My research so far.....

Suzi Gablik’s The Reenchantment of Art, first published in 1991, and a follow-up to her seminal Has Modernism Failed? (in which she laid a scathing attack on the contemporary art scene), proffers a new direction for the arts, where a renewed sense of community is intrinsic, where a deeper sense of moral obligation is felt by artists, in contrast to the autonomy and isolation of the avant-garde artist, and which leads to the production of more meaningful work. Gablik suggests that at the time, the art world was coming to the end of a dominant patriarchal and Cartesian cultural paradigm, and that feminine principles of harmonious social interaction, with a greater awareness of ones place in the world, and understanding and appreciation of nature, would emerge. This is echoed by John Lane in The Living Tree: Art and the Sacred (1998), who writes that the hypermasculanized artistic canon ‘will be abandoned in favour of more participatory, communal forms, emphasising celebration, and the sacral mystery.’(p.34) For both Gablik and Lane, a human sense of interconnectedness, both with the earth, and with each other, is key, and works which harness ritual, myth and the spiritual are modes of restoring this sense of balance. Gablik sites the work of many artists, including Fern Schaffer, Rachel Rosenthal and Andy Goldsworthy, who all created, and are still creating works that deal largely with ecological themes, where a sense of place and the order of things is central. Some are cynical comments on human destruction of the planet, some use natural materials and forms to incite contemplation of the beauty of nature, and others use shamanist ritual to rediscover a basic sense of spiritual existence. There are plenty of examples of this “ecological art”, but Gablik is uncertain of the ability of the art world to achieve the cultural shift that she acknowledges as necessary.

So how much has changed since 1991? Have artists managed to reinsert the soul in to the arts? If so, how are artists reconciling this more socially aware work with the needs of the commercial art market?
In 2005, the artist David Buckland wrote of the work produced by fellow members of Cape Farewell, a project that has taken artists, writers, film makers and choreographers on several expeditions on board a ship to the arctic, that “we intend to communicate through art works our understanding of the changing climate on a human scale, so that our individual lives can have meaning in what is a global problem." In a project which involves many well-known names, such as Antony Gormley, Siobhan Davies, Ian McEwan and Rachel Whiteread, work inspired by the wide open spaces of the arctic, has been extensively exhibited recently at both the Liverpool Biennial and the Natural History Museum in London.
In 1998, the artistic duo, Christo and Jean-Claude carried out a project entitled Wrapped Trees, in which they veiled 178 trees just north of Basel with 55,000 square metres of silver-grey material. The couple maintain that their work contains no deeper meaning other than to simply make the landscape more beautiful, or to draw attention to an existing beauty, and in this work, the original character of the individual trees was maintained as the natural shape of the branches formed the shape of the material against the sky.
Jacky Lansley’s ‘View from the Shore’, a dance piece, which is soon to be shown at the Clore Studio in the Royal Opera House, aims to translate the human experience of the Cornish coastal experience in to the theatrical space. I am particularly interested in the bringing in of the outside, natural world, to the theatre or performance space. There is something magical about repositioning trees on to the stage for example, immediately imbuing the space with mythical, fairytale, or religious connotations.

I am anxious that this does not become a piece about land art however, for not only has land art been extensively investigated in the last four decades, but also I am interested more in the spiritual and ritualistic aspects of contemporary art (which can indeed be found in much “land” art), rather than the specific use of landscape. Instead, it is the marriage of natural forms and religious or spiritual language resulting in a moving and personal experience which grasps me. For this reason, the symbol of the tree has become something of a talisman in my research as it embodies a myriad of natural, mythical and religious references. As John Lane writes, ‘I have dreamed the Living Tree, an amalgam of life and the sacred.’ (p. xi)
Olafur Eliasson is an example of an artist deploying the landscape to generate quasi-religious experiences. Eliasson has been described as a modern day Caspar David Friedrich (a late eighteenth/early nineteenth century romantic artist who cast the German landscape in the role of the Christian altar), deploying a new kind of “techno-romanticism” which explores human perception of the world through the union between nature, art and technology. In Eliasson’s 2004 work ‘The Weather Project’ for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, a huge sun made up of hundreds of tiny lamps was seen permanently rising through the mist, and this, combined with a mirrored ceiling, created the powerful effect on the viewer that the artist describes as ‘seeing yourself sensing’.

In conclusion, although I am certain of the topic matter, I am not fixed upon the specific question I wish to answer. Perhaps it is a response to Gablik’s book, by investigating whether artists have achieved the “Reenchantment Project”? Is it enough however, to simply be describing the work of artists who harness the spiritual in their creativity? Alternatively, maybe this piece could be a response to the critical studies lectures, looking at issues of autonomy and social engagement specifically through artists that deploy an ecological subject matter thus making a comment on the troubled state of our environment, and therefore being socially engaged?



Performing Nature: Annotated Bibliography

Caughey, Liz, Virginia King: Sculptor, (Auckland: David Bateman, 2005).
- A monograph on the New Zealand sculptor Virginia King who largely uses natural forms and materials, to create works often inspired by spiritual source material - ‘a visual presentation of innovative sculptural works that carry echoes of history, the natural environment and mythology.’

Calvino, Italo, Invisible Cities, (London: Vintage, 1997).
- Gablik refers to Calvino’s book which makes something beautiful out of the tension between the imaginary and the real. A potential source for performance.

Elkins, James. On the strange place of religion in contemporary art (London: Routledge, 2004).
- Since the renaissance, the artist himself became the primary topic in art and art historians have since distanced themselves from the idea of spirituality. Elkins argues that modern spirituality and contemporary art rarely work successfully together, but at the same time God is unavoidably still part of the language of art.

Gablik, Suzi, The Reenchantment of Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991).
- Gablik argues for a new direction in art which embraces an enhanced sense of community, an enlarged ecological perspective, and access to mythic and archetypal sources of spiritual life, set against the autonomous, individualistic character of much modern art. Gablik’s book is engaging and positive in its hopefulness, but does not offer any answers

Goldsworthy, Andy, Time, (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000).

Lane, John, The Living Tree: Art and the Sacred (Hartland: Green Books, 1998).
- John Lane, echoing Suzi Gablik, looks forward to a time when more universal forms of creative participation, rooted in the spiritual, have replaced the glittering consumerism of the entertainment industry and the isolation of the avant-garde.

The South Bank Centre, London, The Tree of Life: New Images of an Ancient Symbol, exh. cat., 1989.
-This catalogue has proved useful in listing numerous biblical references to the tree as a symbol and how these have since been re-appropriated by art.

Watney, Simon, Anya Gallaccio (Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 2003).
- Anya Gallaccio’s work frequently employs the effects of time upon elements of the natural world, displaying it as a beautiful cyclical action. Several of her works including ‘Beat’ and ‘Because I Could Not Stop’, are imbued with Edenic imagery using the tree or multiple trees as the primary focus.
Wilson, Robert, Wilson, Robert: 14 Stations (Munich: Prestel, 2000).
- In Wilson’s ‘14 Stations’ (2000), the artist reinvests the fourteen stations of the cross (the fourteen moments in time, the Via Crucis, that describe Jesus’ journey from condemnation to crucifixion), with new meaning. Wilson writes - “My work is an environment, an installation that brings together elements of architecture, theatre, sculpture, art, music and language. In a certain sense, it is a mental landscape. Call it an encounter of different cultural traditions…in which I have tried to invent my own language. It is like a mysterious journey that one experiences. If you don’t know anything about Christianity, it’s OK, but if you know something about it, you’ll see it in a different context.”

Wilson, Robert, and Trevor Fairbrother (ed), Robert Wilson's vision: an exhibition of works by Robert Wilson ; with a sound environment by Hans Peter Kuhn (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1991).




Performing Nature - Intended Bibliography


Abram, David, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World (London: Vintage, 1997).

Aston, Elaine, and George Savona, Theatre as sign-system: a semiotics of text and performance (London: Routledge, 1991)

Bachelard, Guy, The Poetics of Space (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).

Bronislaw, Szerszynski, Wallace Heim and Claire Waterton (eds) Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).

Buckland, David (ed.) Burning Ice: Art and Climate Change (London: Cape Farewell, 2006).

Crouch, David, The Art of Allotments, (London: Five Leaves Publications, 2001).

Gablik, Suzi, Has Modernism Failed? ( New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984).

Heathfield, Adrian (ed.), Live: Art and Performance (London: Tate, 2004).

Kastner, Jeffrey, Land and Environmental Art: Themes and Movements (London: Phaidon, 1998).

May, Susan (ed.) The Weather Project: Olafur Eliasson (London: Tate, exh. cat., 2003).
- The Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson is the fourth artist to take on the challenge of the cavernous space of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Eliasson has built an international reputation from the installations and sculptural works he creates that engage, amaze and disorientate the viewer. His work explores human perception of the world and the boundaries between nature, art and technology. His works have used light, wind, steam, fire water and ice, combining these elemental materials with modern technology in unexpected ways.
Murphy, G. Ronald, Owl, the raven and the dove: The religious meaning of the Grimms' magic fairy tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Ranciere, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible (New York: Continuum, 2004).

Sessions, George, Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (U.S.: Shambhala Publications, 1995).
-Discusses the fundamental relationship between human beings and nature, and suggests an ethical and philosophical foundation for environmental protection in the next hundred years.

Tufnell, Ben, Land Art (London: Tate, 2006).