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Sinking in Your Anthroposphere

First and Last Name

IDS 3167: Contemporary Art as a Mirror

Date, 2020

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As humanity continues to make technological and capitalistic developments, questions

surface if societal advancements are worth the hindrance to the natural world. Dr. Michael

Renner discussed in the State of the World 2015 : Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability

that while sustainability and environmental conservation are widely talked about, taking action to

conserve is a rarer occasion. There has been exponential growth in scientific research, but the

environment's resources are still seen as expendable products.1 Anthroposphere refers to the

environment modified for human activity. Emily Brady in Aesthetics of the Natural Environment

discusses how humanity can/should culturally integrate in nature without one or the other

dominating in value and respect. Aesthetics of the environment differ from cultural art in that

nature is infinitely changing and is not confined to a frame or a gallery space. The more the

environment is explored, the more it can be appreciated.2 The exhibit, Sinking in Your

Anthroposphere, explores how the rise of human-made technology and structures damage the

environment around us. The exhibition will take place at The Wildlife Conservation Society's

Center for Global Conservation in New York City. Artists Mel Chin, Lynn Hershman Leeson,

Sam Lewitt, Minerva Cuevas, and An-my Lê utilize various artistic materials and techniques to

investigate how an advancing society creates tension in the depleting natural world.

Each of the exhibit's artists showcases relationship aspects between humans, technology,

and the natural world. Mel Chin treats his art as scientific exploration, using foliage to restore

impacted land, also known as green remediation. Lynn Hershman Leeson brings light on a

1 The Worldwatch Institute. State of the World 2015 : Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability, 4-17. Edited by Lisa Mastny. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=973861&site=eds- live&scope=site. 2 Emily Brady. "Culture, Art and Environment." Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, 55-67. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Accessed June 6, 2020. doi:10.3366 /j.ctvxcrg5h.7.

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different characteristic of the exhibit's message; she uses interactive video installation to expose

how technology inflicts violence on the self, the environment, and its incorporation into daily

lives. Sam Lewitt's work, an investigation on how technological, corporate systems communicate

and are used, is surrounded by a garden to further contrast systems of technology to

environmental ecosystems. Minerva Cuevas uses branded tomatoes to stare at corporate greed

that has terrorized indigenous groups and the land they resided on. Finally, An-My Lê's

photography witnesses how the military takes control of the world's peaceful landscape and

seascape. All of the work featured will help spread awareness on the environmental

consequences for current societal advancements. Sinking in Your Anthroposphere will reside in

The Wildlife Conservation Society's Center for Global Conservation. The exhibit's location goes

hand in hand with its plea for conservation. The building is located at the edge of The Bronx

Zoo, uses half the energy of a typical structure of the same size, and obtains the Gold level of

LEED Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). It is incorporated within

the surrounding natural topography, utilizes the natural light it faces and maintains a green roof

featuring microturbine plants that generate electricity to maintain the building’s temperature.3

The WCS’s Center for Global Conservation is a perfect example of how humanity can restore its

relationship with the environment it is actively destroying.

The first piece of the exhibit is Mel Chin's active Revival Field (1990-ongoing) replica.

Chin worked with agronomist Rufus L. Chaney to combine art and science, arraying

hyperaccumulators, or plants capable of drawing heavy metals out of the soil and then turning

3 “WCS Opens Center for Global Conservation”. WCS Newsroom. Wildlife Conservation Society, October 9, 2009. https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/6043/WCS-Opens-Center-for-Global- Conservation.aspx.

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them into usable, profitable ore.4 The circular garden is separated into four sections of growing

plants. The piece is an attempt of green remediation to cleanse the Pig's Eye Landfill in St. Paul,

Minnesota. The most compelling aspect of Chin's work is not his artistic expression, but how

Revival Field made a positive impact on science and the environment. In a conversation with

curator and editor Zoë Ryan, Chin details how by approaching the project as a work of art rather

than a scientific experiment, they could create the first replicated field test in America. Before

the piece, there was no prior evidence, other than laboratory tests, that the plants could clean

sites with contaminated heavy metal.5 The exhibit will feature a replica of Revival Field that

simulates the hyperaccumulators in action. Chin's work is the perfect example of how art can be

used not only to raise awareness of society's negative impact on natural ground, but also how to

reverse the damage.

The next piece in the exhibition is Lynn Hershman Leeson’s America’s Finest (1994-

1995). Leeson, a pioneer for intertwining innovative technology with art, explores humanity’s

simultaneous role as a violator and a victim in technological advancements. As society continues

to develop, it faces the consequences of its environmental and sociological damage. Art critic

Abigail Solomon-Godeau in The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman-Leeson describes the

installation piece as a rifle that the spectator uses to focus on an image of herself via the

periscopic sight and a mounted video camera. The viewer watches her image against a series of

still photographs that display graphic images like violence or warfare. Gunfire and other sound

effects are heard, making the piece a sensory explosion.6 The piece examines a violent

4 Zoë Ryan, Mel Chin. "A Conversation With Mel Chin". Log, no. 8 (2006): 60. Accessed June 6, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41765589. 5 Ibid., 62. 6 Meredith Tromble and Lynn Hershman, The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson : Secret Agents, Private I (Berekley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

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relationship between a photographer and her subject, even integrating the use of an M16 war gun

to drive the depiction of brutality. While Leeson is not directly concerned with environmental

impact, the alarming interactive nature of Leeson’s video art implies a concerning reality of the

abundance of technology.

The next artist on display is Sam Lewitt, with a new iteration of his installation piece

Less Light Warm Words (2016). The work was initially introduced at the Swiss Institute in New

York (an earlier version being More Heat than Light (2015) at the CCA Wattis Institute for

Contemporary Art in San Francisco), where draped circuits with attached sensors create a

vacuum of intense heat. ARTnews Senior Editor Alex Greenberger explained in his article “Short

Circuit: Sam Lewitt Turns Up the Heat at the Swiss Institute” how the circuits are meant to

regulate temperature but make the space sweltering when placed in a large vacuum container.

The circuits are etched with manufacturer phrases translated into images.7 Lewitt’s work often

explores how the exchange of information with capitalist structures, such as printmaking or

currency.8 Lewitt describes the system as “an ecological object” that fluctuates the temperature

after “register[ing] your presence in the space as a sort of environmental disturbance”.9 In

Sinking in Your Anthroposphere, a smaller version of Lewitt's room will be surrounded by a

garden to further Lewitt's exploration of the artificial ecology of technology. Spectators will have

the opportunity to walk through the garden into an enclosed room of Lewitt's circuits. Along

with hinting at the inhabitable systems of technology hidden within the United States' growing

7 Alex Greenberger. “Short Circuit: Sam Lewitt Turns Up the Heat at the Swiss Institute.” ARTnews. November 18, 2019. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/short-circuit-sam-lewitt-turns-up-the-heat-at-the-swiss-institute- 6497/. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid.

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capitalistic society, this piece also correlates to the exhibit's effort to recognize art stripped of

traditional creativity and yet rich in functionality.

Minerva Cuevas is also featured in the exhibit, and for a good reason. Cuevas, a

conceptual artist, based in Mexico City, has been recognized for her many efforts to support her

community and critique capitalist greed. Sinking in Your Anthroposphere features one of

Cuevas’s activist works, Del Montte (2003-ongoing). The piece was originally tied to the Del

Montte Campaign (2003-ongoing) collection, which was a response to the exploitation of natural

resources in Central and South America by corporate businesses.10 It consists of a billboard-sized

mirror and adjacent stacks of altered canned tomatoes. The altered logo reads "Pure Murder",

and the company Del Monte Foods is changed to Del Montte after a former president of

Guatemala, José Efraín Ríos Montt, who is known for asserting brutal dominance over

indigenous people.11 Cuevas concentrates on everyday items, such as a can of tomatoes, and

alters its presentation to indicate capitalism's colonial nature. The altered label blends into the

product on display, which parallels the secretive wrongdoings of capitalistic companies that hide

behind seemingly family-friendly brands. Cuevas brings a unique angle to this exhibit, depicting

a part of the natural world, tomatoes, to allude to the damaging effects of capitalism. Del Montte

raises awareness for a global issue and encourages the audience to consider indigenous

exploitation as a threat to the world's natural environment.

The last artist featured in Sinking in Your Anthroposphere is An-My Lê with her

photographic work, Offload, LCACs and Tank, California (2006) from her series Events Ashore.

While many of the other artists’ works in the exhibit are composed of physical installations, Lê’s

10 Noah Simblist. “Igniting the Archive.” Art in America, January 23, 2018. https://www.artnews.com/art-in- america/features/igniting-the-archive-63323/. 11 Ibid.

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piece is a single photograph. However, the scene depicted perfectly represents the awareness

Sinking in Your Anthroposphere is hoping to spread. Lê captures the US military working on an

otherwise empty shore. While Lê is interested in photographing several facets of war, Vietnam,

and the United States, this particular image encapsulates humanity's mark on the natural

landscape. During a conversation with Brian Sholis, when asked about her photography on

returning to Vietnam Lê remarked, "I think I was responding to the inextricable link between

labor and nature in this agrarian culture, the multiple histories embedded in the Vietnamese

landscape…I could see parts of the past or imagine the future without denying the present."12

While not displaying human acts of environmental destruction, such as deforestation or oil spills,

Lê questions the subtler moments when the viewer's presence slowly wreaks havoc on the land

one roams. The sea and the sand are bright, yet the colors are muted. The military machines and

the paths they created look dark and dirty. The contrast between nature and the military implies

the harmful effects the developing world has put on nature. As the military is often associated

with advancing technology and violent wreckage, Offload, LCACs and Tank, California is the

ultimate piece to reveal a moment when the exhibit's concerns were photographed. Lê explained,

“I love the openness of the land and worry about how we’ve built our lives upon it, how little we

maintain it, and how we assault it.”13 The piece will be placed against a bare, stark wall allowing

the audience to be drawn into its imagery and letting the work speak to the growing

environmental destruction society allows to occur.

12 Brian Sholis. “An-My Lê Seeks Complicated Beauty in Landscape Photography.” Art in America, March 3, 2020. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/an-my-le-interview-complicated-beauty-landscape- photography-1202679272/. 13 Ibid.

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The Sinking in Your Anthroposphere exhibit will feature the works of innovative,

thought-provoking artists Mel Chin, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sam Lewitt, Minerva Cuevas, and

An-my Lê and will be located at the inventive, admiral WCS’s Center for Global Conservation in

New York City. Both the exhibit and location provide grounds for a conversation on how a

population takes advantage of the natural world. Rather than focusing on one specific

environmental issue, each artist offers a new lens for reflecting on society's strained relationship

with nature and technology. Lynn Hershman Leeson's and Sam Lewitt's art questions the

acceptance of advancing, potentially weaponizing, technology culturally. Lewitt examines this

idea through technological inventions, while Leeson demonstrates the individual's threatening

role. Minerva Cuevas's piece focuses on capitalism's fault in overusing natural resources, and

subsequently, the indigenous people who lived on the land. An-My Lê exposes how the

military’s effect on the environment goes unnoticed. Mel Chin’s piece sends out encouragement

for the future of art, technology, and nature as his piece centers around the use of plants to clean

contaminated land. When these artists’ works are united, an urgent call to action is delivered. By

critiquing the negative implications of capitalistic technology or encouraging the restoration of

environmentally impacted land, Sinking in Your Anthroposphere opens the door to finding

solutions for humanity’s overbearing dominance of the environment.

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Bibliography

Brady, Emily. "Culture, Art and Environment." Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, 55-67. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Accessed June 6, 2020. doi:10.3366/j.ctvxcrg5h.7.

Dietz, Steve, Howard N. Fox, Jean Gagnon, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Robin Held, Lynn Hershman, David E. James, et al. The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson : Secret Agents, Private I, 132. Edited by Meredith Tromble. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db =nlebk&AN=295154&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Greenberger, Alex. “Short Circuit: Sam Lewitt Turns Up the Heat at the Swiss Institute.” ARTnews, November 18, 2019. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/short-circuit-sam- lewitt-turns-up-the-heat-at-the-swiss-institute-6497/. Ryan, Zoë, and Mel Chin. "A Conversation With Mel Chin". Log, no. 8 (2006): 60-62. Accessed June 6, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41765589.

Simblist, Noah. “Igniting the Archive.” Art in America, January 23, 2018. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/igniting-the-archive-63323/.

Sholis, Brian. “An-My Lê Seeks Complicated Beauty in Landscape Photography.” Art in America, March 3, 2020. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/an-my-le- interview-complicated-beauty-landscape-photography-1202679272/.

Tromble, Meredith, and Lynn Hershman. The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson : Secret Agents, Private I. Berekley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db =nlebk&AN=295154&site=eds-live&scope=site

The Worldwatch Institute. State of the World 2015 : Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability, 4-17. Edited by Lisa Mastny. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=973861&s ite=eds-live&scope=site.

“WCS Opens Center for Global Conservation”. WCS Newsroom. Wildlife Conservation Society, October 9, 2009. https://newsroom.wcs.org/News- Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/6043/WCS-Opens-Center-for-Global- Conservation.aspx.