In the face of global warming continuing to worsen with recent unprecedented heatwaves in India, California or Saudi Arabia, the artistic sector is restoring a deep relationship between humanity and the environment with a global array of artistic proposals. Linking issues of climate, equity and biodiversity, these international exhibitions invite us to rethink our ecological sensibility and to face a world deeply disrupted. Emphasising sustainable practices and the role of humans as protectors of nature, the artworks assert themselves as transformative, capable of collectively mobilising and bringing about a more ecological era.
Brandon Ballengée, Mel Chin, Tiffany Chung, Ron Finley, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ryoji Ikeda, ikkibawiKrrr, Michael Joo, Danil Krivoruchko, Xin Liu, Zheng Mahler, Yoshitomo Nara, Otobong Nkanga, Roxy Paine, Garnett Puett, Rob Reynolds, Sandy Rodriguez, Sarah Rosalena, Bently Spang, Mika Tajima, Clarissa Tossin, Lan Tuazon, Yangkura, Jin-me Yoon
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (14/09/2024 → 05/01/2025)
A major exhibition dedicated to environmental art practices addressing the climate crisis, anthropogenic disasters, and their inevitable interaction with issues of equity and social justice.
Pensare come una montagna
Sonia Boyce, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Chiara Gambirasio, Lin May Saeed
GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy (17/05/2024 → 22/09/2024)
“Thinking Like a Mountain”, the famous expression by American environmentalist Aldo Leopold in 1949 is interpreted here as a desire to adopt an alternative, more distanced perspective on our societies and humanity to rethink our environmental sensitivity.
Sonia Boyce, Benevolence, 2024. Installation View – GAMeC / Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, 2024 Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri.Courtesy GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo © Sonia Boyce by SIAE 2024
Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives – Chapter 4: Gustav Metzger – All of Us Together
Gustav Metzger
Luma Foundation, Arles, France (30/06/2024 → 30/03/2025)
Drawing on a two-decade friendship between Metzger and Obrist, the exhibition offers an immersion into the unpublished archives of this iconic environmental activist artist.
Climate Change
Josh Kline
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (23/06/2024 → 05/01/2025)
The exhibition gathers the major works of Josh Kline’s epic saga on the climate crisis, exploring the ramifications of human inaction in the face of global warming.
I Feel the Earth Whisper
Bianca Bondi, Julian Charrière, Sam Falls et Ernesto Neto
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden, Germany (15/06/2024 → 03/11/2024)
Curated by Patricia Kamp and Jérôme Sans, the exhibition invites us to perceive humanity as a guardian of nature for new benevolent relationships with the Earth.
Bianca Bondi, Salt kisses my lichens away, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Mor Charpentier © Bianca Bondi. Photo credit : N. Kazako
Becoming Earth
Ursula Biemann
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (20/04/2024 → 13/10/2024)
The emblematic Swiss artist crosses the Atlantic to rethink the epistemic roots of our relationship with the Earth through her research on forests, the ocean, oil, and extractive projects, telling the reality of a changing planet.
Survival Piece #5: Portable Orchard
The Harrisons
Whitney Museum, New York (29/06/2024 → 01/01/2025)
The Whitney extends its curatorial commitment to ecology by showcasing the visionary and pioneering work of the Harrisons, focusing on alternative and ecological food systems.
Heat Waves
Chrisél Attwell
Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa (08/06/2024 → 21/07/2024)
Chrisél Attwell’s work has always been connected to the natural world, an artistic universe where the land functions as a source of inspiration, a resource, and an exhibition space.
Patricia Piccinini : Care
Patricia Piccinini
Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta, Indonesia (23/05/2024 → 06/10/2024)
The exhibition explores universal themes of connection and intimacy. Visitors are invited to engage with the hybridity of imaginary life forms, reflecting on the critical situation of endangered species in Indonesia.
Installation view of Shoeform (Bloom) (2019), Prone (2011), and The Coup (2012) in ‘Patricia Piccinini: CARE’. Courtesy of the artist and Ames Yavuz, Singapore. Image courtesy of Museum MACAN.
Tabitha Wa Thuku : Seasons within a season
Tabitha Wa Thuku
Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya (19/06/2024 → 20/07/2024)
Born into a family of small coffee producers, Wa Thuku traces her personal journey through the language of seasons, creating vivid visual anchors that intertwine observation, memory, and imagination.
At the Edge of Land
Abbas Akhavan, Rouzbeh Akhbari, Jananne Al-Ani, Tarek Al Ghoussein, Iosu Aramburu, Au Sow Yee, Chihoi, Bady Dalloul, Aref El Rayess, Daniele Genadry, Ho Rui An, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, Lala Rukh, Hira Nabi, Fazal Rizvi, Sarker Protick, Sim Chi Yin, Joar Songcuya, You Khin, Zarina
Jameel Art Center, Dubaï (23/05/2024 → 29/09/2024)
This new collection, enriched by invited artists, explores the complex and often hidden relationships between landscapes and global trade, telling stories of conflict, erosion, and extraction.
Arrastar Chaos juntar imbigos
Josi
Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (25/05/2024 → 10/08/2024)
For her first solo exhibition, Brazilian artist Josi explores a tactile relationship with the earth and reveals a poetic link between the body and matter, inviting a more intimate appreciation of the earth’s resources.
Installation View, Josi, Arrastar Chaos juntar imbigos. Courtesy of Josi and Mendes Wood DM, Saõ Paulo
Alchemical gardening
Janet Laurence
Cassandra Bird, Sidney, Australia (04/07/2024 → 17/08/2024)
Alerting us to the fragility of ecosystems, Laurence alchemically transforms familiar natural forms—plants, minerals, and organic materials—into new artworks and sculptural installations.
Ideal Landscape
Yuichi Hirako
Nagi-cho Museum of Contemporary Art, Okayama, Japan (03/08/2024 → 08/09/2024)
The city of Okayama is paying tribute to this internationally renowned artist who hails from the city, with a major first solo exhibition that questions the ambiguity of the relationships between plants, nature, and humans.
Lin May Saeed, ASYL – The Liberation of Animals from their Cages VI, 2008/09 Photo: Wolfgang Günzel Courtesy: “Estate Lin May Saeed”, Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt/Main
The lives of animals
Noor Abuarafeh, Antonia Baehr (avec Dodo Heidenreich, Nanna Heidenreich, Mirjam Junker, Itamar Lerner, Catriona Shaw, Ida Wilde, Steffi Weismann), Yevgenia Belorusets, Pierre Bismuth, melanie bonajo, Elen Braga, Sue Coe, Simone Forti, Nicolás García Uriburu, Piero Gilardi, Golden Snail Opera Collective (Isabelle Carbonell, Joelle Chevrier, Yen-Ling Tsai, Anna Tsing), Rebecca Horn, Katarzyna Krakowiak, K.P. Krishnakumar, Luís Lázaro Matos, Laura Lima, Anne Marie Maes, Dafna Maimon, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Ad Minoliti, Jean Painlevé, Charlemagne Palestine, Panamarenko, Rosana Paulino, Janis Rafa, Lin May Saeed, Tomás Saraceno, Carolee Schneemann, Filip Van Dingenen, Aleksandra Waliszewska.
Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (Muhka), Antwerp, Belgium (03/08/2024 → 08/09/2024)
The participating artists critically examine attitudes of “human exceptionalism” stemming from the belief that animals do not understand the concept of death and lack the sense of anticipation.
Art of Change 21 editorial team
Special thanks to Claire Vannaxay
Cover : Tiffany Chung, stored in a jar: monsoon, drowning fish, color of water, and the floating world, 2010–11. Post Vidai. Courtesy of the artist and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Impact Art News, June-July 2024 #49
