10 february 2023, Marélise Pollard
5 x Sustainable Art at Art Rotterdam
In the search for a more sustainable world, art plays a very important role. But how can you contribute to sustainability in art as a collector? It is precisely as a collector that you can discuss certain social issues. The works in your art collection effectively say something about your identity and the subjects you deem important. As an art buyer, what elements can you consider when it comes to offering a stage for sustainability? Where do you start and how do you make an informed decision?
There are several, and often related, definitions of 'sustainable' art. Think, for example, of art made with sustainable materials and methods, or art that stimulates the conversation about sustainability. By creating sustainable art, artists hope not only to change the way art is made, but also to inspire social and cultural change. Whereas sustainability as a concept is more self-explanatory, material sustainability is often much less recognizable. Especially if an artwork does not immediately present itself as Land Art or Bio Art. Material sustainability depends on many different factors: the quality of the material, how it is extracted and how it is applied. Working conditions, human rights, production lines, emissions, energy consumption, waste and transport are also of great importance. When choosing sustainable materials, you often face dilemmas too. Materials such as gold, marble and hard plastics are often very harmful to the environment while at the same time they last longer and are more resistant in comparison to, for example, organic pigments, wood and linen, materials that are less harmful. In short, it is difficult to balance all these different factors. In addition, the accusation of hypocrisy often lurks, which can make artists and collectors reluctant to promote sustainability.
However, the quest for sustainability is more important than the fear of criticism. It is about good, not perfect: about smart choices, doing what you can and what suits you. Start a conversation with the gallery and artist about their view on sustainability. By gaining more knowledge about materials and techniques, you are more capable to make considered decisions. In this article, we already give a head start of 5 works at Art Rotterdam with a focus on sustainable material choices.
Elias Sime, TIGHTROPE: Behind the Processor #3, 2022, GRIMM. Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM Amsterdam | New York | London - Photo credit: Jonathan de Waart
Elias Sime - GRIMM
Many artists at Art Rotterdam are concerned with the recycling and upcycling of materials. For instance, Joana Schneider uses yarn made from recycled plastic bottles (Rademakers Gallery), Jelle Spruyt processes everyday objects (Mieke van Schaik), artist duo V&B make their work with leftover plaster (Heesjsteck#) and NN-award winner Monali Meher reshapes glassware from her family's café. Artist Elias Sime incorporates recycled consumer electronics into his large-scale reliefs. He uses braiding and layering techniques to create huge mosaics from keyboards, circuits, wires, and all sorts of electronic waste imported into his home country of Ethiopia. These materials come from Africa's largest open-air market in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Sime's process is motivated by a desire to reclaim and re-examine our relationship to our environment. Sime's works serve as records of the global exchange of resources and the conceptual transformations of matter from raw material to machine, waste and ultimately as art. Sime's use of colour, patterns and grids often refers to landscapes seen from a plane or satellite. Sime's research into ancient Ethiopian woodcarving, weaving and construction rituals connect to a long lineage of oral history and indigenous techniques with contemporary mass-produced objects.
Mika Horie, White Heron in the Reeds, 2022, Bildhale
Mika Horie - Bildhalle
Mika Horie is a Japanese photographer dedicated to creating cyanotypes on homemade paper. Trees, water, and light are the main elements Horie uses to create her artworks. Horie's photo production is sustainable, from the laborious in-house paper production to the printing of the images. Since 2013, she has lived and worked in a Meiji-era farmhouse in the mountains. After the snow melts in spring, Horie goes into the mountains to collect gampi branches. Horie processes the gampi fibres entirely by hand into delicate-looking but sturdy paper. After photographing her natural surroundings, Horie treats her paper with iron ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, places the negatives directly on the paper and lets the sun expose them to cyan and deep indigo tones. She then washes the paper with spring water to fix the image and lets the artwork dry in the wind. If Horie rejects a print, she can return it to the natural environment from which she harvested the material components of the work.
Charlotte Caspers, Green Slate, 2023, BorzoGallery
Charlotte Caspers - BorzoGallery
Charlotte Caspers is trained as an art historian and paintings restorer, specialized in historical painting materials and techniques. Both in her daily life and in her art practice, sustainability plays an important role. In her solo exhibition Grey Earth, she zooms in on the natural world around us and the landscape that a painting carries within itself. Caspers paints with meticulously selected earth pigments from Iceland, France, and Belgium. The paint is water-based, tempera-bound and applied on oak and lime wood that has been harvested locally as much as possible. The monochrome image gives space to the intrinsic story of the materials. Nothing in her art is accidental, everything is thought out meticulously.
Anne Geene, Euspira nitida, 2023, Galerie Caroline O'Breen
Anne Geene - Caroline O’Breen
A great example of using natural materials with little intervention can be seen in Anne Geene's work. Geene captures the hidden beauty of plants and animals. Using photography, Geene explores, collects, and arranges the world around her. She looks for visual similarities, patterns, and phenomena. Ultimately, her findings are analysed and catalogued according to an apparent logic. Her interpretation of the data is strictly personal and refers to our need to regulate and understand the world around us. Geene examines the human urge to collect and notions of possession, completeness, selection, and desire. In her work Euspira nitida, 2023, she shows a collection of shells with holes in them. These holes are the work of the nipple-horned snail, which drills a passage with its tongue to eat the mollusc. Geene found the washed-up shells at the Hoek van Holland and carefully sorted and nailed them in Caroline O'Breen's booth.
Natacha Mankowski, Valerius Gallery
Natacha Mankowski - Valerius Gallery
At last, we discuss Natascha Mankofski's fascination with raw materials. Before focusing on her painting practice, Mankowski worked as an architect. Her background still resonates strongly in her current work characterized by an exuberant use of the impasto technique. To address the question of how humans inhabit space at the intersection of nature and culture, Natacha Mankowski has developed her own visual and compositional language. Her paintings are inspired by the plans of the quarries she visited during her years as an architect. Mankowski has a keen interest in locations such as quarries, where architects and builders get their raw materials. Midway between nature and the built environment, quarries are transitional areas where natural resources are excavated and converted into raw materials. These raw materials are used in buildings, but also in mobile phones, computers, and other modern technologies. The mines and quarries where these materials are found, raise difficult questions about how humans have turned nature into a place for commodification: a process that has brought us much technology, but has also led to ecological ruin and collapse. Inspired by these issues, Mankowski has explored and visited many of these quarries, paying close attention to their geographical layout and the specific selection of raw materials on site. She then uses samples of these raw materials to create the thick impasto paint that structures her work.
