Sights of Desire; Sites of Demise the Environment in the Works of Edward Burtynsky and Olafur Eliasson

Sights of Desire; Sites of Demise The Environment in the Works of Edward Burtynsky and Olafur Eliasson

Elysia H. French

A thesis submitted to the Department of Art

In conformity with the requirements for

The degree of Master of Arts

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

(November, 2011)

Abstract

This thesis argues that the environmental undertones of artists Edward Burtynsky’s and Olafur Eliasson’s work have clearly aligned them; however, the focus of my study is not an evaluation of the artists’ abilities to express environmental concerns, but rather an exploration of the effects of their representations on our understanding of the surrounding environment, and of the artists’ contributions toward a definition of Nature that now includes its own demise as a site of aesthetic pleasure.

This study focuses on Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls and on

Edward Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings photographs. Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings photographs, among them in particular, his well known Nickel Tailings No. 34, depict a barren grey and black landscape centered primarily around an intensely coloured red and orange river of molten metal. Eliasson’s recent New York City Waterfalls consists of four artist-constructed waterfalls, ranging from 90 to 120 feet tall, located within the waters of Lower Manhattan, Governs Island, and beneath the

Brooklyn Bridge.

In his monumental New York City Waterfalls, Eliasson has made an intervention into the landscape that effectively works to contaminate the established aesthetic upon which it is based. In his monumental photographs, in contrast, Burtynsky does the opposite; he aestheticizes the contaminated. Here I would add that both artists have carefully called upon the elemental in order to reference the idea of wilderness or a “pure” form of Nature. Reference to the elemental in Nature—to air, water, and fire— has allowed these artists to challenge

the viewer’s perception and experience of the nonhuman world. These manufactured landscapes are undeniably owned by humanity, yet is this the type of landscape we are comfortable to claim as our own?

iii

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Lynda Jessup for her encouragement, extensive knowledge and patient guidance, which has helped to guide me through this project. This thesis would not have been possible without Dr. Lynda Jessup’s continuous enthusiasm, honesty and thoughtful opinions. I would like the thank Dr.

Keri Cronin for introducing me to, and sparking my interest in, environmentalism and art history during my undergraduate degree. I would also like to thank my thesis committee Dr. Janice Helland, Dr. Clive Robertson, and Dr. Allison Goebel for all of their thoughtful questions, comments and constructive suggestions for future research.

My colleagues and professors at Queen’s University have provided me with endless support and encouragement. I would like to thank Alex, Michelle, Meg,

Brennan and Jeff (among others) for their friendship and advice, and for the many necessary coffee breaks. I would also like to thank Samantha, Kallie, Carolyn,

Leanne, and Beth for their encouragement from afar. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional love and support. In particular, my parents for their reassurance, advice and patience.

Meaghan, Josh and Graham for their enthusiasm, persistence, endless distractions, humour and understanding.

Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………...………………….....ii-iii

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………...iv

Table of Contents……………………………………………………..………………………………v

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………...... ………vi

Chapter 1

Introduction and Literature Review………………………………………………...1

Chapter 2

The Environment in the Works of Edward Burtynsky……………...... 17

Chapter 3

The Environment in the Works of Olafur Eliasson…………………………..38

Chapter 4

Conclusions: A Look at Olafur Eliasson’s Green River and Edward

Burtynsky’s Oil Spills……………………………………………………….…………....60

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………….....76

List of Figures

Figure 1:Edward Burtynsky, Ferrous Bushling No.17…………………………………….…....20

Figure 2: Jackson Pollock, One, Number 31………...... ……………………………………..…….....20

Figure 3: Edward Burtynsky, Dryland Farming #21……….……………………………...... 23

Figure 4: Jean Dubuffet, Typewriter III…………………….………...………………………………..24

Figure 5: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #30…………………..……………………...... 26

Figure 6: Charles Comfort, The Romance of Nickel………..……………………………………..28

Figure 7: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #31…………………...…………………………...31

Figure 8: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #34………………………………………...……...34

Figure 9: W.H. Bartlett, View Below Table Rock……………………………..……...……………..41

Figure 10: Olafur Eliasson, Reversed Waterfall………..…………………………………………..43

Figure 11: Olafur Eliasson, Detail of Reversed Waterfall…………………………...………….45

Figure 12: Olafur Eliasson, Reversed Waterfall………………………..…………………………..47

Figure 13: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: Brooklyn Bridge……..…………..48

Figure 14: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: Brooklyn Bridge………..………..51

Figure 15: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: night view...... 55

Figure 16: Michelle V. Agins, Trees at the River Café in Brooklyn.….....……..…………….56

Figure 17: Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project……………………………….....……………...58

Figure 18: Olafur Eliasson, Green River…………………………..………………………………..…63

Figure 19: Olafur Eliasson, Green River…………………………………………………..…………..66

Figure 20: Edward Burtynsky, Oil Spill #9…………………………………………………..……...67

Figure 21: Edward Burtynsky, Oil Spill #10……………………………..………………………….70

Chapter 1 Introduction and Literature Review

Landscape is a complex and ambiguous term. A landscape is what viewers perceive, select, mediate, and modify to fit their particular needs and desires. It is a cultural construct that has enabled us to form emotional attachments to the earth, while maintaining a sense of control over the perceived wild. Malcolm Andrews argues that landscape “is mediated land, land that has been aesthetically processed.”1 But, if that is the case, then how can we distinguish landscape from the land and from

Nature? I would like to argue that the time has come to redefine Nature, and to rethink its role in the creation of landscape. W.J.T. Mitchell comments that landscape is a verb. He urges his reader to “think of landscape, not as an object to be seen or a text to be read, but as a process by which social and subjective identities are formed.”2 This is important to note because scholarship now widely accepts the idea that the visual representation of a landscape is never neutral. In terms of landscape art, representation is now understood as a re-presentation of a particular environment. Marylin J. McKay explains that the “hyphenated spelling underscores the fact that any representation is both subsequent to an original and mediated through the particular circumstances of maker and viewer, such as ethnicity, gender, nationality, and social class.”3 This means that the land being portrayed is not only a version of an existing site in the nonhuman world but also a presentation of the site

1 Malcolm Andrews, Landscape and Western Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 7.

2 W.J.T. Mitchell, Landscape and Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) 1.

3 Marylin J. McKay, Picturing the Land: Narrating Territories in Canadian Landscape Art, 1500-1950 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2011) 3.

encoded with the artist’s intentions and the viewer’s experiences. The actual environment depicted provides the basis for the image, which is the product of the artist’s negotiation of the land.

This thesis examines the intersection of landscape, art, and environmentalism. It explores the environmental undertones of artists Edward

Burtynsky’s and Olafur Eliasson’s work, which has clearly aligned them; however, the focus of this study is not an evaluation of the artists’ abilities to express environmental concerns, but rather of the effects of their representations on our understanding of the surrounding environment, and of the artists’ contribution to a definition of Nature that includes its own demise as a site of aesthetic pleasure. This study is interested in how an environmental language can be used to re-present

Nature and landscape; again the hyphenated spelling here refers to the fact that representation is always mediated by particular circumstances. The relationship between artistic investment in landscape and environmental issues is not necessarily a new topic; however, the heavy emphasis on environmental issues in the present-day public forum has transformed the scholarly discourse surrounding the depiction of the land we inhabit.

Many scholars have written about the interconnectedness of landscape,

Nature, environmentalism and art. For the purposes of this thesis I have assembled a core group of texts that have been formative in the development of my understanding of that larger body of scholarship. To maintain a structured discussion, I have grouped the texts under the following themes: The Advancement of Environmentalism, Nature and Landscape Theory, Human Intervention into the

Land and, lastly, Landscape, the Environment and Art. All of the studies that I include are related to one another and can also be read in terms of each theme. It is important to note as well that this is not a comprehensive examination of the scholarship devoted to landscape, Nature, and environmentalism. There are many studies that compliment the core texts I present here, several of which are discussed later in this thesis. I entitled my first discussion “The Advancement of

Environmentalism” precisely because the readings included in it demonstrate the different directions in which environmental research has gone, as well as show the process of development in environmental scholarship generally. The readings included in “Nature and Landscape Theory” consider the scholarly discussions taking place in regard to our understanding of the terms landscape and Nature.

Complementary to this is the discussion I entitle “The Human Intervention into the

Land.” It deals with studies that demonstrate how the environment has been altered based on our understanding of the terms landscape and Nature. Lastly,

“Environmentalism and Art” is meant to provide an example of interdisciplinary environmental scholarship in its examination of the relationship of environmental studies to the visual arts.

The Advancement of Environmentalism

In my selection of formative studies, key is Richard Grove’s 1995 book, Green

Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of

Environmentalism 1600-1860. In this book Grove sets out to separate and define the terms conservation and environmentalism, while at the same time proving that

these are not new concepts. Grove convincingly argues that European colonists struggled with the task of conserving their new-found tropical lands, and that, even though their motives for conservation differ from contemporary understandings of the term, they were still attempting to exercise conservation practices. For example, he explains that colonists would encourage conservation in order to maintain prosperous trade, such as that in lumber; by sustaining the forests, economic production would in turn be sustainable. On the other hand, scientists acknowledged the consequences of over production and encouraged conservation to prevent deforestation, soil erosion, and disease, meaning that environmental conservation was a serious concern as early as the age of colonialism. In this way,

Grove argues that the underpinnings of contemporary environmental policies can be traced back to the early colonial period.

Although Grove examines historical events, he consistently references the contradictions and competition that existed between colonial expansion, in the form of industrial growth, and environmental conservation. He argues that the West’s focus on capital-intensive trade amongst people and the natural world existed at the earliest stages of European colonial expansion. He states that “it is clearly important, therefore, to try to understand current environmental concerns in the light of a much longer historical perspective of social responses to the impact of capital- intensive western and non-western economic forces.”4 In a profound way, he is able to associate colonialist environmental concerns with those of people today.

4 Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2.

Although the means of effecting it have changed, environmental degradation is still occurring in the name of progress. On the other hand, if there were environmental concerns, including those surrounding sustainability, as early as the seventeenth century, then why have we been unable to address such issues?

By placing environmentalism in historical context Grove is able to question the ability of contemporary societies to achieve environmental sustainability, which ultimately supports this study’s call for new definition of Nature. Rachel Carson’s

1962 work, Silent Spring, also provides support for the claim that the definition of

Nature should now include an awareness of its degradation. Carson’s study has been credited by many with having kick-started the environmental movement of the

1960s and 1970s. In Silent Spring, she argues against the use of uncontrolled, and often unregulated, use of harsh chemicals, pesticides and synthetic insecticides. She convincingly demonstrates how chemicals, such as DDT, used to deter and kill so- called “pests” can cause severe illness, even death, in human populations. She illustrates how toxins from these chemicals remain in the air, water, and plants with which they come into contact, demonstrating that these chemicals are easily spread through birds, fish, and other wildlife.

What is relevant for this thesis is Carson’s assertive identification of humanity with Nature. She states, “today we are concerned with a different kind of hazard that lurks in our environment—a hazard we ourselves have introduced into our world as our modern way of life has evolved.”5 In other words, the toxins that have been introduced into the environment in order to create greater yields have

5 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (New York: First Mariner Books, 1962; 2002), 187.

become hazardous not only to the nonhuman world, but also to humanity. Carson explains that “for the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals…they have been found in fish in remote lakes, in earthworms burrowing in soil, in the eggs of birds—and in man himself.”6 In this case “man” is now intrinsically understood as part of Nature and must suffer the same fate as the environment “he” has disturbed. This is necessary to keep in mind in discussion of the works of Burtynsky and Eliasson, for their landscapes make the viewer clearly aware of humanity’s intervention into the environment. They render it seemingly “obvious” that humanity has damaged a natural world once viewed as pristine and now must alter its definition of Nature to accommodate this realization.

In his 1989 publication, The End of Nature, Bill McKibben expanded on the arguments made by Carson in the Silent Spring in. In his study McKibben takes the fundamental concerns expressed by Carson, but expands them to include consideration of greenhouse gases, climate change, the breakdown of the ozone layer and acid rain. For McKibben, it is essential for humanity to reinterpret its understanding of and relationship with Nature. He argues this by emphasizing the idea that Nature is a social construct. It was once a product in the West of a Judeo-

Christian God—his “Garden of Eden”; now, McKibben asserts “we are no longer able to think of ourselves as a species tossed about by larger forces—now we are those larger forces…we’ve changed the places where we lived, the places where we grew

6 Carson, Silent Spring, 15-16.

our food, and even to some extent the wildernesses surrounding them.”7 In this regard, Nature can no longer be perceived as a “pristine” or idealized environment controlled by a spiritual force.

In the end, McKibben argues, Nature is humanity’s perception and therefore humanity can choose to maintain or destroy it. So, he anticipates the end of Nature, stating, however, “by the end of Nature, I do not mean the end of the world. The rain will still fall and the sun shine, though differently than before. I mean a certain set of human ideas about the world and our place in it…our sense of Nature as eternal and separate is washed away, and we will see all too clearly what we have done.”8

Nature and Landscape Theory

To the same degree that Richard Grove, Rachel Carson, and Bill McKibben have contributed to the advancement of environmental studies, W.J.T. Mitchell, William

Cronon, and Neil Evernden have contributed to the development of Nature and landscape theory. Mitchell’s 1994 essay, “Imperial Landscape,” has formed the foundation of this thesis’ discussions, interpretations, and understanding of landscape.9 In his essay Mitchell sets out to examine the ways in which landscape functions in the service of imperialism. For Mitchell, landscape studies should not focus on what landscape is or what it means, but rather on how it functions. This is important to note because, in terms of the landscapes of Burtynsky and Eliasson, the

7 Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1989;2006), xviii- xix.

8 McKibben, End of Nature, 7.

9 This essay can be found in Mitchell Landscape and Power, 5-34.

viewer must understand not only what the landscapes mean and what they do, but also how they do what they do. Mitchell convincingly argues that landscape is a verb, and it is therefore never neutral and always active. It is necessary to emphasize the significance of Mitchell’s argument that landscape is encoded with cultural meanings and values before it is reinterpreted and represented or, for the purpose of this thesis, re-presented. In this regard, landscape is contrived even before it is re-presented by an artist. Mitchell explores how landscape has commodity value, as well as spiritual value, and he is also able to examine the issue of ownership by suggesting that no one, and everyone, owns the land and has responsibility to it. “No one ‘owns’ this landscape in the sense of having clear, unquestionable title to it…” Mitchell argues, “but everyone ‘owns’ (or ought to own) this landscape in the sense that everyone must acknowledge or ‘own-up’ to some responsibility for it, some complicity in it.”10

Like Mitchell, William Cronon sets out to examine the changing relationship between humans and Nature, while exploring the idea that a more critical understanding of Nature may assist in society’s ability to protect and sustain the environment. Cronon’s 1996 essays, “In Search of Nature” and “The Trouble with

Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” are of particular relevance to this thesis.11 In these works, Cronon argues that if humans continue to separate themselves from Nature, or continue to believe they are of greater significance than

10 Mitchell, Landscape and Power, 29.

11 These essays can be found in William Cronon ed. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 23-56; 69-90. “In Search of Nature” is the introduction.

the nonhuman world, then environmental irresponsibility will continue. For Cronon, humanity needs to rethink and redefine wilderness. He claims that, historically, the perceived wild was romantic and spiritually uplifting, and was used to build nationalism while the tourist industry turned it into a spectacle; for Cronon, we have both domesticated and dehumanized the wilderness.

Cronon writes, “ideas of Nature never exist outside a cultural context, and the meanings we assign to Nature cannot help reflecting that context. The main reason this gets us into trouble is that Nature as essence, Nature as naive reality, wants us to see Nature as if it had no cultural context, as if it were everywhere and always the same.”12 He goes on to insist that all of these ironies surrounding Nature are evidence that we have in fact constructed the wilderness. This means we prioritize some aspects of Nature over others, and have intentionally left no place for humanity within this construction, which therefore works against solutions to current environmental problems. This essay is included among what I have termed my core readings because it challenges definitions of Nature and environmentalism by actively involving humans; not unlike the work of Burtynsky and Eliasson.

In addition to the work of Mitchell and Cronon, Neil Evernden has contributed greatly to the advancement of Nature and landscape theory. In his 1992 study, The Social Creation of Nature, Evernden argues that humanity is ultimately unable to agree upon a definition of Nature and will therefore be unable to sustain the nonhuman world. He does so by asserting, as do other scholars, that Nature is a social construction. In particular, Evernden argues that the environmental crisis

12 Cronon, Uncommon Ground, 35.

facing humanity is as much a social phenomenon as it is a physical one, meaning we must not only re-evaluate our treatment and understanding the physical environment but also our social practices. He explores and questions our practice of often looking to the natural world for a better understanding of our social state.

Evernden contemplates our different definitions of the terms Nature, environment, and pollution, but concludes, “in our everyday assumptions, Nature is regarded either as the embodiment of natural laws or as ‘self’—but either way, it is ours. It cannot be encountered as other, because in a sense it cannot be encountered at all: it is posited as something beyond the human world.”13 In this sense, society cannot continue to separate itself from Nature because doing so will not aid efforts to address pressing environmental concerns.

Evernden explores concepts such as alienation—humanity’s sense of removal from Nature—by suggesting that humanity often reduces Nature to an object distinct from itself. In an attempt to create new ways of thinking about humanity’s relationship with the environment, he suggests that social and physical environmental concerns are equal and should be treated as such. In doing so, he links the pollution of the physical environment to the social environment, and nonhuman Nature to human value systems. He is arguing that society is using

Nature as a tool, positing the existence of "natural laws" to enforce moral codes and normative behaviour.

13 Neil Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 121.

Human Intervention into the Land

Environmental and landscape scholarship has made it clear that humanity has a complex relationship with Nature. In the 2004 study, Reinventing Eden: The Fate of

Nature in Western Culture, historian Carolyn Merchant explores the new ways humanity relates to the land and material world through an examination of attempts to recover and adapt the original biblical story of the Garden of Eden. For Merchant, by studying the history of landscape we are provided with evidence in support of the formation of a new way to live with Nature. Merchant clearly argues that Nature is a subject and not an object, and therefore calls for a new relationship between

Nature and humanity, one that is an equal partnership and that supplants the existing hierarchical relationship in which humanity is dominant. Merchant states,

“a partnership ethic would bring humans and nonhuman nature into a dynamically balanced, more nearly equal relationship with each other. Humans, as the bearers of ethics, would acknowledge nonhuman nature as an autonomous actor which cannot be predicted or controlled except in very limited domains.”14 She argues that it is important for humanity to recognize its ability to destroy the nonhuman world, and exercise a form of restraint in order to maintain a balanced partnership.

Merchant discusses how the Eden myth is often linked to the reclaiming of pristine and untouched land; as a result, she explains, recovery narratives describe both a process in which humanity can control and claim the earth or one in which the earth is a victim of exploitation but will later benefit from its restoration. For

14 Carolyn Merchant, Reinventing Nature: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004), 226.

Merchant, these narratives create an ethic that determines the way in which humanity acts toward Nature; it is not a partnership, and yet only through partnership can we enhance our quality of life without sacrificing the environment.

To expand upon Merchant’s idea of a partnership ethic, it is important that I include in this discussion David Louter’s 2006 book, Windshield Wilderness: Cars,

Roads, and Nature in Washington’s National Parks. In this study, Louter considers

Washington’s National Parks in order to examine the relationship between human progress, in this instance the technological advancement of the automobile, and the wilderness. Louter explores the complex systems, laws, and values involved in the creation and maintenance of National Parks. He explains how people’s desire to experience “wild” Nature prompted the development both of National Parks, followed by roadways to enable people to encounter the wilderness from their vehicles, and of systems to preserve a perceived “wild” Nature. Louter argues that

National Park roadways were intended to facilitate the co-existence of machines and

Nature. As a result, he states, “many Americans do not have as strict a definition of wilderness. They like “wild” Nature…[T]he ideal of being part of, but not disturbing, the natural world speaks to how Americans imagine their place in Nature and reconcile their relationship with it.”15 The roadways created in Washington’s

National Parks provided the human world with the opportunity to explore the nonhuman world, while at the same time creating the belief that humanity had not destroyed this environment. As Louter explains, however, this was not a simple

15 David Louter, Windsheild Wilderness: Cars, Road, and Nature in Washington’s National Parks (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), 8-10.

process and faced serious scrutiny by, and opposition from, those in favour of environmental protection. The value of the human experience of the “wild” made possible by the roadways (and the environmental loss this would entail) needed to be weighed against the value of environmental conservation through park protection (which restricted human experience and capitalist exploitation).

This act of human intervention in the land has created complex relationships between the human and nonhuman world. Alexander Wilson has contributed to the discussions surrounding this relationship in his 1991 book, The Culture of Nature:

North American Landscapes from Disney to the Exxon Valdez. Essentially, Wilson has compiled a cultural history of Nature. In his study he examines the environmental consequences of human expansion by discussing the ways we construct Nature. By using examples ranging from shopping malls, nuclear plants, gardens, and theme parks, Wilson is able to demonstrate how humanity negotiates and reconciles the degradation it has caused to the earth. In terms of environmental restoration,

Wilson writes, “restoration recognizes that once lands have been ‘disturbed’— worked, lived on, meddled with, developed—they require human intervention and care. We must build landscapes that heal, connect and empower, that make intelligible our relations with each other and with the natural world.”16 In other words, Wilson posits the idea that Nature is an inseparable part of culture, one that mediates our relationships with industry.

16 Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1991), 17.

Environmentalism and Art

Environmental Studies, Nature, and landscape theory, in turn, have influenced art historical thought, generating such studies as Malcolm Andrews’ 1999 history of landscape and environmental art, Landscape and Western Art. Andrews examines the many different ways in which landscape has been produced and interpreted across time in Western art. In particular, he focuses on how the genre of landscape art has influenced how we respond to our natural environments and the images of those spaces. He also explores and helps define the terms ‘Land’ and ‘Landscape’, concluding that Landscape is something viewers have constructed by modifying what they deem aesthetically pleasing in the Land. For Andrews, in contrast to

Mitchell, landscape is created through the mediation of the land. His discussion ends there. As far as he is concerned, it is the landscape that is mediated, and not the land itself; that is, the land exists unmediated. In contrast, Mitchell argues that landscape is mediated through perception of the land, but that mediation does not end there, because, for Mitchell, the land itself is always already mediated.

This comparison of land and landscape in the context of its representation as art is important to my study of manufactured landscapes. Andrews writes, “we are all too aware of our dependency on Nature now. More crucially still, we feel Nature’s dependency on us. Landscape as a way of seeing from a distance is incompatible with this heightened sense of our relationship to Nature as living (or dying) environment… landscape may already be over.”17 If landscape “is over” that would imply, by Andrews’ definition, that we no longer construct aesthetically pleasing

17 Andrews, Landscape and Western Art, 22.

versions of the land. Using earthworks as his evidence, Andrews presents a strong and convincing argument that perception of the land is shaped by our relationship with it. Therefore, as the environment changes so does our relationship with it, and as a result, so does the definition of landscape art.

This new definition of landscape art has developed in several different directions. In The Ethics of Earth Art, recently published in 2010, Amanda Boetzkes examines the work of a variety of modern and contemporary earth artists in order to align them in terms of environmental ethics, which she sees as an important part of their practices. As she sees it, “the ethical awareness of the earth that emerged in the late sixties has continued to evolve as artists have conceived of new ways of perceiving and addressing the natural environment.”18 In addition she writes, “earth art navigates the shifting territory between sensation and perception, Nature and culture, and the material and the discursive, as well as between the local and the global.”19 Here Boetzkes is defining ethics as a commitment to save and preserve the qualities that differentiate one thing from another, in this instance, human and nonhuman Nature. She argues that, by physically encountering the nonhuman object, we form a relationship with it based on the sensational. By sensing— meaning the practice of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and even tasting, our differences from the nonhuman world—we can utilize restraint to avoid controlling or unifying the object, which for Boetzkes is an essential part of the process of environmental ethics.

18 Amanda Boetzkes, The Ethics of Earth Art (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 24.

19 Boetzkes, The Ethics of Earth Art, 12.

All of these authors have contributed substantially to the larger discussion of the interconnectedness of landscape, Nature, environmentalism and their growing relationship with the visual arts. It is clear that this is a rich and diverse topic that warrants attention. These core readings are important to keep in mind throughout this study because they have influenced and shaped how the landscapes of

Burtynsky and Eliasson are received and interpreted. It can be argued that the reason humanity has become increasingly irresponsible in the treatment of our natural environment, or better yet, our nonhuman environment, is because we have been under the impression that we can control and own our surroundings. The trouble with this, as argued by these scholars, is that we lack ownership when it pertains to responsibility for environmental devastation. David Suzuki writes, “the degradation of natural systems has become inevitable because our economic system is fatally flawed by species chauvinism. Economists appraise everything in the world on the basis of perceived utility for human beings alone—if we can use it, it has a value; if we can’t, it’s worthless.”20 The landscapes of Burtynsky and Eliasson attempt to bridge the gap between how we have utilized the land in the name of progress and environmental destruction. By visualizing what scholarship advances,

Burtynsky and Eliasson force their viewers to address what I have termed a new definition of Nature.

20 David Suzuki, The David Suzuki Reader: A Lifetime of Ideas from a Leading Activist and Thinker (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2004), 79.

Chapter 2 The Environment in the Works of Edward Burtynsky

My work attempts to identify the marginalization of the processes that exist for us to sustain our lives in the city and to find a visual form that offers the viewer an opportunity to contemplate that phenomenon. So I think a lot of what I’ve tried to do over the last 20 years is to mediate between those polarized landscapes.

Edward Burtynsky21

Edward Burtynsky’s landscapes illustrate how the earth has been changed in order to meet the demands of human development; his photographs depict transitional stages in processes of urbanization. They act as a behind-the-scenes look at how growing urban societies want to live, how they pursue this desire, and the consequences of its fulfillment. I would argue that Burtynsky’s work gently advocates for the preservation of the environment, calling upon the vocabulary of aesthetics to make it a site of attraction, which aids in cultural acceptance of its degenerated state. In doing so, I would argue further that his monumental photographs have advanced a new definition of Nature, one that includes evidence of its demise as a site of pleasure on the viewer’s part. This definition of Nature, one that includes its cultivation and degradation, is central to this study. Burtynsky is not alone in advancing this definition, as we will later see in discussion of the works of Olafur Eliasson. I argue that Eliasson has made an intervention into the landscape that effectively works to contaminate the established aesthetic upon which it is

21 Craig Campbell, “Residual Landscapes and the Everyday: An Interview With Edward Burtynsky. Space and Culture 11:39 (2008): 39-50, 42.

based. Burtynsky does the opposite. He essentially aestheticizes the contaminated.

This argument is not new; however, this study does not set out to argue the aestheticizing of the contaminated. Rather, it is interested in how Burtynsky aestheticizes. I argue that Burtynsky has heightened the intensities existing between beauty and contamination by making the viewer aware of his process of aestheticizing. Here I would add that both Burtynsky and Eliasson have called upon the four basic elements—earth, air, fire, and water—to reference the idea of wilderness or an “essential” Nature. The use of the elemental has allowed these artists to challenge the viewer’s perception and experience of the nonhuman world.

It is also noteworthy in the context of this discussion that Burtynsky aestheticizes the contaminated by aligning his photographs with the works of well- known artists, including Richard Serra, Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet, and Pablo

Picasso.22 This is not to suggest that the work of Burtynsky is derivative or created in response to the work of modernist artists. However, there are striking similarities between his work and that of these other artists. They effectively identify

Burtynsky’s photographs with iconic modernist paintings and, in doing so in each case, reference a widely recognized and already highly valued aesthetic expression.

The act of aestheticizing is not the focus of this study; instead, I argue that by

22 For additional comparisons and references see Carol Diehl, “The Toxic Sublime,” Art in America 94:2 (2006): 118-123; Edward Burtynsky: Monegros May 5, 2011- May 28, 2011, Nicholas Metivier Gallery 451 King Street West Toronto, Ontario. http://metiviergallery.com/past- exhibitions/monegros; Amanda Boetzkes, “Waste and the Sublime Landscape,” RACAR XXXV No. 1 (2010): 22-31; and Lori Pauli, “Seeing the Big Picture,” in Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2005).

aligning himself with modern art’s prominent practitioners, Burtynsky heightens viewers’ awareness both of the aesthetic quality of his photographs and, perhaps more importantly, that a process of aestheticization has taken place.

In such works as his 1997 photograph, Ferrous Bushling No. 17 (fig. 1), for example, Burtynsky has depicted what he has termed “urban mines,” or the “end of oil.” Discarded metal scraps from the oil industry engulf the frame. Silver, bronze, brass, grey, and black coloured metals of round, straight, and squared shapes are piled upon each other, creating a complex and intricate mesh. The ferrous bushling depicted here is located in a recycling plant in Hamilton, Ontario. The heap of scrap metals include used and discarded oil filters, once employed in the production and utilization of oil, now sitting in a field of waste awaiting its end. Lori Pauli states that

“the piles are dense, alive with colour and repeating forms. It is partly for this reason that Burtynsky regards the ‘Urban Mines’ series as perhaps the most painterly photographs in his oeuvre to date.”23

23 Pauli, “Seeing the Big Picture,” in Manufactured Landscapes, 25.

Figure 1: Edward Burtynsky, Ferrous Bushling No.17, Hamilton, Ontario (1997).

Figure 2: Jackson Pollock, One, Number 31 (1950). Oil and enamel paint on canvas.

In Ferrous Bushling No. 17 Burtynsky relies heavily on shape to form intricate webs of metal, which is comparable to the modernist painter Jackson Pollock’s reliance on line to achieve similar intricate layers of paint. Painterly terms to describe Burtynsky’s work, such as “dense,” and “alive,” can be used to describe

Pollock’s work as well (see, for example, fig. 2). In the works of both artists, a web of complexity is formed and complemented by layers of rich colour; our eyes are unable to rest on a single reference point, but rather they remain in a state of constant motion. It is clear that the painterly qualities of Ferrous Bushling No. 17 are visually pleasing, and it is this that aestheticizes the contaminated. In addition, by aligning his work with the well-known visual style of Pollock, Burtynsky heightens viewers’ awareness of this aestheticization. The work of Pollock is often defined as

“action painting,” meaning that the movements and gestures he executed in the process of creating are visible in the completed painting. The painter would lay the large-scale canvases on the floor and literally walk across the top of the canvas while slinging, drizzling, and pouring paint. As evident in One, Number 31 from 1950, the result is layered webs of paint, line, colour, and texture, in which the viewer is unaware of where one layer begins and another ends.

This is not unlike the layers of scrap metal in Burtynsky’s Ferrous Bushling

No. 17. Writing of Pollock’s work, Carter Ratcliff explains, “in the best of the poured paintings, this density is airy and luminous, and the tangles of paint are splendidly legible. You can see how the texture weaves itself.”24 In a similar vein, Leonhard

24 Carter Ratcliff, The Fate of Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc., 1999), 8.

Emmerling writes, “our eyes glide from one reference point to the next without really ever being able to come to rest. Black lines, accentuated with yellow and green, flow into one another without forming actual contours, yet also without truly merging.”25 Significantly, these descriptions of Pollock’s work can be used to describe Burtynsky’s Ferrous Bushling No. 17. Although the medium, content, and intentions of their works are different, the descriptions of the formal qualities of these pieces can be applied to both. It could even be argued that the play in

Burtynsky’s work on Pollock’s action paintings enhances viewers’ awareness of the fact that Burtynsky has aestheticized the landscape precisely because the genre within which Burtynsky is working—photography—intensifies the effect. Viewers are consuming images of real worlds. That is, they are not only aware that these landscapes are aestheticized; they are also aware of the reality in which these landscapes exist. In effect, while heightening viewers’ awareness that a process of aestheticization has taken place, the awareness of that real existence elsewhere also works to prevent a fully aestheticized, formalist experience of the work.

Working in a similar fashion, Burtynsky’s more recent photographs of

Monegros County, Spain—for instance his 2010 Dryland Farming #21 (fig. 3)— depict aerial views of divided family farming lands—of a diverse landscape comprised of semi-desert hills and plains. In Dryland Farming #21, his birds-eye view illustrates how Monegros County has been divided, cultivated, and permanently altered to facilitate farming and industrial growth. A recent exhibition of Burtynsky’s Monegros series explains that he was drawn to Monegros County

25 Leonhard Emmerling, Pollock (Germany: Taschen, 2003), 7.

because of the visual formations and abstracted shapes the land presents when seen from the air; he writes that “the writhing lines and bold patches of colour and texture suggest microscopic organisms as well as the cosmic landscape.”26 The title of his photograph informs viewers that they are indeed looking at dryland farming.

Without the title as a caption viewers would find it difficult to decipher what they are looking at; the shapes, lines and colours create individualized forms, which results in an overall abstracted image.

Figure 3: Edward Burtynsky, Dryland Farming #21, Monegros County, Spain (2010).

26 Edward Burtynsky: Monegros May 5, 2011- May 28, 2011, Nicholas Metivier Gallery 451 King Street West Toronto, Ontario. http://metiviergallery.com/past-exhibitions/monegros (accessed July 20, 2011).

Figure 4: Jean Dubuffet, Typewriter III (1964). Felt-tipped pen and ballpoint pen on paper.

This description of Burtynsky’s Monegros County series in terms of microscopic organisms and abstracted forms aligns the work with Jean Dubuffet’s

Typewriter III from 1964 (fig. 4). The abstract work of Dubuffet has been associated with the genre of Art Brut, also known as Outsider Art or Raw Art, because of its unconventional style, which deliberately rejects mainstream art and culture. In a

1962 art review focussed on Dubuffet’s work, John Canaday wrote, “he cultivates heavy surfaces, he scores his paint in what seems a truly brutal manner, and many of his images have the coarseness, in a double sense, of drawings scribbled on

sidewalks, fences or public walls…[H]e beautifies without idealizing.”27 This idea of scribbled drawings, or even a cartoon effect, is especially evident in Typewriter III.

Not unlike Burtynsky’s work, the title indicates what viewers are looking at.

In other words, viewers are made aware through the title that they are looking at a typewriter, yet the abstract forms, primary colours, and conflicting horizontal and vertical striping make it difficult to grasp what Dubuffet has depicted. “When I really want to view an object,” Dubuffet wrote, “I tend to look at it within the context of everything surrounding it.”28 The typewriter is fragmented into separate and unique parts, which make up the greater whole. The landscape of Monegros County has been similarly fragmented and visually zoned in the creation of the County farmlands. Burtynsky has chosen to depict the results of harsh interventions into the land in the name of industrial and agriculture pursuits. Despite, or perhaps because of this violence, the landscape in the images is deeply appealing. It is not contested that the subtle, and in some cases not so subtle, ‘painterly’ qualities of

Burtynsky’s work aestheticize the contaminated or corrupted environments that are his subjects. However, I would argue further that, as these examples suggest, he references modernist artists to heighten the viewer’s awareness of the aestheticizing that has taken place and to frame the viewing experience as that of a

“work of art.”

27 John Canaday, “Art: Dubuffet at the Modern Museum,” New York Times, February 21, 1962. Accessed through ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The New York Times (1851-2007), 52.

28 Jean Dubuffet, “Anticultural Positions,” in Beauty is Nowhere: Ethical Issues in Art and Design ed. Richard Roth and Susan King Roth (Amsterdam: G&B Arts International, 1998), 11.

Figure 5: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #30, Sudbury, Ontario (1996).

Burtynsky’s landscapes stun viewers with their beauty while challenging viewers’ perceptions of landscape tradition and environmental ethics. Murray

Whyte wrote that Burtynsky’s work “is consistent in tone. Neither heroic nor condemning, it offers an austere beauty and a simple critical pause, which gives the viewer an opportunity to gaze at the scale of the transformation that has taken place.”29 Certainly, this is the effect in Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings #30, Sudbury,

Ontario (fig. 5), in which he has documented the transformation of the nonhuman world in a photograph of the remains of the Nickel industry in the Sudbury Basin.

The blackened and tarred sand, soil, and rocks are merging with shallow pools of water. Bold and rich reds, oranges and yellows, reminiscent of volcanic lava, flow

29 Murray Whyte, “Burtynsky’s Account: Adding Up the Price That Nature Pays,” in The New York Times Janurary 4, 2004. Accessed through ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The New York Times (1851-2007), 37.

through the water, as if toxins were entering veins. This landscape has been excavated for industrial pursuits, yet there is no indication of what these pursuits consist. All that remains are discarded and contaminated lands. Rebecca Solnit argues that “Burtynsky is starting to approach something that photography could have pursued all along…an inspection of systems rather than places…[A] genuinely ecological photography might pursue something along those lines, tracing the life of a commodity from extraction to disposal.”30 In this case, we continue to examine the photograph because, despite its toxic qualities, it seems beautiful and surreal. As

Carol Diehl puts it, “if Burtynsky portrayed the degradation at these sites as unmitigated, we’d feel assaulted and maybe turn away; it would be just too much to absorb at once. Instead, the deft seduction of his art keeps us transfixed.”31 He makes viewers aware that he has aestheticized the contaminated, which in this case is the largely unseen terrain of the Nickel industry in Sudbury, Ontario.

Burtynsky is not the first to depict the industrial transformations of the

Sudbury Basin. As Rosemary Donegan explains, during World War II, the Sudbury

Basin became a global site of ore production, and mining companies hired artists to advertise the benefits of nickel production. “These images, which acknowledge the conflicts within industry but show a belief in progress and hope in the future,” she argues, “reveal the impact of modernization on the wilderness.”32 Donegan advances

30 Rebecca Solnit, “Creative Destruction,” The Nation 227, no. 6 (September 1-8, 2003): 35.

31 Diehl, “The Toxic Sublime,” Art in America 94:2 (2006), 120.

32 Donegan, “Modernism and the Industrial Imagination: Copper Cliff and the Sudbury Basin,” 150.

Charles Comfort’s The Romance of Nickel from 1937 (fig. 6) to exemplify her argument.

Figure 6: Charles Comfort, The Romance of Nickel, Oil on Canvas (1937).

In The Romance of Nickel Comfort illustrates the process of metal production as well as the perceived benefits. The viewer is immediately drawn to the worker who stands in the middle of the composition in a stance mirroring that of a soldier firing a gun. The diagonals of the worker’s stance, echoed in the repeating diagonals of the composition as a whole, create an overall dynamic effect, suggestive of progress. The worker is surrounded by examples of how nickel mining has benefited society; advances in science as shown by a lab worker, airplanes, trains, bridges, and cityscapes. In the shadows of the bottom right corner of the painting Comfort depicts the dumping of slag, also known as metal waste. But he references the consequences of mining only as a part of the larger process he is depicting, which he is celebrating.

In stark contrast to this, Burtynsky has chosen to focus his work on the metal dumping, slag and waste, as well as on the impact metal extraction has had on the

environment. We no longer see the airplanes, trains, and automobiles that represent hope and growth for the future—the implicit justification for the excavation of the land. “Although Burtynsky insists that it is not his intention to make political images,” Pauli argues, ”there is something unsettling, even alarming, about scenes that show such massive human incursion into the earth.”33 It is this unsettling quality that leaves the viewer with a sense of regret rather than the celebratory feeling evoked by Comfort’s The Romance of Nickel.

The ethical conflicts that coincide with the landscapes of Burtynsky are enhanced by his choice of medium, which brings into play the relationship between photography, perceived truth, and environmentalism. 34 Joan Schwartz and James

Ryan explain that “photographic images have been an integral part of our engagement with the physical and human world.”35 This is because photographs are able to visually transport viewers to a particular environment they may never physically experience. Historically, photography has been directly linked to its

33 Pauli, “Seeing the Big Picture,” in Manufactured Landscapes, 21.

34 For the purposes of this thesis the complex relationship between photographic production and environmental impact is not of primary focus; however there are a number of scholars who address such issues. For discussion of these see Joan M. Schwartz and James R. Ryan eds., Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003); Claude Baillargen, ed., Imaging a Shattering Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate (Rochester: Meadow Brook Art Gallery and CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival, 2006); Karla McManus, “The Environment in the Museum: the Rhetoric of Photographic Landscapes in Imaging a Shattering Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate,” InterCulture 6:2 (October 2009): 136- 48; Tim Bonyhady, The Colonial Earth (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002); Keri J. Cronin, Manufacturing National Park Nature: Photography, Ecology, and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011); Robin Kelsey and Blake Stimson, The Meaning of Photography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

35 Schwartz and Ryan, “Introduction: Photography and the Geographical Imagination,” in Picturing Place, 5.

perceived ability to capture reality, and as a result, it has been continuously linked to the idea of truth. So Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings photographs are perceived as depicting reality—as records of a particular place and time—and the artist makes explicit reference to prominent modernists’ work to heighten viewers’ awareness of that reality as aestheticized. As Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright point out, “a photograph is often perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world, a trace of reality skimmed off the very surface of life.”36 Although we know that a photographer can deliberately include and exclude objects and specific views, as well as process the photograph in such a way as to aestheticize the view, a sense of

“the real” remains. For this reason, Burtynsky’s photographs are associated with an unmediated artistic reality, not artistic imagination—with the real rather than the imagined.

In this way the theory of photographic truth works to enhance the environmental concerns and ethical challenges found within Burtynsky’s landscapes. For instance, in Nickel Tailings #31 Sudbury, Ontario (fig. 7), he has taken a close range photograph of the ground in the Sudbury Basin. The grass, sand and soil are covered in blackened ash and the water is murky, except for the vibrant orange stream of metal waste that forges its way through the terrain. Viewers know that this is not an imagined space created by an artist; it is a photograph of a real place. “Photography ‘fixes’ an image,” Schwartz writes, although she is quick to add that “it is only the visual content of the photograph that is fixed and stable. The

36 Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking: an Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 17.

image’s import—the message it is expected to deliver, its meaning—is not an observable property and can change dramatically between author/photographer and audience/viewer.”37 Here the charred landscaped and molten stream is the

Figure 7: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #31, Sudbury, Ontario (1996). fixed or stable content. The landscape is a real place, although cropped and mediated by Burtynsky; the land itself is considered a truth. It is the meaning attached to the photograph that is the non-observable property, and as such, differs from viewer to viewer. As Burtynsky argues, the meaning will change based on the viewer’s opinion of nickel mining. He explains that a metal worker will have a vastly different experience with the piece than an art historian or environmentalist. This is

37 Joan Schwartz, “Photographic Reflections: Nature, Landscape, and Environment,” in Environmental History 12 (October 2007): 966-993, 984.

because viewers bring their own knowledge to the evaluation of the work, and fix their own meanings to the image.38 Arguably, viewers of the Nickel Tailings series will agree that the landscape pictured is real, and therefore will also agree that the environment has suffered during the process of nickel excavation. However, the degree of ethical concern prompted by Nickel Tailings will depends on each viewer’s relationship to this landscape.

I would argue that Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings series has advanced a new definition of Nature, one that clearly includes its own demise. The once flourishing and bountiful, rich and colourful, ‘wild’ landscapes artists envisioned in the past have been replaced by apocalyptic visions. Burtynsky states that “these images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence…[O]ur dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.”39 In this statement, he is not passing environmental judgement. Rather, for the artist, the dilemma existing between industrial production and concern for environmental health can be visualized by heightening viewers’ aesthetic experience of contaminated Nature. The uneasiness viewers feel in front of his landscape is based on the tension between these conflicting associations. Burtynsky may not explicitly pass judgement on the current environmental situation; however, his idea of a “reflecting pool of our time” implies

38 Edward Burtynsky, interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos, The Hour, CBC, October 23, 2008.

39 Edward Burtynsky, “Exploring the Residual Landscape,” Artist Statement/Bio at http://www.edward burtynsky.com (accessed June 5, 2011).

that he believes that we as viewers must reflect on our social and industrial practices in relation to the nonhuman world.

Burtynsky’s notion of a reflecting pool, in which viewers must confront their implication in the relationship between environmental destruction and industrial growth, is especially evident in Nickel Tailings #34 (fig. 8). In this photograph, he represents what may be identified as a conventional Western landscape. The foreground and background are linked by the meandering (albeit red) stream that establishes gradual recession into depth and alleviates the visual weight of the dark earth that occupies three-quarters of the picture plane. The grey horizon line consists of a slight incline covered with barren trees, which are clouded by the hazy sky. In using a conventional landscape composition, Burtynsky is using an encoding image. It recalls the “pristine” landscapes of the past, and thus prompts comparison with them; in that it stands in opposition to the pristine, it forces viewers to acknowledge environmental change and, in doing so, works to evoke feelings of shame. As Burtynsky has claimed, “I began by photographing the ‘pristine’ landscape, but I felt that I was born a hundred years too late...I decided what was relevant for our times were pictures that showed how we have changed the landscape in significant ways in the pursuit of progress.”40 Wanting his landscapes to be relevant for contemporary viewers, he called upon the conventions of landscape art to represent what he deemed to be modernity’s landscape.

40 Michael Torosian, “The Essential Element: An Interview with Edward Burtynsky,” in Manufactured Landscapes: the Photographs of Edward Burtynsky edited by Lori Pauli (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2006), 47.

Figure 8: Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #34, Sudbury, Ontario (1996).

The river of vibrant orange metal waste that flows across the black and barren terrain in Nickel Tailings #34 is striking. “Photographic truth” is conveyed in an image that has actually been carefully constructed, the view selected and cropped in order to emphasize the intensity of the river. Heightening this sense of intensity is the physical size of Nickel Tailings #34, which measures an impressive 101.9 x 154.4 cm. The magnitude of the photograph works to overwhelm the viewer, the visual impact of the piece increasing perception of the immensity of the landscape’s degradation; the environmental issues are as real and large as the photograph in front of the viewer.

The photograph’s colour also works to heighten the intensity of this essay on

“the effects of progress.” Writing of Nickel Trailings, Pauli explains, “the startling

colours are those we see when lava flows from an erupting volcano...[I]n actual fact, the intense reds and oranges are caused by the oxidation of the iron that is left behind in the process of separating nickel and other metals from ore.”41 The black land juxtaposed with the intense reds and oranges creates a disturbing image because the land is now unnatural, toxic, and contaminated; this is particularly true in comparison to the land in traditional landscape art. There are none of the plush greens and blues traditionally associated with Nature—the sign of environmental growth and prosperity. The once pristine and flourishing environment is referenced here only in the distant tree line—the charred remains of what would have marked the horizon in a conventional scene.

William E. Rees argues, “virtually every Burtynsky landscape is a masterpiece of ambiguity. Colour and composition seduce the senses while the scene repels the soul. Evoked emotions of horror and rage compete with deeper surges of guilt and complicity in an unspeakable crime…Burtynsky’s work is a window on humanity’s future, unfolding for all who choose to see it.”42 As Paul Roth puts it, these are landscapes “shaped not by time, erosion, or the weathering winds, but by the ordering force of the economy, the land has been etched by our avarice and our needs.”43 Burtynsky raises the question as to whether we, as producers and ‘owners’ of this terrain, are ready to take responsibility for the future his photographs

41 Pauli, “Seeing the Big Picture,” in Manufactured Landscapes, 21.

42 William E. Rees, “Edward Burtynsky: Forensic Photographer and Futurist,” in Burtynsky Oil (Germany: Steidl [in association with CORCORAN GALLERY of ART], 2009), 198.

43 Paul Roth, “Inexorable,” in Burtynsky Oil (Germany: Steidl [in association with CORCORAN GALLERY of ART], 2009), 169.

predict; it can be argued that it is our greed that has led to this definition of Nature.

His photographs can be perceived within the context of Carolyn Merchant’s partnership ethic. Merchant writes, “a partnership ethic entails a viable relationship between a human and a nonhuman community in a particular place…recognized through economic and ecological exchanges. It is an ethic in which humans act to fulfill both humanity’s vital needs and nature’s needs by restraining human hubris.”44 Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings series do not show evidence of a partnership ethic, but perhaps call for the viewer to take advice from it. They depict ecological exploitation and exhaustion, rather than economic and ecological exchange.

Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings photographs induce nostalgia for the pristine landscape, for “paradise lost.” Confronted with evidence of its apparent demise, viewers feel implicated— “looked at.” It is this that evokes uneasiness and shame.

“Any purely contemplative stance is challenged by the unsettling mélange of aesthetic, cultural, political, and historical messages,” James Clifford explains of such encounters.45 “To the extent that we participate in dominant culture and an ongoing history of inequality,” he writes, “[we] bear responsibility. We encounter an informing and shaming discourse.” When viewers face Burtynsky’s Nickel Tailings they look into a reflecting pool and see themselves. They are implicated in the degradation of Nature, they bear responsibility; they “encounter an informing and shaming discourse.” Whether they choose to act as a result, however, is still open to

44 Merchant, Reinventing Nature, 224.

45 James Clifford, “Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections,” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display eds., Ivan Karp and Steven D. Levine (Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1991), 240.

question. Nonetheless, in posing the question, Burtynsky asks viewers to assess what is of value—because the shame and guilt viewers feel in front of his works implies that inherent value is perceived in Nature. In this, Burtynsky is aligned with

Olafur Eliasson. Although I argue in the next chapter that they pose their questions in very different ways, I would also argue that their work should be seen together in its ability to implicate viewers and, in doing so, to suggest that they take responsibility for the degradation of the nonhuman world.

Chapter 3 The Environment in the works of Olafur Eliasson

What is nature anyway? And who really cares about this constant search for the boundary between culture and nature? If there is a nature, I arrive at it through the people who are there and their idea about where they are. If there aren’t any people, so-called nature doesn’t interest me. Olafur Eliasson46

The landscapes of Olafur Eliasson, like Edward Burtynsky’s monumental photographs, are informed by environmental discourse. Although Eliasson’s landscapes are distinct, both artists have effectively expressed contemporary environmental concerns in their work. They are also arguably able to promote environmental contemplation and ethical awareness through the viewer’s experience with, and response to the land represented. They achieve this by presenting an argument through their selection of subject matter. The viewers are intended to experience the landscapes the artists present and “draw their own conclusions” on the state of the environment based on their preconceived notions of the environment and the nonhuman world. Burtynsky photographs the land as it now exists after human interaction and interference, whereas Eliasson constructs landscapes in which humans must interact with the environment as a tangible space. He states that “the work I do is very dependent on people being involved in

46 Olafur Eliasson, “Interview I: The Interventions, Artist Studio Berlin, January 2003,” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt: The Conversation Series (Germany: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2008), 15-16.

one way or another…since my work is very much about the process of seeing and experiencing yourself rather than the actual work of art.”47

With this in mind, Burtynsky’s metaphor of a ‘reflecting pool’ can be applied to the landscapes of Eliasson. By encountering and participating with Eliasson’s physically constructed landscapes, viewers in turn reflect on their experiences with the piece, its location, and its composition, as well as how it contributes to, or has been produced by, society. The term “manufactured landscapes” is defined here as landscapes that have been altered by human activity, and this can be applied to both

Burtynsky and Eliasson. In addition to this, Eliasson contributes to this thesis’ discussion of a new definition of Nature by constructing landscapes in which the elemental, such as water, is the only nonhuman form of Nature present. Eleanor

Heartney writes that “postmodern theory relegates Nature to the junk heap of outmoded concepts…the prophets of simulation within the art world and the enthusiasts for industrial development happily embrace a future in which Nature is reinvented on a daily basis to conform to the requirements of technology and commerce.”48 Eliasson’s landscapes exemplify this point by reinventing Nature to reflect humanity’s current relationship with the natural world.

In this chapter, I argue that Eliasson has made interventions into the land that work to contaminate the aesthetic on which the work is based. This process helps to develop definitions of Nature that now include environmental and ethical

47 Eliasson, “Interview I” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt, 16.

48 Eleanor Heartney, “Ecopolitics/Ecopoetry: Helen and Newton Harrison’s Environmental Talking Cure,” in But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism ed. Nina Felshin (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995), 141.

concern. This is particularly evident in his interpretations of water and waterfalls.

Through an exploration of his Reversed Waterfall series, which originated in 1998, and his 2008 New York City Waterfalls installation, it will become apparent that a definition of Nature has emerged in his work that includes Nature’s own demise as a site of engagement and enjoyment on the viewer’s behalf. Eliasson relies heavily on the element of water, in the form of waterfalls, as a means of artistic practice.

The role and importance of the waterfall as a subject matter is not exclusive to Eliasson and has had a strong presence in the landscape tradition. Arguably, the waterfall is one of the most commonly used subjects in landscape art; it is used to symbolize the uncontrollable or unknowable qualities of Nature, otherwise known as the sublime. Edmund Burke, one of the key philosophical founders of the sublime, has explained, “whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain...and danger...is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”49 Perhaps the danger associated with the waterfall, the threatening powers of Nature and the viewer’s feeling of fear or insignificance in comparison, is why it has become so commonly associated with the sublime. Immanuel Kant, another key figure in the development of the concept of the sublime, has contributed to this theory by incorporating discussion of space and the physical magnitude of the object. Kant argues, “the beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object...[T]he sublime, on the other hand, is to be found in a formless object, so far as in it or by occasion of it boundlessness is

49 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Edited by J.T. Boulton (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 39.

represented, and yet its totality is also present to thought.”50 Basically, the sublime cannot be measured because it is infinite. The mind tries to measure the object’s totality, based on human reason, but cannot.

Figure 9: W.H. Bartlett, View Below Table Rock (1837). Engraving.

Malcolm Andrews argues that the landscape tradition of associating the sublime and the natural phenomena of a waterfall is exemplified in W.H. Bartlett’s engraving View Below Table Rock, from 1837 (fig 9). In this image Bartlett has

50 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment. Translated by J.H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Publishing, 1951), 82.

placed viewers at the base of the waterfall. Viewers are enclosed by the imposing cliff overhead and are given sense of scale by the minute figures hiking up the rocks and trails around the base of the crashing falls, and further demonstrated by the birds flying in front of the overwhelming cliff. Andrews writes, “William Henry

Bartlett’s steeply vertical composition…pushes us much closer to the Falls and gives us a more immediate sensation of the awful precipice…[T]he picture is designed to engulf the spectator, to make it seem as if there is no escape.”51 Here, viewers of the engraving, as well as the figures found within the image, are left in awe at the immense power and size of the Falls; we are left feeling insignificant in comparison to Nature’s wonders, at least this is the goal of the artist. This is important to note because the vision of the once pristine, uncontrollable and unfathomable Nature is no longer relevant today. As William Cronon explains, “wilderness gets us into trouble only if we imagine that this experience of wonder and otherness is limited to the remote corners of the planet, or that it somehow depends on pristine landscapes we ourselves do not inhabit. Nothing could be more misleading.”52 The point here is that our idea of wilderness is subjective, and that Eliasson is contributing to the landscape tradition by altering our conceptions of the sublime, as well as by demonstrating how the nonhuman world operates and is depicted. In a discussion focused on Niagara Falls, Anne Whiston Spirn writes, “Niagara has long been, for many, the epitome of the sublime, offering the experience of a powerful natural

51 Andrews, Landscape and Western Art, 138.

52 Cronon, Uncommon Ground, 88.

feature of superhuman scale that inspires awe and fear.”53 Eliasson is able to reference these practices by playing with our notions of what a waterfall is, how it operates, and how we experience it.

Figure 10: Olafur Eliasson, Reversed Waterfall (1998). Instillation: water, pump, basins, and scaffolding.

Eliasson deliberately represents Nature through traditional forms, such as the waterfall, in order to recall romanticized visions of landscape, and to challenge our idea of the sublime and beauty within the nonhuman world. This execution can be seen in his Reversed Waterfalls (figs. 10 and 11). In this installation, the artist has constructed a freestanding sculpture consisting of four large basins supported by scaffolding, which sits in a tub of water. Pumps run through the scaffolding in order

53 Anne Whiston Spirn, “Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Fredrick Law Olmsted,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 95.

to pump the base water upward to the basins. The overall product is what Eliasson has termed a reversed waterfall, simply because the water is forced and pumped up rather than flowing downward. Eliasson states, “when I bring moss into a museum or make water run upwards or produce artificial mist, I can get people to reflect on these phenomena. I take the natural materials and displace them into the museum context. I think it’s really important to realize that Nature isn’t just out there, it isn’t

‘natural’—it’s always organized by our individual perspective.”54 Although the water flows in the opposite direction of the traditional understanding of a waterfall, the viewer is still aware that it is a waterfall because it functions in the same manner, and the artist has informed us through the title that this is in fact a waterfall. Yet, our individual perspectives and experiences inform our decision to accept or refute the waterfall as part of Nature. What is interesting to note about this piece is how the meaning may be altered, and the struggle between Nature and culture is emphasized, based on where it is installed; for instance, within the museum walls as opposed to outside in the perceived ‘wild.’

54 Olafur Eliasson, “Talk to me: Olafur Eliasson,” in Moma’s Red Studio. http://redstudio.moma.org/talktome/eliasson (accessed July 17, 2011).

Figure 11: Olafur Eliasson, Detail of Reversed Waterfall (1998). Instillation: water, pump, basins, and scaffolding.

Eliasson has exhibited the Reversed Waterfall as an indoor installation as well as outside (see fig 12). When placed within the museum walls the Reversed Waterfall takes on a stronger mechanical aesthetic, perhaps as an extension of the institution, as opposed to the natural function and associations signalled by an organic waterfall. The artificiality of the waterfall, in terms of mechanical and technological qualities, is arguably heightened when juxtaposed with a natural environment.

Eliasson states that his Reversed Waterfall “reveals its hose and pump and the entire mechanics behind the phenomenon of a waterfall running upwards. So illusion is coupled with disclosure. The viewer is never taken off into this magical realm where things happen for no apparent reason.”55 The awe and intensity of Bartlett’s

55 Eliasson, “Talk to me: Olafur Eliasson,” in Moma’s Red Studio.

waterfall is now removed in the work of Eliasson. Rather, the viewer is exposed to the way the waterfall functions, which diminishes a response of wonder or astonishment. Madeleine Grynsztejn writes that “Eliasson evokes precisely this possibility of the sublime only to hinder its function…the ‘natural’ phenomena are always marked as fabricated, and the operations of the sublime are thereby demystified and revealed, as if in a scientific demonstration.”56 By utilizing the subject of the waterfall Eliasson is referencing romantic visions of the sublime; however, by exposing the scaffolding and pumps, he is interrupting the function of the sublime and marks it as irrelevant. When the work is exhibited outdoors, it is difficult to completely ignore the ‘natural’ qualities of Eliasson’s Reversed Waterfall.

The sounds, the smells, and the function remain relatively the same as a naturally formed waterfall; it is simply the manufactured qualities that mark his Reversed

Waterfall as artificial Nature. That being said, Eliasson is essentially replacing our old definitions and understandings of the sublime and of Nature, with a new definition, one that includes a sense of its insignificance or irrelevance in contemporary environments.

56 Madeleine Grynsztejn, “Attention Universe: The Works of Olafur Eliasson,” in Olafur Eliasson ed. Madeleine Grynsztein, Daniel Birnbaum, and Michael Speaks (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), 49.

Figure 12: Olafur Eliasson, Reversed Waterfall (1998). Instillation: water, pump, basins and scaffolding. Instillation Wanås 2000, the Wanås Foundation Sweden.

The themes explored in Reversed Waterfall are continued and amplified in

Eliasson’s monumental installations, entitled the New York City Waterfalls (figs. 13 and 14), which were exhibited from June 26 to October 13, 2008. The New York City

Waterfalls project consists of four artist-constructed waterfalls, ranging from 90 to

120 feet tall, located within the waters of Lower Manhattan, Governs Island, and beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Eliasson highlights the importance of the waterfalls as a public art project, citing the ability of public art to stimulate discussion; as he states, the public waterfalls have “reflexive potential…what does it mean to think

about what we see?”57 For the artist, it is important to think more deeply about the waterfalls. Rather than just thinking about what we see, it is also important to think about what we are thinking about. To this end, he constructed the waterfalls in a highly popular and public space, instead of a gallery or museum, making the work widely accessible to a larger audience and, it can be presumed, prompting more discussion.

Figure 13: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: Brooklyn Bridge & Governors Island (2008). Water, pumps, scaffolding, LED lights, and mesh intake pools.

He also worked to prompt discussion by challenging our definition of Nature.

The contradictions existing between the natural environment and technology, the nonhuman and the human, and the pure and artificial are deliberately questioned in

57 Olafur Eliasson, “Olafur Eliasson Discusses the Waterfalls,” in New York City Waterfalls. http://www.nycwaterfalls.org (Accessed April 14, 2011).

New York City Waterfalls. As Allen Carlson claims, “environmental aesthetics is centrally concerned with the aesthetics of nature and the natural environment. For many of us, however, the environments in which we spend most of our time are not natural, but those environments in which we work, play, and otherwise carry on our day-to-day lives.”58 To meet the needs of today, he suggests, we must alter our interests in environmental aesthetics to include the non-natural. The New York City

Waterfalls has attempted such a feat, yet the aesthetic it advances is ultimately contaminated by the pollution of the nonhuman environment.

Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls were constructed from common building materials; primarily scaffolding, pumps, piping, intake pools, and of course water. In order for the waterfalls to operate correctly and safely, the East River water was collected in intake filter pools, which were created to help protect the aquatic life within the river by preventing its contact with the pumps. From there, the intake pools and the pumps would pull the water out from the river and raise it up through the pipes to the top of the scaffolding. At this point the water would be pushed over the scaffolding, which would then fall back into the river, and this process was repeated to create the waterfall effect. Combined, the four waterfalls would pump on average 35,000 gallons of water per minute.59 Eliasson carefully selected the sites of the four waterfalls in order to ensure their juxtaposition with the cityscape.

Not only does this emphasize the challenges existing between natural and artificial,

58 Allen Carlson, Nature & Landscape: An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 52.

59 The New York City Waterfalls, “How the waterfalls work.” http://www.nycwaterfalls.org (Accessed April 14, 2011).

but the scaffolding also has the ability to become an extension, or part of, the cityscape. Eliasson states, “waterfalls are a great natural phenomena. I like them because they are easily recognizable and everyone has memories of them. By creating the group of four waterfalls within the New York Cityscape, I want to emphasize the value in seeing nature as a construction.”60 In this statement, he could be referring to his form of nature in the literal sense as a physical construction; however, I would argue that he is referring to the larger theory of

Nature as a cultural and social construction. As W.J.T. Mitchell points out, “landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package.”61

60 Olafur Eliasson, “Artist Statement, January 2008,” in The New York City Waterfalls. http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/#/Olafur_Eliasson/Artist-s_Statement (Accessed April 14, 2011).

61 Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in Landscape and Power, 5.

Figure 14: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: Brooklyn Bridge (2008). Water, pumps, scaffolding, LED lights, and mesh intake pools.

By emphasizing the value of Nature as a construction, Eliasson is deliberately disrupting the viewer’s contemplation of Nature by drawing attention to its structural and manufactured components. In doing so, he challenges our definitions of Nature and landscape. Eliasson claims, “my point is not to re-initiate the discussion of nature versus culture or the natural versus the artificial, but both to open up the possibility of a nature based experience within an urban setting and

allow us to reconsider our experiences with nature.”62 In this instance, he is stressing the tensions that exist between the natural and the artificial, while at the same time creating an environment in which the two, even if incompatible, co-exist.

The waterfalls’ juxtaposition against an urban environment, along with the visible scaffolding, which is a direct reference to the technological and manufactured qualities of the work, corrupt the natural or organic quality of the waterfall. Yet, the

East River itself is a place where fresh water from the Hudson River and salt water from the Atlantic Ocean meet, making it a habitat that can maintain a diverse population of aquatic life. I would argue that this is evidence of Eliasson’s ability to question our relationships with space and environment. He is not attempting to represent or preserve the nonhuman world; rather, he is using manufactured materials to redirect ways of perceiving an environment. Nature may still be the basis of Eliasson’s constructed waterfalls; however, the definition of Nature has dramatically changed. As one art critic has stated, the waterfalls are “remnants of a primordial Eden, beautiful, uncanny signs of a natural non-urban past that the city never had.”63 The once pristine and mystical waterfalls seen in Bartlett’s engraving, although still aesthetically pleasing, are now demystified and contaminated by the visibility of their construction.

It is interesting to note that by working with the element of water, Eliasson is essentially utilizing a natural or elemental form of Nature to redefine its relationship with the environment. In a discussion about the New York City Waterfalls the artist

62 Olafur Eliasson, “Artist Statement, January 2008,” in The New York City Waterfalls.

63 Robert Smith, “Art Review: Cascades, Sing the City Energetic,” New York Times, June 27, 2008.

has explained why he is so often drawn to romantic forms of Nature, such as rainbows, waterfalls, and sunsets. He claims that water “holds the potential of both being about beauty and also being about responsibility…water goes through beauty…into talks about what it means to be responsible.”64 Eliasson, not unlike

Burtynsky, is providing a forum for viewers to discuss and address their responses to the aesthetic and ethical environmental questions embedded in his work. The natural element of water in an outdoor setting, combined with the exposed building materials is effectively able to blur the line between what can be perceived as real and artificial. Amanda Boetzkes has described this process as “gravitation into the earth and a retraction from it.”65 In other words, viewers are surrounded and engaged by the natural qualities of the waterfalls, such as the velocity of the water, the mist, and the thundering sounds. Yet, we remain consistently separated from the waterfall because we struggle to find a deeper sentimental meaning. This is largely because we, as viewers, are blatantly aware of its manufactured and contrived origins and are conscious of the waterfalls’ temporal existence. As Eliasson argues, “I think the reason you want to show the machine is to remind people that they’re looking.”66

Eliasson’s intervention into the land introduces a complex definition of

Nature by exposing its constructed qualities, which ultimately supports the

64 Olafur Eliasson, “Artist Statement & Podcast, 2008,” in The New York City Waterfalls.

65 Boetzkes, The Ethics of Earth Art, 22.

66 Olafur Eliasson, quoted in “Olafur Eliasson/Daniel Birnbaum: In Conversation, November 2000, Berlin,” in pressPLAY: Contemporary Artists in Conversation (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2005), 179.

degradation of the nonhuman natural world. In addition to this, the environmental issues that emerged during the exhibition of the New York City Waterfalls aid in the development of a new definition of Nature. During the construction and operation of the waterfalls, Eliasson took several environmental precautions. For instance, all of the electricity used during the operation of the New York City Waterfalls was 100% offset by electricity generated from renewable resources, the waterfalls were lit at night by LED lights (fig. 15) which use less power than other electrical sources, and the intake filter pools were covered in mesh, in which the holes were less than 1 millimetre in width, and low velocity pumps were used in order to prevent any aquatic life being caught up in the filters.67 Despite these efforts, the waterfalls caused rather serious and unexpected environmental problems. During periods of high winds or unpredictable weather storms, the mist from the waterfalls would travel to the neighbouring streets. The mist of the waterfalls, from the Hudson River water, ultimately damaged and killed nearby trees, shrubbery and other natural vegetation (fig. 16). A local restaurant manager reported to the New York Times, “at times, it’s like it’s raining. People will come out to get into their car and it’s covered with a thick film of salt.”68 The unintended spread of salt water not only killed several trees, but it also affected soil quality, which could not be repaired until the parks department could properly flush out the soil, and city park crews were sent

67 The New York City Waterfalls, “How the waterfalls work.” http://www.nycwaterfalls.org (Accessed April 14, 2011).

68 Nicole Zoppi, quoted New York Times. October 12, 2008 “waterfalls exit, but with unintended impact.” Manny Fernandez

out once or twice a day to rinse off the affected vegetation with fresh water.69 As a result, the waterfalls’ operational periods were cut from 101 hours a week to 50 hours a week. With this in mind, it can be argued that Eliasson utilized the elemental to construct a new definition of Nature. However, the pollution and salt water within the Hudson River changed the terms of this new definition to include Nature’s demise both figuratively and literally. In short, when the nonhuman world was temporarily replaced with a mechanical version of Nature, the surrounding natural ecosystems suffered and died as a result.

Figure 15: Olafur Eliasson, New York City Waterfalls: Brooklyn Bridge, night view (2008). Water, pumps, scaffolding, LED lights, and mesh intake pools.

69 Manny Fernandez, “Waterfalls Exit, but with Unintended Impact,” New York Times, October 12,2008.

Figure 16: Michelle V. Agins, Trees at the River Café in Brooklyn have lost their leaves. Photograph for the New York Times. October 12, 2008.

This merger of ecology and technology is not uncommon in Eliasson’s work.

Through it, he seeks to alter our preconceived notions of Nature. For instance, in his

2003 The Weather Project (fig.17), the artist constructed a space within the Tate

Modern’s Turbine Hall that imitated the natural weather, but was confined to the indoor gallery environment. Through the use of mono-frequency lights, mirrors, and fog machines Eliasson was able to simulate natural weather. He redefined Nature by creating a functioning environment absent of nonhuman nature. As viewers entered the Turbine Hall of the Tate they encountered a fine mist, which as their visit extended, slowly transformed into a cloud-like formation. By the time viewers reached the far end of the Hall they were consumed by the hundreds of mono- frequency lights that made up a semi-circle sun. Again, Eliasson was making

reference to the romantic vision of the natural elements, such as the mist representing water and the warmth of the sun as a version of fire, to alter our perception of space and the nonhuman world.

“The benefit in disclosing the means with which I am working,” Eliasson argues, “is that it enables the viewer to understand the experience as a construction and so, to a higher extent, allows them to question and evaluate the impact this experience has on them”70 In this, he suggests that our experiences and interactions with Nature have limitations, boundaries, and even restrictions. Again, as in his waterfall series, the artist created a reflexive environment, one in which viewers were not told which environmental position to choose. Instead, he presented an environment in which he mediated viewer experience, but in a manner that worked to alter how viewers interacted with, and perceived Nature. In these works, he sought to contaminate the aesthetic. In the Weather Project, although beautiful, warm, and bright, all that is organic and natural has been replaced by a fabricated

Nature that relies heavily on technology as a substitute for the nonhuman world. In

New York City Waterfalls, the beauty of the waterfall was contaminated by the exposed scaffolding, as well as the literally toxic pollution of the Hudson River, which produced the unwelcomed, potent smell, while killing surrounding vegetation. We can still recognize these spaces as landscapes; however the role

70 Olafur Eliasson. The Unilever Series: Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project. Tate modern, Turbine Hall October 16, 2003- March 21, 2004. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/eliasson/understanding.htm (Accessed January 22, 2011).

normally played by a pure and more organic form of Nature is replaced with a

Nature that has fallen before the advancements of technology.

Figure 17: Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project (October 2003- March 2004). Mono-frequency lamps, mirrors, mist. Turbine Hall, Tate Modern.

Overall, Eliasson is able to construct beautiful landscapes—landscapes that offer an alternative to traditional conceptions of Nature. When viewers physically experience these landscapes they are confronted with different levels of contamination. The exposed manufactured qualities contaminate the aesthetic, whereas the water quality literally contaminates the natural world. In a discussion of his work, Eliasson states, “every movement has some level of mediation, or should

I call it cultivation? Moving through a city or landscape always implies a certain level of staging or mediation. Our city surroundings have been planned by others to mediate us. They take advantage of our memory to organize our expectations.”71 In his waterfalls series and the Weather Project, he is calling upon our memory or past relations with the elemental to organize and guide our expectations of these constructed environments. “The problem at hand,” Boetzkes argues, “is that the elementals straddle the line between natural and artificial.”72 In the New York City

Waterfalls, viewers are left to negotiate the city, while at the same time redefining

Nature to include its own demise as a site of immediate pleasure.

Through an exploration of space and time Eliasson forces his viewers to confront their place in the nonhuman and constructed world. As this thesis has demonstrated, landscape is a complex and ambiguous term. Yet, it has become evident, through an exploration of the works of Edward Burtynsky and Olafur

Eliasson, that landscape is a cultural construct. In his monumental New York City

Waterfalls, Eliasson has made an intervention into the landscape that effectively works to contaminate the established aesthetic upon which it is based. Whereas, in his monumental photographs, Burtynsky does the opposite; he aestheticizes the contaminated.

71 Olafur Eliasson, “Dear Everyone, 2001,” in Olafur Eliasson ed. Madeleine Grynsztein, Daniel Birnbaum, and Michael Speaks (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), 135.

72 Boetzkes, The Ethics of Earth Art, 135.

Chapter 4 Conclusions: A Look at Olafur Eliasson’s Green River and Edward Burtynsky’s Oil Spills

Ecocritical art history necessarily pays attention not only to overtly engaged or sympathetic forms of environmentalist expression but also to works apparently indifferent, or even hostile, to such concerns. We believe that every work of art has environmental significance and is therefore open to ecocritical inquiry, regardless of its specific ideological claims or orientation.

Alan C. Braddock and Christoph Irmscher 73

Although Edward Burtynsky and Olafur Eliasson create landscapes that are intended to encourage contemplation, theirs are by no means neutral landscapes. As

Keri Cronin points out, contemplative works do not “easily allow for a division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in terms of environmental issues,” adding that “it is precisely this lack of ‘finger pointing’ that can generate the most useful approaches in the context of environmental activism.”74 This thesis has not set out to determine the activist potential of the work of Burtynsky and Eliasson, yet it is possible to argue that a call for environmental action can be found within their landscapes.

Based on the associations, experiences, responses and opinions evoked by their works, their landscapes raise several complex questions. For instance, how is Nature being represented? What is Nature’s function and purpose in these landscapes? Is human nature prioritized over the nonhuman? In these landscapes, can humanity

73 Alan C. Braddock and Christoph Irmscher, ‘Introduction,” A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies In American Art History (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2009), 9.

74 Keri Cronin, Imagining Resistance: Visual Culture and Activism in Canada ed. Keri Cronin and Kirsty Robertson (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2011), 247.

and industry form a partnership ethic with the environment and coexist in a relationship based on respect and equality? Have these landscapes fostered a new aesthetic experience of Nature? Is the pleasure evoked by these experiences of the nonhuman world based on Nature’s own demise? And, more specifically, has

Burtynsky trained viewers on the one hand to see the toxic and the threatened as beautiful and culturally acceptable, while on the other is Eliasson encouraging viewers to see the beautiful as toxic?

This thesis explores these questions, and attempts to demonstrate how not only the idea of Nature, but also its physicality has drastically changed in the face of contemporary society. With globalization, industrialization, and urbanization, it appears that the nonhuman environment has become an afterthought, and therefore its visual appearance and physical make-up have been modified. If we are to agree with W.J.T. Mitchell that landscape is a verb and ask “not just what landscape ‘is’ or

‘means’ but what it does, how it works as a cultural practice,”75 then we must ask what the landscapes of Burtynsky and Eliasson are doing and how they are working as a cultural practice. Throughout this project I have understood the landscapes of these artists as verbs, and have begun to address the issues involved in what they are doing, and perhaps more importantly, how they are doing it and what this may mean for the future of representations of Nature.

In order to conclude these arguments, and situate the work of these artists within the ecocritical scholarship of art history and environmentalism, I would like to provide a study that compares the landscapes of Burtynsky and Eliasson. For this

75 Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in Landscape and Power, 1.

comparison I have chosen to expand upon the theme of water, not only because it is one of our last remaining natural resources, but also because as Eliasson has explained, water is not only beautiful, it can be seen to represent humanity’s responsibility to the nonhuman world.76 As a natural resource, humanity is reliant on water, and in turn has a responsibility to conserve it. Eliasson uses water to interrogate how we interact with it on a day-to-day basis; do we take advantage of it? Do we neglect it? Do we protect or manage it? Do we acknowledge it? Writing of his reliance on and use of water in his work, Eliasson explains, “my idea is to explore whether we see the water as a dynamic element in the city—like transportation, for instance—or as a static image. Is it real, or is it a representation?”77 It is a question he has explored in his ongoing project Green River (figs. 18 and 19), which he first realized in 1998. In it, Eliasson publicly intervenes, unbeknownst to the public and to the governments and authorities, in a body of water by introducing uranin to it.

Michael Speaks explains that uranin is a non-toxic green dye, which emits a toxic looking glow, which is commonly used by naval forces to test ocean currents.78

Speaks writes, “green is the most natural colour, the colour of progressive politics, environmentalists, and indeed, the colour of life itself. But in the hands of Eliasson, green undergoes a fundamental change…[Green River] glow[s] with apparent toxicity; that overtakes as it pollutes…[and] despite its effervescent glow, gives

76 Olafur Eliasson, “Artist Statement & Podcast, 2008,” in The New York City Waterfalls. http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/#/Olafur_Eliasson/Artist-s_Statement (Accessed April 14, 2011).

77 Eliasson, “Interview I,” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt, 10.

78 Michael Speaks, “From the Red Desert to the Green River,” in Olafur Eliasson ed. Madeleine Grynsztein, Daniel Birnbaum, and Michael Speaks (New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002), 107.

every appearance of a swarming, mutant life-form.”79 The green produced from the uranin is so vibrant and bold that it stands in contradiction to the natural bodies of water in which it is dumped. When Eliasson introduces the substance, it is clear that toxic green colour appearing in the water is the product of human intervention.

Figure 18: Olafur Eliasson, Green River (1998). Green colour (uranin), water. Realization, Stockholm 2000.

Commenting on the Green River’s realization in Stockholm, Eliasson explained that the project was “hit-and-run,” meaning that he didn’t tell anyone about it, aside from his team. He wanted to see how people reacted to and experienced the work. In an interview Eliasson explained the process leading up to the Green River’s realization:

79 Speaks, “From the Red Desert to the Green River,” in Olafur Eliasson, 106.

I walked out onto the bridge with an assistant and we stood there with a shopping bag full of pigment. There was a traffic jam, so there were cars right next to us while we were standing on the sidewalk…I became increasingly nervous because it seemed that the people in the cars were staring at us thinking, ‘if those two guys with that large, strange-looking bag do something weird, I’ll call the police.’ After what seemed like an eternity, I thought, ‘what the heck, I’ll do it!’ The powder was red, so when I emptied the bag over the railing, a large red cloud appeared in the wind…obviously, I was nervous, since this big red cloud was floating over the water, sort of like a cloud of gas. And when it settled on the water, carried by the wind, the river turned completely green—like a shock wave.80

Eliasson continues by discussing the reaction to the dyeing of the River. He notes that “the story ended the next day when the front page of the newspaper showed the river and the headline read ‘The River Turned Green.’ There was also a small article saying that some people had called the police, but were told that the colour had come from some heating plant and was not at all dangerous.”81 In other words, the toxic looking red cloud and green river caused some to panic. The public was unaware of what happened, why it happened, and what it was. Police were involved, and a story emerged in order to reassure the public that the colour in the river was not dangerous, although the story used to reassure them was false.

In a discussion about the Green River project, Speaks observed that “though uranin appears toxic, it is actually less toxic than the river water into which it is

80 Eliasson, “Interview I,” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt, 8-9.

81 Eliasson, “Interview I,” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt, 9.

introduced, and with which it mixes. Artificial (non-toxic) dye commingles with natural (polluted) river water to form a new, hyperreal, ‘green river’ teaming with life.”82 The fact that the dye, which appears to be contaminating, is in fact less toxic than the river water itself is crucial to the environmental connotations of the work.

For Eliasson, it was important to alter the practice of looking and change our routine choice of viewing the water as static. He claims that “the point was not even Green

River, the point was how it looked before and after. The Green River is just a catalyst.”83 He used it to contaminate the established aesthetic. The scenic view of a meandering river flowing through a cityscape was corrupted by the toxic green dye.

The green dye itself was foreign and thus contaminated the river’s beauty; however, the contamination is complex because the viewer quickly associated the green with pollution, and perceived the river as contaminated on yet another level. Water directly linked to a cityscape is often considered an extension of the city, and as a result is commonly viewed as fixed; pedestrians can easily walk by without considering the water or their responsibility to it. By dyeing the river a vibrant toxic green, Eliasson literally visualized the threat of pollution. He not only questioned how we view the river, he is also asked people to acknowledge their responsibility to the water, and their reliance on it.

82 Speaks, “From the Red Desert to the Green River,” in Olafur Eliasson, 107.

83 Eliasson, quoted in “Olafur Eliasson/Daniel Birnbaum,” in pressPLAY, 182.

Figure 19: Olafur Eliasson, Green River (1998). Green colour (uranin), water. Realization, Bremen 2000.

The public stage for Green River, along with the mysterious quality of the dye, created a tense and panicked atmosphere. What was this toxic green? Why did it appear? Where did it come from? Who or what caused it? Was it harmful to humanity, or to the river and the nonhuman organism that inhabit it? The environmental and health concerns were obviously powerful enough to provoke a false story attributing the green in the river to a nearby heating plant. This raises important questions, such as: does knowledge and awareness make the toxic, or polluted, qualities of an environment more or less threatening? Do we have more or less responsibility to deal with potential toxins if we know what they are and where they came from? Are the environmental concerns more real if they are blatantly

visible, and therefore impossible to ignore? Does the shocking green colour in the

Green River project create a strong enough reaction to encourage environmental solutions and change? The list can go on, and these questions are difficult to address.

However, it is important to engage in discussion about them, and in an attempt to do so I would like to advance discussion of Burtynsky’s photographs of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (figs. 20 and 21).

Figure 20: Edward Burtynsky, Oil Spill #9 (2010). Oil Slick at Rip Tide, Gulf of Mexico.

The parallels between Eliasson’s Green River project and Burtynsky’s Oil Spill series are undeniable, especially in consideration to the environmental concerns they incorporate. In the photograph Oil Spill #9 (fig. 20), currents of black tar and oil

are infiltrating vibrant turquoise and blue coloured waters. Portions of the oil are being set ablaze by red and orange fires in an attempt to minimize their spread. In

Eliasson’s Green River the mesmerizing bold colour is deemed toxic and contaminated; here in the work of Burtynsky, the vibrant blues and greens represent the healthy and prosperous. The black oil is the contaminant, the bold green and blue colours as the healthy nonhuman world, the natural colours of the sea. On April 20, 2010 a gas release and explosion occurred on the Deepwater

Horizon oilrig, which was working on the Macondo exploration well for British

Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion created a substantial fire that burned for an estimated of 36 hours before the rig sank. As a result, oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days before BP confirmed that the well was closed, sealed, and effectively dead.84 Burtynsky took large format birds-eye-view photographs of the aftermath of the spill. He photographed a real event that was widely documented and reported on. Therefore, unlike those confronted with

Eliasson’s Green River, viewers were aware of what the toxin was, how it got there, and why it was harmful.

The impact of the oil industry on the health of the natural environment is highly scrutinized and heavily debated. This thesis does not set out to contribute to the oil debate, yet in consideration of Burtynsky’s Oil Spill series, one important topic in that discussion is necessary to briefly reference. Currently, humanity, and industrial and economic growth, rely heavily on oil, but with this reliance come

84 BP Global, Gulf of Mexico Restoration: The Deepwater Horizon Accident, http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9036575&contentId=7067541 (Accessed August 4, 2011).

consequences. The 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was not the first, nor will it be the last case of oil contaminating the nonhuman world. Andrew Nikiforuk has explained that “when an Enbridge spill of 6000 barrels threatened the Mississippi

River in 2002, the company lit the oil ablaze, creating a smoke plume one mile high and five miles long.”85 In that case, not only did the oil contaminate marine wildlife, but also the fires and smoke produced in an effort to eliminate the oil polluted the air. So it is significant that, in the more recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP released a statement, which read in part, “operations to skim oil from the surface of the water now have recovered, in total, approximately 610,000 barrels (25.6 million gallons) of oily liquid. In addition, a total of 275 controlled burns have been carried out to date, removing an estimated 239,000 barrels of oil from the sea's surface.”86 Six- thousand barrels of oil in the Mississippi River produced a five mile long smoke cloud, whereas BP was dealing with approximately 101 times more oil, and therefore it can be assumed that BP, when burning the oil, could potential create

101 more times the amount of airborne pollutant. The point here is that the oil spreading into the water is not only toxic to the marine wildlife; it is extremely hazardous to the entire ecosystem.

85 Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2010), 122.

86 BP Group Press Release, Update on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Surface Spill Response and Containment (June 25, 2010) http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7063132 (Accessed August 30, 2010).

Figure 21: Edward Burtynsky, Oil Spill #10 (2010). Oil Slick at Rip Tide, Gulf of Mexico.

The frightening and unsettling aspects of an oil spill are not seen in

Burtynsky’s photographs; they are however called upon based on viewers’ knowledge of the event. In Oil Spill #10 (fig. 21), the black oil from the spill can be seen streaming across the emerald green water as far as the horizon line where the water and the sky are only differentiated by the fluffy white clouds. The water and oil are in a state of hesitation; they have repelled each other, but are beginning to merge. The oil forms rich black swaying lines that move toward the left side of the photograph as the currents of water are pushed by the wind. The oil creeping across the image is not unlike the paint on paper being introduced to water for the first time. Burtynsky’s photograph choses not to depict the damage of the spill as such;

the dead or dying animals covered in oil and the shores and foliage drenched in tar remain unseen. Oil Spill #10 is pleasing to look at. It is only through viewers’ knowledge of such events, which heightens their awareness of Burtynsky’s aestheticizing, that the photograph takes on a darker meaning. By informing viewers that the black is in fact oil, they are aware of the environmental consequences that come with such an image. The photograph speaks to the reality of the situation.

Although aestheticized, this is a photograph of a real event that devastated the nonhuman world. Burtynsky’s has aestheticized the contaminated in order to develop a new definition of Nature, and again viewers are acutely aware that he has done so. His landscape evokes guilt and shame, and in doing so, I argue, Burtynsky is asking viewers to reflect on their responses; the negative associations they bring to what is otherwise the beautiful composition in front of them asks them to take responsibility. “The immediacy of the photographic image,” as Cronin puts it, “…has the ability to capture attention, to tug at emotions, and to sway opinions.”87 In the case of the Oil Spill series, the photographs grab viewers’ attention based on the reality they depict. They work to forge emotional connections with viewers based on viewer knowledge of and relationship with the world it portrays. The environmental urgency is difficult to deny.

Eliasson’s Green River project effectively contaminates the aesthetic by intervening with the seemingly unchanging river flowing through the cityscape; on the other hand, Burtynsky’s Oil Spill series works to aestheticize the contaminated by beautifying the often unseen landscapes of the oil industry. In this case study I

87 Cronin, Imagining Resistance, 244.

have presented opposites: the dye in Green River is the vibrant colour that was understood as contaminating, whereas the vibrant colours of the water in the Oil

Spill series are understood as contaminated. Eliasson and Burtynsky are using different approaches, yet both contribute to environmental discussions and ecocritical scholarship. They promote contemplation, or as Burtynsky suggests, present reflecting pools that encourage analysis of the relationships that exist between the nonhuman world, the human world, and the mechanical or industrial world. They visualize environmental concern, and by mobilizing a “shaming discourse,” are able to suggest human culpability and encourage environmental change. In the work of both artists there is evidence to suggest that both the nonhuman world and Nature are not only changing, they are in the process of demise. Richard White claims that “although Nature is only an idea, it is unlike most other ideas in that we claim to see, feel, and touch it...[W]e don’t often pine for old definitions and ideas. What we miss more are people, animals, landscapes that have vanished.”88 I would agree with this statement. Burtynsky and Eliasson create nostalgia for “paradise lost.” The concept of Nature as pristine is called upon in their works in order to generate it. Nature’s demise suggests the emergence of a “new reality”—a new understanding of the nonhuman world.

As this thesis has demonstrated, the intersection of environmental studies and art history is a rich and diverse area of research that is increasingly relevant for contemporary environmental concerns. Chapter one of this thesis sets out to argue

88 Richard White, “’Are You and Environmentalist of Do You Work for a Living?’: Work and Nature,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 183.

that landscape is a very complex and ambiguous term, because it is what viewers perceive, select, mediate, and modify to fit their particular needs and desires. It does so by calling upon a core selection of scholarship from the fields of art history and environmental studies. To further this, chapters two and three demonstrate how artists are contributing to the discussions surrounding current environmental issues. I have argued that the monumental photographs of Edward Burtynsky are effectively aestheticizing the contaminated, and in opposition to this, that the constructed landscapes of Olafur Eliasson are contaminating the established aesthetic. As alluded to in Chapter two, this thesis examines the issue of imagined versus real spaces, and how the lines may be blurred between the two. As N.

Katherine Hayles has commented, “what counts as reality for us resides neither in the world by itself nor in the observer by herself but in the interaction between the beholder and the world.”89 In this regard, it is viewers’ perceptions, as well as their experiences and interactions with the world that define it as a reality.

In the case study presented here, I contend that landscapes may be deemed natural and industrial, they are constructed and manufactured, and yet they utilize and merge with what is considered the natural world. It has not been the intent of this thesis to evaluate Burtynsky’s and Eliasson’s abilities to express environmental concerns, but rather to explore the effects of their representation on our understanding of the surrounding environment, and how they have contributed to the advancement of a definition of Nature that includes its own degradation as a site

89 N. Katherine Hayles, “Simulated Nature and Natural Simulations: Rethinking the Relation between the Beholder and the World,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 425.

of pleasure. Bill McKibben has stated, “we have changed the atmosphere and thus we are changing the weather. By changing the weather, we make every spot on earth man-made and artificial. We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us.”90 Burtynsky and Eliasson provide visual evidence for this; through their manufactured landscapes, or landscapes altered by human activity, it becomes clear that Nature is in no way independent or self-sufficient. In every inch of their landscapes the viewer is provided with the mark of human intervention. The complexities of this topic, as well as the works of these artists, have only been touched upon in this thesis. As I have argued, the relationship between artistic investment in landscape and environmental issues is not necessarily a new topic; however, a heavy inflection on these issues in the present day public forum has transformed the scholarly discourse surrounding the depiction of the land we inhabit.

The relevance and urgency of environmental issues for contemporary society has advanced this research. However, I would like to suggest that more work could be done here. For instance, this project could be developed to include not only a discussion of how art can contribute to environmental scholarship, but also an exploration of its potential to engage in political, cultural, social, and therefore environmental change. Eliasson has stated, “I believe the audience has much more power than it’s actually allowed to exert. Too often, museums pacify, rather than

90 McKibben, The End of Nature, 50.

activate, audiences.”91 He raises the question of how installations in art institutions differ from public displays of art in their ability to both raise and legitimize environmental issues. Throughout my study I have hinted at the ability of Eliasson and Burtynsky to subtly promote environmental change by implicating the viewer, but an examination of how different landscape art practices may become activist in spirit and practice can further this research. It is important to examine the relationships between visual culture, art, and environmental studies because issues such as global warming, climate change, decreasing supplies of fresh water, deforestation, species extinction, and a depleting ozone layer are only a few environmental realities that do not often take priority within social and cultural arenas.

The interrogation of artists’ involvement in raising pressing environmental issues can promote new discussions, educate a diverse audience, and ask new questions about these persistent concerns. I have supported the argument that art can act as a tool for investigating environmental ethics and environmental conservation. As Mitchell has argued, landscape is an agent of power, and as an agent of power, landscape and landscape art can have a significant role in altering our relationship and treatment of the natural world. 92 Mitchell writes that

“landscape (whether urban or rural, artificial or natural) always greets us as a space, as environment, as that within which ‘we’ (figured as ‘the figures’ in the landscape)

91 Eliasson, “Interview I,” in Olafur Eliasson/Hans Ulrich Obristt, 28.

92 Mitchell, “Introduction,” in Landscape and Power, 2.

find—or lose—ourselves.”93 Although not physically depicted or present in the landscapes of Burtynsky and Eliasson, we the viewers are positioned as the figures of these landscapes, and in turn the producers of these spaces. Do these landscapes present a space in which we can find or lose ourselves, and if this is the case, are they spaces we would want to find ourselves, or lose ourselves in?

93 Mitchell, “Introduction,” in Landscape and Power, 2.

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