Environmental Art

12 articles

Environmental art is a category of art that often looks to address political, social, and ecological issues about urban and natural environments. Some environmental artists usually focus on politically and ecologically inspired works of art, but others use their pieces to reveal our historical relationship with nature. The term was coined in the late 1960s and is generally associated with land art and Earth art.

At their core, environmental artworks use an array of natural materials (such as stones, twigs, etc.) to pay home to the artist’s connection with nature. They are often considered a form of installation art. Some of the most influential Environmental artists include Agnes Denes, Andy Goldsworthy, Christo, Olafur Eliasson and Robert Smithson.

Joseph Beuys - 7000 Oaks, 1982, Dennhäuser Straße, Kassel, Germany, planted from 1984 feat

Joseph Beuys’ ambitious plan to plant 7000 oaks

Environmental Art, Installations, Video Art / 5 minutes of reading
7000 Oaks is an environmental artwork created by German artist Joseph Beuys. The artist proposed a plan to have 7000 oaks trees planted across the Germany city of Kassel, each tree accompanied with basalt stone, 4 feet high above the ground. Joseph Beuys’ objection was for the project to extend throughout the world as the […]

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Robert Smithson - Spiral Jetty

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty – Everything you need to know

Environmental Art, Installations / 10 minutes of reading
Spiral Jetty is one of the most well-known earthwork sculptures, as well as the most famous and influential work by sculptor Robert Smithson. Shortly after the Spiral Jetty was constructed in 1970, it faced various challenges. People have wanted to destroy the project and put the land on which it lies into a different use.

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Agnes Denes - Wheatfield - A Confrontation, 1982, Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan

Why did Agnes Denes create this Wheatfield in New York?

Environmental Art, Installations / 10 minutes of reading
Agnes Denes is a renowned Hungary-American and artist with numerous pioneering artworks that carried a prophetic message. She is known for her groundbreaking use of metallic inks and other non-traditional materials in creating an unusual body of exquisitely rendered prints and drawings that delineate her explorations in philosophy, mathematics, science, geography, and other disciplines. In

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Magdalena Jetelovà’s Iceland Project

Environmental Art, Installations, Light Installations / 2 minutes of reading
Magdalena Jetelovà is perhaps best known the world over for her 1990s work Domestication of Pyramids. Light works In the 1990s, Magdalena Jetelovà transitioned to the artwork that uses light as a tool to define territories and uncover the secrets that our universe conceals. With a combination of laser use and black & white photography

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Why you should explore Andy Goldsworthy’s Wood Line

Environmental Art, Installations / 7 minutes of reading
Andy Goldsworthy is a widely known artist famous for creating intricate and elaborate sculptures with his bare hands. He draws his inspirations and motivations to work from a specific location. If he likes the site, he creates art using natural materials he finds around the place, including icicles, stones, mud, flower petals, leaves, twigs, snow

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Artist Richard Long’s groundbreaking A line made by walking

Environmental Art, Mixed media / 4 minutes of reading
The photograph reveals a straight line receding towards tall bushes and trees. It is a straight line of trampled grass that appears in a field. Below the image, the writing says A Line Made By Walking and England 1967. The whole artwork is a documentation of Richard Long’s land artwork. It documents his work: The

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Olafur Eliasson’s Meditated Motion – A pond in a museum

Environmental Art, Installations / 3 minutes of reading
Throughout his career, Olafur Eliasson has participated in a number of critically acclaimed exhibitions worldwide. His works have been displayed in numerous private and public collections all over the world, including the Guggenheim Museum as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, just to name a few. Eliasson always includes his audience as

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Andy Goldsworthy – Touching North, 1989, North Pole feat

Andy Goldsworthy’s four massive ice sculptures at the North Pole

Environmental Art, Sculptures / 3 minutes of reading
In 1989, Andy Goldsworthy created four massive snow rings at one the most remote place on Planet Earth, the North Pole. These ephemeral sculptures marked the position of the North Pole and were built around it. Through any of the four sculptures, the direction will always be south. An Inuit teaching snow-cutting & packing techniques

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Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project – Everything you should know

Environmental Art, Installations / 4 minutes of reading
Olafur Eliasson has created a gigantic installation which in 2003 took overall space in Tate Modern, London. The artwork, a sun rising out of a mist, was bound to keep any visitor in awe. In this project named The Weather Project, the Scandinavian artist recreated the sun and the sky to occupy the Turbine Hall.

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Kaarina Kaikkonen – These are some of her best installations

Environmental Art, Installations / 3 minutes of reading
Kaarina Kaikkonen is one of Finland’s most important artists. She is best known for her inventive use of second-hand clothing pieces (mostly jackets & shirts) and molded craft paper to transform public places like churches, streets and plazas into memorable jacket installations. The environment is incorporated into these installations in some way, resulting in a

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