“Use us! ”: at COP27, art and ecology come together, as elsewhere in the world, where actions by activists in major museums or performances by artists are multiplying to raise awareness of the climate emergency.
On the model of the punching operations carried out recently with mashed potatoes, glue or tomato sauce on master canvases by activists to alert public opinion, the Lebanese-Egyptian artist Bahia Chehab wanted to immerse the participants in COP27 in Egypt in the “hell” of global warming.
For her installation Heaven and Hell in the Anthropocene, she wanted to hijack the heating controls of the huge UN-run negotiations complex in Sharm el-Sheikh to raise the temperature during officials’ meetings.
Because, she says, a study recently showed that “people who are in a warmer place are more likely to believe in climate change”.
But due to strict security measures, this Cairo resident, who studied at the American University of Beirut (AUB), fell back on another concept, “heaven and hell”: an overheated room at 45°C, symbolizing damnation, and another air-conditioned, representing Eden.
“Artists can enrich the discussion, they are bridges,” she pleads.
A view of the “Heaven & Hell in the Anthropocene” installation, from Bahia Chehab to Sharm el-Sheikh. photo Mohammad Abed/AFP
Soundboard
Artists can help humanity adapt to climate change, abounds Marguerite Courtel, expert on the environmental transition of the cultural sector.
“The artists have a message to carry on the transition, on the question of the imaginations and the stories that will accompany it”, she says.
Already, Chehab seems to have made at least one convert. “A young girl came out of ‘hell’ saying, ‘I’m never going to throw trash on the floor once more,'” she says.
“For me, the aesthetic counts less than the questions asked” by a work, she continues.
On Tuesday in Vienna, in a new shock action, environmental activists doused the famous Death and Life painting by Austrian Gustav Klimt with a black liquid.
In recent weeks, other activists have stuck their hands on a Goya painting in Madrid or the famous Campbell’s Soup silkscreen print by Andy Warhol on display in Australia, tossed tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London and smeared mashed potatoes on a Claude Monet masterpiece in Potsdam, near Berlin.
While the paintings remained unscathed, the Sunflowers incident resulted in light damage to the frame of the canvas.
“It’s interesting because it shows that the museum is a sounding board for contemporary issues,” analyzes Ms. Courtel.
“Those who rebel once morest these actions should rebel once morest large groups like Total who continue to pollute,” she said.
Artist Shilo Shiv Suleman puts the finishing touches on his “Fearless” mural in the youth pavilion on the sidelines of COP27. Fayez Nureldine/AFP
Eco-responsible works
If climate activists have invited themselves to museums, art is inviting itself to COP27.
The Indian Shilo Shiv Suleman covered an entire wall of the complex in Sharm el-Sheikh with colors to send a message “to the leaders of the world who consider the planet as a product”.
With the Fearless Collective, she painted a large mural representing the jungle and animals to “remind us that we must return to the source: the mountains, the stars and the rivers, and a way of life in harmony with nature”.
The Egyptian Rehab el-Sadek, she set up a tent at COP27 in the middle of the Sinai desert, like those of the Bedouins of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Covered in ecological messages in English, Spanish and Arabic collected from indigenous populations, this “universal construction connects local people and visitors from all over the world”, she explains.
Because, adds Ms. Courtel, art should not only alert. He too must adopt short circuits and other techniques so as not to accelerate climate change.
Already, museums have distanced themselves from hydrocarbon companies, once great patrons.
But “one of the questions that arise is the eco-responsibility of works, are they eco-produced? adds Ms. Courtel, citing a sadly famous example.
In 2015, at COP21, artist Olafur Eliasson formed a huge “clock” symbolizing the urgency of the fight once morest global warming.
The problem ? Its lackluster carbon footprint because each hour was represented by twelve huge blocks of ice transported from Greenland to Paris in a refrigerated container, by boat and then by truck.
Sofiane ALSAAR/AFP
“Use us! ”: at COP27, art and ecology come together, as elsewhere in the world, where actions by activists in major museums or performances by artists are multiplying to raise awareness of the climate emergency. On the model of the punch operations carried out recently with mashed potatoes, glue or tomato sauce on master canvases by…
