In the last three decades, the art world has started to shake off the slumber of climate crisis indifference. Little by little, artists and institutions alike started to catch up with what the public of the early 2000s still saw as a scientific theory, not a real threat. As a result, we have reached a point where the visual language of the climate emergency has reached extraordinary heights of sophistication. Still, we are yet to focus on what is socially and politically influential.

Whoever has been lucky enough to see Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project (2003) in person will know what I mean when I say that the climate crisis can be a valuable device to evoke both the awe and terror of the sublime. At one point in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London, the widely-acclaimed installation placed visitors in a tall tunnel of sunset light, breaking through a dense fog. The ‘sun’, hanging high up in the darkness, is a massive globe of burning light. The range of responses to Eliasson’s piece showcased that it was experienced as a beautiful contemplative space and a post-apocalyptic vision of the Earth charred and emptied.

This unique vocabulary of the picturesque climate crisis has been taken on by younger generations of artists and spun in myriad ways. Fabien Barrau’s image of the Statue of Liberty drowned in the ocean exemplifies the sombre imagery of young digital artists. But do these post-apocalyptic visions do anything more than instilling a dizzying sense of inescapable doom? There is a danger of rocking back and forth in hypnotised awe of the horrors ahead: if we are too paralysed to change course, we may roll straight off the cliff.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.