Land of Lime

As I write this posting, the workers of Michael Aram Exports, who have been on strike for the past two months, have been on my mind because of the theme: objects of beauty and those who create them. Please visit Justice for Workers for further updates on the struggle.

Last week, I saw ‘Beyond Green: toward a Sustainable Art’, an exhibition at the Smart Museum, Chicago. Guided by the notion of a sustainable design (one that attempts to address the needs of the present without compromising those of future), the exhibition explored how such a design philosophy manifests in the work of 13 Euro-American artists, ‘who combine a fresh aesthetic sensibility with a constructively critical approach to the production, dessimination and display of art’. See the list at the end for details on the artists.

Both the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue emphatically state that the objective here is to move beyond green art and environmental concerns towards a more holistic and new aesthetic of sustainable art. Stephanie Smith, the curator of the exhibition, says in the catalogue:

“This exhibition focuses on only one strand of this art by presenting objects, structures, and processes/networks that use aspects of sustainable design to metaphoric, practical, speculative, ironic, and playful ends.“

Well, we don’t want to leave out anything, do we? In particular, the art presented in the exhibition has this dual commitment: to its ‘speculative and discursive function within the museum and also its application outside’. Thus, the exhibits here go beyond incorporating token environmental consciousness; artists exhibited here seek to transition from mere engagement with land and recycling to serious engagement with social issues through production of aesthetic objects and discourses. Curated with such an brief, the range of the exhibits is quite impressive: (videos on) modified boats and mopeds; banners for urban intervention; producing compost from kitchen and yard waste; recycling paint; shelters for homeless; solar panels inside garments or bags to charge cell phones and MP3 players and so on.

Both Stephanie Smith and Victor Margolin (who wrote an introductory essay entitled ‘On Art and Sustainability’) are concerned with the cultural and aesthetic dimensions of sustainability and hence, particularly stress on the political and activist dimension of this art. Defining sustainability Margolin states:

‘My own definition of sustainability follows in principle the statement in Our Common Future that “the strategy for sustainable development aims to promote harmony among human beings and between humanity and nature.” However, I choose to put the Brundtland Commission’s connection between the social and the environ- mental into a sharper political focus by substituting the term “social justice” for “harmony among human beings” and “environmental justice” for harmony ”between humanity and nature.” Sustainability and the methods of achieving it are inherently political and, thus, contestable. Therefore, its definition should emphasize the need for struggle to achieve sustainable goals.’

The emphasis on ‘justice’ seems to be somewhat of an overkill and in fact, I believe ‘harmony’ is a much more civilizationally grounded value due to its holistic approach in incorporating non-human living beings as well. I also do not understand why achieving harmony among all living beings isn’t a political end, even though, I grant, it is difficult to take out a protest march in favor of harmony, while justice and struggle go hand in hand. What this illustrates for me is a much bigger problem: even as we remain sympathetic to the struggle that Margolin proposes and also towards the exhibits on display (in particular their critical and constructive role in proposing alternatives), yet, the direction of journey is from aesthetics towards life and not the other way around.

What are the consequences? Let us focus on one of the highlights of the exhibition – paraSITE, by Michael Rakowitz (check out his neat, minimalist website), which is proposed as a temporary shelter for urban homeless and is illustrative of the approach adopted here. paraSITE proposes to use the exterior ventilation systems of large urban buildings and apartment complexes. Rakowitz collaborated with homeless and built seven prototypes in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1998, using plastic bags and tape, readily available on the streets. These shelters are inflated with the waste heat vented from buildings, and when deflated could be carried in a light carrying case. Sure, the shelters were functional and used as temporary shelters especially during winter months but they were meant to be powerful statements of dissent, and a refusal to surrender. The artist, curator, art critic and the user are all clear that this shelter is not an alternative proposal for affordable housing; rather, it is a symbolic statement on survival within the city.

It seems to me that paraSITE makes the critique itself the focus, and while I wouldn’t want to belittle the value of such critique, I do want to express my skepticism about its force and effectiveness. Do discourses on sustainable art appear to lose focus in such exercises? How about a reversal of approach? If we choose to move from life towards aesthetics, what kind of objects would we create or indeed, find amidst us?

As I watched the exhibits and thought about the thinking behind these creations, I was reminded of Anand Coomaraswamy, the great Sri Lanka born art historian and curator. Trained in England as a geologist in the 1890s, Coomaraswamy developed an interest in art, influenced by the writings of William Morris and John Ruskin. When he returned to Sri Lanka and traveled allover as part of his professional life, Coomaraswamy also came across objects of everyday use in rural Sri Lanka and India, in the huts of farmers and artisans. In a series of essays published under the title ‘Art and Swadeshi’, Coomaraswamy wrote about the beauty of everyday objects, found in the huts of poorest craftsmen and farmers. Unlike Gandhi, who is often oblivious to aesthetics as a facet of everyday life, Coomaraswamy is not only the chronicler of the intrinsic excellence of everyday objects but also a theoretician of swadeshi as a religious, spiritual and artistic ideal. Swadeshi (self rule), to remind ourselves, is the political ideal of self sufficiency that Indian nationalists, primarily Gandhi, offered in their quest to overthrow colonial rule. Coomaraswamy demands that our art create an environment - indeed life - that is aesthetically and spiritually superior.

What is the thrust of the contrast that I am trying to propose here? While being appreciative of the art on display at the ‘Beyond Green’ exhibition, I still wonder about our predicament, wherein paraSITE is our most effective agitational device, to raise consciousness of urban dwellers about homelessness. Is paraSITE then also the metaphor for our limit to imagine new horizons, to go beyond a critique and embed our creative activities in a constructive manner? It seems to me that sustainable art has already been embedded civilizationally in large parts of non-modern, non-urban world, where the excesses of modern, urban living are absent and where a minimalist approach to life and harmonious relationship with nature had already been established, historically.

Urban modernity has disturbed that harmony in large parts of the world, without proposing sustainable alternatives. I do not want to lament on what we have lost but as a historian merely point out the obvious: most of our cities now require heating and airconditioning primarily due to the kind of structures we build and live in, whereas even hundred years ago an ordinary mason in a city like Delhi would have known how to regulate the circulation of heat. Today, though, if some folks possess HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) systems, then others will use paraSITES to continue their parasitic existence. What is the way out? As a paradigm, ‘Beyond Green’ didn’t hold out much promise.

Contributing artists and artists’ groups from the United States and Europe included Allora & Calzadilla; Free Soil; JAM; Learning Group; Brennan McGaffey in collaboration with Temporary Services; Nils Norman; People Powered; Dan Peterman; Marjetica Potrc; Michael Rakowitz; Frances Whitehead, WochenKlausur; and Andrea Zittel. The exhibition included existing works, commissions, and previously presented work that had been “recycled”.