which it depends: earth, air, fire, water, and sunlight. He argues that good science, necessary as it is, will not be enough to inspire fundamental change. We must draw on religious resources as well to make the difficult transition from an industrial-technological age obsessed with consumption to an ecological age that restores wise stewardship of all life. Earth-honoring Faith advocates an alliance of spirituality and ecology, in which the material requirements for planetary life are reconciled with deep traditions of spirituality across religions, traditions that include mysticism, sacramentalism, prophetic practices, asceticism, and the cultivation of wisdom. It is these shared spiritual practices that can produce a chorus of world faiths to counter the consumerism, utilitarianism, alienation, oppression, and folly that have pushed us to the brink. Written with passionate commitment and deep insight, Earth-honoring Faith reminds us that we must live in the present with the knowledge that the eyes of future generations will look back at us.