Environmental sculpture
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Environmental sculpture is sculpture that creates or alters the environment for the viewer, as opposed to presenting itself figurally or monumentally before the viewer. A frequent trait of larger environmental sculptures is that one can actually enter or pass through the sculpture and be partially or completely surrounded by it. Also, in the same spirit, it may be designed to generate shadows or reflections, or to color the light in the surrounding area.


Sculpture as environment

Julia M. Bush emphasizes the nonfigurative aspect of such works: "Environmental sculpture is never made to work at exactly human scale, but is sufficiently larger or smaller than scale to avoid confusion with the human image in the eyes of the viewer." Ukrainian-born
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
sculptor
Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast ...
is a pioneer of environmental sculpture in this sense. Busch (p. 27) also places the sculptures of
Jane Frank Jane Schenthal Frank (born Jane Babette Schenthal) (July 25, 1918 – May 31, 1986) was an American multidisciplinary artist, known as a painter, sculptor, mixed media artist, illustrator, and textile artist. Her landscape-like, mixed-media ab ...
, as well as some works by Tony Smith and David Smith, in this category. Some environmental sculpture so encompasses the observer that it verges on architecture. George Segal,
Duane Hanson Duane Hanson (January 17, 1925 – January 6, 1996) was an American artist and sculptor born in Minnesota. He spent most of his career in South Florida. He was known for his life-sized realistic sculptures of people. He cast the works based o ...
,
Edward Kienholz Edward Ralph Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American installation artist and assemblage sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collab ...
,
Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...
,
Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and ...
, and
Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms ...
are well known practitioners of the genre, although Segal and Hanson's work is figural. Many figurative works of George Segal, for example, do qualify as environmental, in that—instead of being displayed on a pedestal as presentations to be gazed upon—they occupy and perturb the setting in which they are placed. A well known instance of this is the pair of Segal figures that sit on and stand next to one of the public benches in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
's Sheridan Square; anyone can sit amongst them. A less known but more appropriate example is
Athena Tacha Athena Tacha ( el, Αθηνά Τάχα; born in Larissa, Greece, 1936-), is a multimedia visual artist. She is best known for her work in the fields of environmental public sculpture and conceptual art. She also worked in a wide array of materials ...
's park ''Connections'' in downtown Philadelphia (between 18th St. and 19th St. two blocks north of Vine St.), created as a landscape art environment after her winning a competition in 1980 (where Segal was actually one of the finalists). It was the first park designed entirely by an artist "sculpting the land" with planted terraces, rock clusters and paths (completed in 1992).


Sculpture created for an environment

A second sense of the term "environmental sculpture", with a somewhat different emphasis, is sculpture ''created for'' a particular set of surroundings. Thus, contemporary sculptor Beth Galston writes: "An environmental sculptor plans a piece from the very beginning in relationship to its surroundings. The site is a catalyst, becoming part of the creative process." This is quite different from a Nevelson sculpture, which can usually be moved from place to place, like a conventional sculpture, without losing its meaning and effectiveness. By Galston's definition, an environmental sculpture is not merely
site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...
as many conventional, figurative, marble monuments were created for specific sites. Galston stresses that environmental sculpture entails the idea that the piece also functions to alter or permeate the existing environment or even to create a new environment in which the viewer is invited to participate: "The finished sculpture and site become one integrated unit, working together to create a unified mood or atmosphere," she writes. Many of the large, site-specific,
minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
sculptures of
Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...
also qualify as environmental sculpture, in both senses described here. Much of what is called " land art" or "
earth art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
" could also be termed environmental sculpture under this definition. Andrew Rogers and
Alan Sonfist Alan Sonfist is a New York City based American artist best known as a "pioneer" and a "trailblazer" of the Land or Earth Art movement. He first gained prominence for his " Time Landscape" found on the corner of West Houston Street and LaGuardia ...
(which see) are among notable current practitioners of land art. Since the mid-seventies, French artist
Jean-Max Albert Jean-Max Albert (born 1942) is a French painter, sculptor, writer, and musician. He has published theory, books on artists, and a collection of poems, plays and novels inspired by quantum physics. He perpetuated experiments initiated by Paul Klee ...
worked with trellis structures, deconstructing and re-arranging the elements of surrounding architecture or including the site into the sculptureBruno Suner,''Les sculptures de visées du Parc de La Villette'', Urbanisme no 215, 1986 with
Sculptures Bachelard ''Sculptures Bachelard'' is an ''In Situ'' work by French artist Jean-Max Albert installed in 1986 in the Parc de la Villette, Paris, France. It is named after the author of ''The Poetics of Space'', Gaston Bachelard Gaston Bachelard (; ; 27 ...
. Since 1983 German artist
Eberhard Bosslet Eberhard Bosslet (born 1953) is a German contemporary artist who has been producing site-specific art and architectural-related works, such as sculpture, installation, light art and painting, all indoors and outdoors, since 1979. Biography ...
makes interventions on ruins, so-called "Re/formations and side effects"; he refers to the conditions of industrial and residential buildings by white painted lines or black painted color fields. In 1999 the artist Elena Paroucheva created her concept for pylons, integrating energy networks with sculptures.http://www.art-elena.com/


Site-specific art and environmental art

The term "
site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...
" is sometimes used interchangeably with "
environmental art Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example ...
".
Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast ...
, for instance is a pioneer American environmental artist with sources disagreeing on classifying her work as "environmental sculpture". The terms "environment sculpture", "site-specific art", and "environmental art" have not yet completely stabilized in their meanings. A reason for blurred definitions is that much of site-specific and environmental art was created from 1970 on for public spaces all over the United States, sponsored by federal (GSA and NEA) or state and city
Percent for Art The term percent for art refers to a program, often a city ordinance, where a fee, usually some percentage of the project cost, is placed on large scale development projects in order to fund and install public art. The details of such programs va ...
competitions, and many of the artists were women trying to succeed outside the established art-gallery world. Younger art historians will have to sort out the development of this marginalized "movement" and the importance of artists such as
Olga Kisseleva ''Olga Kisseleva'' is a French artist. Olga Kisseleva works mainly in installation, science and media art. Her work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale art inst ...
,
Patricia Johanson Patricia Johanson (born September 8, 1940, New York City) is an American artist. Johanson is known for her large-scale art projects that create aesthetic and practical habitats for humans and wildlife. She designs her functional art projects, c ...
,
Athena Tacha Athena Tacha ( el, Αθηνά Τάχα; born in Larissa, Greece, 1936-), is a multimedia visual artist. She is best known for her work in the fields of environmental public sculpture and conceptual art. She also worked in a wide array of materials ...
, Mary Miss, Alice Adams,
Elyn Zimmerman Elyn Zimmerman (born 1945) is an American sculptor known for her emphasis on large scale, site specific projects and environmental art. Along with these works, Zimmerman has exhibited drawings and photographs since graduating with an MFA in painti ...
,
Merle Temkin Merle Temkin is a New York City-based painter, sculptor and installation artist, known for vibrant, abstracted paintings based on her own enlarged fingerprint, and earlier site-specific, mirrored installations of the 1980s. Her work has often in ...
and others who, from the early 1970s on, won and executed large outdoor public art commissions with new formal, kinesthetic and social underpinnings. Many of these artists were also ecologically conscious and created works that could offer a further definition of "environmental sculpture": art that is environmentally friendly and cares for the natural environment.


See also


Topics

*
Earthworks (art) Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
*
Environmental art Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example ...
* Land art (Earth art) *Ocean art (under water art) *
Land Arts of the American West Land Arts of the American West is a studio-based field program that seeks to construct an expanded definition of land art through direct experience connecting the full range of human interventions in the landscape—from pre-contact indigenous to ...
* Natural landscape *
Site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...
*
Rock balancing Rock balancing (also stone balancing, or stacking) is a form of recreation or expression in which rocks are balanced on top of one another, often in a precarious manner. Conservationists and park services have expressed concerns that the arran ...
*
Sustainable art Sustainable art is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wide ...


Institutions

*
Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumb ...
* Greenmuseum.org


Projects

*
Roden Crater Roden Crater is a cinder cone type of volcanic cone from an extinct volcano, with a remaining interior volcanic crater. It is located approximately 50 miles northeast of the city of Flagstaff in northern Arizona, United States. Art project A ...
* Tørskind Gravel Pit
Zoe Coral


References


Sources

*Busch, Julia M

(The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia
Associated University Presses
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, 1974) *Wilson, Laurie
''Louise Nevelson : iconography and sources''
(
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
: Garland Pub., 1981) * Uyehara, Seian
''Environmental sculpture''
(
Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
, 1971) OCLC 16327465 *Sonfist, Alan; Wolfgang Becker; Robert Rosenblum
''Nature, the end of art : environmental landscapes''
(New York : D.A.P. ; London : Thames & Hudson, 2004) ;


External links


Urban Art ProjectsBritannica online definition of environmental sculptureAnswers.com pages on Louise Nevelson
including short summary by Laurie Wilson
Environmental sculpture as defined by working contemporary sculptor Beth Galston
(calling her "a pioneer creator of environmental sculpture")
Alan Sonfist Official Web PageOlga Kisseleva Official Web Page
1993 landmark environmental artwork by artist Fran Ferguson
Andrew Rogers WebsiteJacek Tylicki Land & Environmental Art projectsZoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
A living contemporary art installation and coral restoration project in Cozumel, Mexico {{Branches of the visual arts Environmental art Visual arts genres Contemporary art Modern art Landscape design history Types of sculpture