It’s a rare time when mainstream artists engage with global political issues, keeping intact their ability to produce an experience as part of their art work. It’s not unknown, just rare — the challenge is to embrace the senses of others in your work.
In the last few months, a sculptor and a photographer have both engaged with the idea of oil — our economic lifeline — fast running out. They’ve also used old media in new ways to bring in new kinds of art audiences.
Ellen Driscoll’s fragile, gossamer sculpture and Edward Burtynsky’s large format coloured photographs, both interrogate the idea of oil as a reliable resource. Each of them have been able to use popular media and materials to draw in viewers.
Driscoll’s work in “FastforwardFossil :2” comprises hundreds of carefully cut and assembled pieces, all from white plastic milk containers. The assemblage is like a global map — from the Nigerian oil fields, across Saudi Arabia and from there to North America, organised somewhat like a waxy, milky, honeycomb. The impact is mesmerising, because the underlying narrative is about oil — dark, oily, mucky. Everything is rendered even more complex because Driscoll introduces a temporal dimension — an eighteenth century water mill, for example. It stands, modelled out of plastic — a petrochemical product that usually sullies water and renders it unfit to use. These contradictions bounce off each other constantly in Driscoll’s work, building up to an eddy of tension that she let’s be. Resolving it — or not — is part of the experience.
Burtynsky, on the other hand, has always been an in-your-face photographer. Remember “Manufactured Landscapes”? Where China seemed almost festive in its toxics? In his work on oil, he uses the same sense of scale to shock. As he said at a recent TED conference, his works drive at how we use the landscape. Like Driscoll, his work is not about the geeky oil extraction alone — it follows the stuff right up to the guzzling consumer in a series of startling moments of self discovery. As in many of his works, his landscapes mesmerise at first, because they are large, colourful and so distant from us, they seem almost exotic. Some aspects of the oil show is exactly that. However, in this range of works, Burtynsky brilliantly transforms quotidian landscapes — a busy street, the annoying golden double arch of a fast-food chain — from just scenes of city life to the out-of-control-end-game. “We celebrate cars,” he suggests, ironically.
Both artists draw my attention to something more — how they show their work. Driscoll showed hers in a cool Brooklyn gallery, the Smack Mellon Gallery. She showed in right during the DUMBO art festival, when scores of New Yorkers get to the area under the Manhattan bridge and simply stroll around looking at contemporary art. This year, as previously, the art was most engrossing, frequently cutting edge and exciting. And, of course, it was mostly in the public space. This ensured that Driscoll’s work was visited by all sorts of viewers, not merely regular gallery goers. Driscoll’s work, simply put, quite easily extends itself beyond just the gallery.
Burtynsky was on the TED site, speaking about his new work. That apart, he was on the Internet through Facebook and a host of other sites too. I was able to see Driscoll’s show but not Burtynsky’s in Washington DC (it had not even opened then). But I know his work because, at least, some of it is online too. And this brings us to the most important issue; regardless of how they show, do artists like Ellen and Burtynsky — addressing large global dilemmas — have to also find a “public space” for themselves?
I think the answer is, certainly, yes. For their work to be successful, they must stake their claim in other media. It just isn’t enough to show works of this scope through this process in galleries any more. It has to be seen, discussed and known beyond conventional boundaries. Regardless of markets and museums, the unknown online audiences, curious onlookers and random viewers are becoming a part of the art non-market.