What is Environmental Art?
According to Webster's, environmental art is: 1) the production of artistic works intended to enhance or become part of an urban or other outdoor environment. The production of works of art by manipulation of the natural landscape. 2) the production of works of art in the form of large installations or assemblages that surround the observer.
The term environmental art is used in two different contexts: it can be used generally to refer to art dealing with ecological issues and/or the natural, such as the formal, the political, the historical, or the social context.
Specific Forms of Environmental Art
Read more on the different types of environmental art by clicking here
According to Webster's, environmental art is: 1) the production of artistic works intended to enhance or become part of an urban or other outdoor environment. The production of works of art by manipulation of the natural landscape. 2) the production of works of art in the form of large installations or assemblages that surround the observer.
The term environmental art is used in two different contexts: it can be used generally to refer to art dealing with ecological issues and/or the natural, such as the formal, the political, the historical, or the social context.
Specific Forms of Environmental Art
- Environmental Bio-Art: Artworks incorporating living material, like plants or moss, for a restorative function, found in the works of artists like Jackie Brookner,
- Ephemeral Art: Art which is built to last only a short period of time. These artworks are often left to degrade in natural environmental conditions as in the work of Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Drury,
- Site-Specific Performance Art: Performances in which the artist physically connects with a particular environment with their body in a manner that is documented through film or photograph, including the Australian Jill Orr’s Bleeding Trees, 1980,
- Walking works: Practices in which the artist uses the act of walking through an environment as an artistic expression, through the work of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton,
- Environmental Installation or Sited-Sculpture: Installation of a sculpture into the landscape, which uses the environment as ‘site’ rather than material, Like the numerous works of Christo and Jean-Claude,
- Assemblage and Recycled Art: Works that utilise found objects (both natural and man-made) in their construction, for example Chris Drury’s Medicine Wheel of 1980,
- Non-sites and Complimentary Gallery Based Works: Material from a particular site used in a gallery-based artwork, forging a connection between the site and the artwork. This can also refers to artifacts exhibited in a gallery relating to a site-specific work, including photographs, maps and other materials, like the exhibited documents of the works of the Harrisons.
Read more on the different types of environmental art by clicking here