Andrew Revkin on facebook about the need and
role of ethics in the debate:
Ethics: Crucial Missing Element in Negotiations: Duties and
Responsibilities, Not Just Narrow National Economic Interest
http://climateethics.org/?p=320
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Day 7 Copenhagen 12:30 PM Susanne and her friend wait out her contractions while the world waits for progress
Three hours later, Susanne gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Why do I include that information in this blog? Because the youngest will be the greatest victims of climate change in this new world and we must never forget that. With the joy of birth comes the responsibility to see things change.
Sacha Kagan's border work
Along with yellow police tape (printed in the USA with the text "THIS IS NOT A NATURAL BORDER"), and flyers asking people to question their relationship to borders, strung along the street, these 'wet" signs indicate danger. This work, installed in the midst of an immigrant neighborhood makes a relationship between immigration, global warming and psychological impact. Far from the crowds of middle class protestors, the efforts towards engagement between passersby and Sacha's modest team, as flyers are offered explaining the work, highlights one more border between peoples of the world and one more opportunity to disregard borders and connect.
Day 7 Copenhagen Framing Art Now Here
On Dec 12, 2009, at 9:28 PM, Suzaan Boettger, Ph.D. wrote:
Aviva – I hope you’ll be able to view and send your descriptions of the pertinent art exhibitions in Copenhagen. Have you seen the below, or has anyone read a review of it?
‘(Re-) Cycles of Paradise,’ at the UN Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7–18, 2009. The exhibition is organized by ARTPORT making wavesand commissioned by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.
I gave this request from Suzaan a lot of thought last night. I have commented on the beautiful ARTPORT show in an earlier blog. I always like Subankhar's work, basically the same thing he showed at the Weather Report show but installed more simply & smaller. I will write about the work of Sacha & Oleg, the people I'm closest to here. Thursday, I will try to get to some films. Friday afternoon, after my press conference, if there are no important sessions scheduled, I might get out to museums, etc.
But the "pertinent" environmental work is NOT in art exhibitions here. if I were to review good "environmentist art" in Copenhagen now, none of it would be in a museum or gallery. That is NOT where the cutting edge of thinking or production about the relationship between life & art is in my opinion.
My task here is NOT to recapitulate the same old tired frame of perception that has been recycled for the past forty years or to comment on art as a comment on art. I have a clear task as an artist: to reframe the critical discourse about art in terms I find most meaningful, based on what I perceive as a human being in my times, in order to reframe what it means to be human today. It is our frame of perception that need to recreated in order to change our behavior.
"Environmentalist" art that excites me and the reason I do the kind of work I do now, is the same reason, as a very young artist, I was drawn to & worked with Robert Rauschenberg & Allan Kaprow, the Bread & Puppet Theatre, was inspired by Alexandro Jodowrowsky and eventually worked with Judy Chicago. Long before I met them, from a much younger age, I had traditional training and went thru Cooper, Cal Arts etc. My movement to less static versions of art in the mid-sixties was deliberate, intuitive and educated. The movement back to static perception can be a comment in itself but that is not what I'm seeing in conventional exhibitions.
My own work and what excites me as an artist today is not individual star-based art in an even more static room, addressing audiences remotely perceiving a mediated experience. This is not to say I don't think installations, paintings, whatever don't have a place but they aren't RELEVANT here and now in the way they are being presented. Many people, like Alfredo Jaar this year, stand out at times. But my time here is a precious opportunity. It is focused on change. I make no distinction between formal art and international politics in that word in this context. Maybe it is ultimately myself doing the most transforming.
The best art I see here and now is in the engagement with a larger, sometimes invisible group that is responding to the most pressing present situation: how to get a binding agreement, how to express the pain of delay. And maybe it's the latter that makes static art in static space so difficult to concentrate on here.
This situation is extremely painful to those losing land, home, life while others, as the USA conservative party enforces delay. I have seen nothing in formal exhibition that powerfully conveys that reality.
The closest was watching and listening to Sarah James at ARTPORT, while Subankhar filmed her. And that unframed moment would not be considered "pertinent environmentalist exhibition" by many. Subankhar is the art star. But in that situation, his status and technical skills were at the service of a much more dramatic event: the testimony of a beautiful woman (not by any conventional standards: she is short, large and gray) in beautiful dress, saying and singing beautiful things about a beautiful world we are relentlessly, often casually, utterly destroying. The frame for that event was their personal relationship and the entire world's eyes on this city and awareness of delays in COP caused by the developed countries. Judged by the limits of the literal exhibition space, or conventional modernist formal perceptions, it was a native woman in costume being filmed by the important photographer Subankhar Bannerjee in the beautiful ARTPORT gallery, surrounded by excellent work, elegantly displayed.
But that was NOT the frame of perception I brought to the event nor the one I would want to see blessed. The fact that the curators had the prescience to foresee the power of that situation is a positive comment on them, comparable to Ronald Feldman picking up Mierle Ukeles in the early seventies for the Feldman Gallery. The difference is that Sarah James' moment with Subankhar can't be hung on a wall or packaged for export.
What makes the "exhibition space" dead, in this context compared, say to Sacha Kagan handing out elegant yellow and black leaflets, in an immigrant neighborhood, far from the hundreds of thousands marching, about our relationships to borders, is it's disconnect from actual life events. It isn't the fault of the artists or any of the curators or the buildings where the exhibitions are mounted but it does render their appeal minimal, NOW.
To sum up, in response to Suzaan, art that has power and allure for me, is framed, deliberately or incidentally, by life events, not by an exhibition space. I am trying to draw attention to another kind of framing.
Aviva – I hope you’ll be able to view and send your descriptions of the pertinent art exhibitions in Copenhagen. Have you seen the below, or has anyone read a review of it?
‘(Re-) Cycles of Paradise,’ at the UN Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7–18, 2009. The exhibition is organized by ARTPORT making wavesand commissioned by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.
I gave this request from Suzaan a lot of thought last night. I have commented on the beautiful ARTPORT show in an earlier blog. I always like Subankhar's work, basically the same thing he showed at the Weather Report show but installed more simply & smaller. I will write about the work of Sacha & Oleg, the people I'm closest to here. Thursday, I will try to get to some films. Friday afternoon, after my press conference, if there are no important sessions scheduled, I might get out to museums, etc.
But the "pertinent" environmental work is NOT in art exhibitions here. if I were to review good "environmentist art" in Copenhagen now, none of it would be in a museum or gallery. That is NOT where the cutting edge of thinking or production about the relationship between life & art is in my opinion.
My task here is NOT to recapitulate the same old tired frame of perception that has been recycled for the past forty years or to comment on art as a comment on art. I have a clear task as an artist: to reframe the critical discourse about art in terms I find most meaningful, based on what I perceive as a human being in my times, in order to reframe what it means to be human today. It is our frame of perception that need to recreated in order to change our behavior.
"Environmentalist" art that excites me and the reason I do the kind of work I do now, is the same reason, as a very young artist, I was drawn to & worked with Robert Rauschenberg & Allan Kaprow, the Bread & Puppet Theatre, was inspired by Alexandro Jodowrowsky and eventually worked with Judy Chicago. Long before I met them, from a much younger age, I had traditional training and went thru Cooper, Cal Arts etc. My movement to less static versions of art in the mid-sixties was deliberate, intuitive and educated. The movement back to static perception can be a comment in itself but that is not what I'm seeing in conventional exhibitions.
My own work and what excites me as an artist today is not individual star-based art in an even more static room, addressing audiences remotely perceiving a mediated experience. This is not to say I don't think installations, paintings, whatever don't have a place but they aren't RELEVANT here and now in the way they are being presented. Many people, like Alfredo Jaar this year, stand out at times. But my time here is a precious opportunity. It is focused on change. I make no distinction between formal art and international politics in that word in this context. Maybe it is ultimately myself doing the most transforming.
The best art I see here and now is in the engagement with a larger, sometimes invisible group that is responding to the most pressing present situation: how to get a binding agreement, how to express the pain of delay. And maybe it's the latter that makes static art in static space so difficult to concentrate on here.
This situation is extremely painful to those losing land, home, life while others, as the USA conservative party enforces delay. I have seen nothing in formal exhibition that powerfully conveys that reality.
The closest was watching and listening to Sarah James at ARTPORT, while Subankhar filmed her. And that unframed moment would not be considered "pertinent environmentalist exhibition" by many. Subankhar is the art star. But in that situation, his status and technical skills were at the service of a much more dramatic event: the testimony of a beautiful woman (not by any conventional standards: she is short, large and gray) in beautiful dress, saying and singing beautiful things about a beautiful world we are relentlessly, often casually, utterly destroying. The frame for that event was their personal relationship and the entire world's eyes on this city and awareness of delays in COP caused by the developed countries. Judged by the limits of the literal exhibition space, or conventional modernist formal perceptions, it was a native woman in costume being filmed by the important photographer Subankhar Bannerjee in the beautiful ARTPORT gallery, surrounded by excellent work, elegantly displayed.
But that was NOT the frame of perception I brought to the event nor the one I would want to see blessed. The fact that the curators had the prescience to foresee the power of that situation is a positive comment on them, comparable to Ronald Feldman picking up Mierle Ukeles in the early seventies for the Feldman Gallery. The difference is that Sarah James' moment with Subankhar can't be hung on a wall or packaged for export.
What makes the "exhibition space" dead, in this context compared, say to Sacha Kagan handing out elegant yellow and black leaflets, in an immigrant neighborhood, far from the hundreds of thousands marching, about our relationships to borders, is it's disconnect from actual life events. It isn't the fault of the artists or any of the curators or the buildings where the exhibitions are mounted but it does render their appeal minimal, NOW.
To sum up, in response to Suzaan, art that has power and allure for me, is framed, deliberately or incidentally, by life events, not by an exhibition space. I am trying to draw attention to another kind of framing.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Day 6 Copenhagen Chilled to the Bone and Soul-warmed
Came home about an hour ago, after helping Sacha & Oleg set up their installations for tomorrow. They chose locations far from the mainstream demonstrations to reach a working class neighborhood with many immigrants.
It's below zero here and I'm still chilled to the bone. But reports arethat there were over 100,000 in themain demonstration. The TV news showed demonstrators sitting on the cold asphalt of the road in this weather, hands handcuffed behind them. Oleg, who rode by them on his bicycle coming home, said they had arrested about 900 and they had been sitting there, practically motionless in this bone-chilled weather, with no bathroom or other facilities for hours, as the police ate pizza close by.
This evening, the newscaster described the demonstration as peaceful, like a party. Why then these arrests? The Precautionary Principle at work? Apparently the police cut the demonstration in half and fairly randomly arrested anyone wearing black. In NYC, they wouldn't be able to STOP arresting people if that's the criteria. Apparently, people who live along the site where the arrests were made, have opened their windows and are playing music to hearten the demonstrators.
A traditional party for the NGOs was scheduled at Bella Center tonight. It feels too cold to go out again but I am warmed by the idea that local people wanted to hearten those who stood up for their beliefs, even if they had to sit in the cold road to do so.
It's below zero here and I'm still chilled to the bone. But reports arethat there were over 100,000 in themain demonstration. The TV news showed demonstrators sitting on the cold asphalt of the road in this weather, hands handcuffed behind them. Oleg, who rode by them on his bicycle coming home, said they had arrested about 900 and they had been sitting there, practically motionless in this bone-chilled weather, with no bathroom or other facilities for hours, as the police ate pizza close by.
This evening, the newscaster described the demonstration as peaceful, like a party. Why then these arrests? The Precautionary Principle at work? Apparently the police cut the demonstration in half and fairly randomly arrested anyone wearing black. In NYC, they wouldn't be able to STOP arresting people if that's the criteria. Apparently, people who live along the site where the arrests were made, have opened their windows and are playing music to hearten the demonstrators.
A traditional party for the NGOs was scheduled at Bella Center tonight. It feels too cold to go out again but I am warmed by the idea that local people wanted to hearten those who stood up for their beliefs, even if they had to sit in the cold road to do so.
Day 6 Copenhagen Action Inaction: art's role in Moving us towards a Binding and Just Treaty
I know it must look from the outside like nothing is happening here and be frustrating to many who can't see what's happening. But I can tell people that more is happening than you can see from the outside. The action Tuvalu took Wednes has enormous repercussions because it threw down the gauntlet to all the "Parties" of COP.
The work of many at COP is to move forward regardless of the COP portion of proceedings (the distinction is that this is a gathering where we can all learn from each others projects in side events and social gatherings and develop a consensus about the legal "norm" for agreements. COP is the Conference of the Parties that puts that norm into formal legal agreements). The interval since Wednes has allowed attention to the language (which is why I've worked with the Ethics group) that will create international and ultimately trans-national legal precedents. If the impasse is sustained until the leaders arrive next week, then they will have to put a layer on Kyoto that will be the Copenhagen amendment.
Ed Morris blogged about the frustration with inaction in Copenhagen. But what I see from inside COP15 is plenty of action, just not obvious and dramatic. The urgency of activism inside and outside is slowly filtering thru to the meetings. Ethical action will be the result of years of work from the Ethics group.
The Ethics group work on language I've been tracking and involved with may seem nitpicking but it is the patient persistent work that will move events forward towards a just binding agreement. My engagement as an artist here is to be part of a team discourse that has no big drama-spectacle but does design our future.
The leader of the Ethics group, Don Brown, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science and Law at Penn State, was the lead lawyer for the Superfund under Clinton. They have been working on this problem for a long time and it is filtering thru to all the other groups. As far as the American position, as Kirk Junker, another member of the Ethics group, Chair of the American Law division at the University of Cologne put it, Americans respond to morality. that's why Carl Rove got Bush elected. It can be used to leverage the good. And incidentally, for Americans, this is why tort reform is the most dangerous thing the right can do to the left right now in the USA. Tort reform is where a plaintiff can ask that a law be reconsidered.
Art that allows itself to be at the service of old notions of art is not where I think we will make the new world that needs to respond to new conditions. I have spent some time here (at COP) explaining that my ideas aren't about art as entertainment, decoration, illustration or art as a tool (tho it can be all those things too). This is a new approach to artmaking for many. It is grounded in the history of conceptual, activist and performance art. Just as the climate changes are going faster than any of us can track, as artists, I think we are running to stay ahead of the curve. Sometimes that run is the art.
From the point of view of my approach to art, it is about finding the one small trigger point in a situation that will catalyze a larger effect and then putting my attention, as an artist, there. I am getting press credentials Monday, which will entitle me to attend the meetings with the leaders. That is where all this work will be tested. I feel like all I've done this past week, all I will do in the three day workshop/performance I'll lead at the Centre for World Culture, outside the conference, will prepare me to have some understanding of what will happen by the time Obama arrives at the end of next week.
Having my own press conference the same Friday he arrives and framing what I will present in a larger movement of ecological art in response to our times, is my one opportunity here to express another point of view based on what I've observed here. And after all, it is that observation that us artists are trained to do. As far as I know, it is the ONLY event where an artist will address the policy community here and I will do it thru the media. Just wish for me, please, that I have the time & skill, to bring them into the room and then fire their imagination once they are there.
The work of many at COP is to move forward regardless of the COP portion of proceedings (the distinction is that this is a gathering where we can all learn from each others projects in side events and social gatherings and develop a consensus about the legal "norm" for agreements. COP is the Conference of the Parties that puts that norm into formal legal agreements). The interval since Wednes has allowed attention to the language (which is why I've worked with the Ethics group) that will create international and ultimately trans-national legal precedents. If the impasse is sustained until the leaders arrive next week, then they will have to put a layer on Kyoto that will be the Copenhagen amendment.
Ed Morris blogged about the frustration with inaction in Copenhagen. But what I see from inside COP15 is plenty of action, just not obvious and dramatic. The urgency of activism inside and outside is slowly filtering thru to the meetings. Ethical action will be the result of years of work from the Ethics group.
The Ethics group work on language I've been tracking and involved with may seem nitpicking but it is the patient persistent work that will move events forward towards a just binding agreement. My engagement as an artist here is to be part of a team discourse that has no big drama-spectacle but does design our future.
The leader of the Ethics group, Don Brown, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science and Law at Penn State, was the lead lawyer for the Superfund under Clinton. They have been working on this problem for a long time and it is filtering thru to all the other groups. As far as the American position, as Kirk Junker, another member of the Ethics group, Chair of the American Law division at the University of Cologne put it, Americans respond to morality. that's why Carl Rove got Bush elected. It can be used to leverage the good. And incidentally, for Americans, this is why tort reform is the most dangerous thing the right can do to the left right now in the USA. Tort reform is where a plaintiff can ask that a law be reconsidered.
Art that allows itself to be at the service of old notions of art is not where I think we will make the new world that needs to respond to new conditions. I have spent some time here (at COP) explaining that my ideas aren't about art as entertainment, decoration, illustration or art as a tool (tho it can be all those things too). This is a new approach to artmaking for many. It is grounded in the history of conceptual, activist and performance art. Just as the climate changes are going faster than any of us can track, as artists, I think we are running to stay ahead of the curve. Sometimes that run is the art.
From the point of view of my approach to art, it is about finding the one small trigger point in a situation that will catalyze a larger effect and then putting my attention, as an artist, there. I am getting press credentials Monday, which will entitle me to attend the meetings with the leaders. That is where all this work will be tested. I feel like all I've done this past week, all I will do in the three day workshop/performance I'll lead at the Centre for World Culture, outside the conference, will prepare me to have some understanding of what will happen by the time Obama arrives at the end of next week.
Having my own press conference the same Friday he arrives and framing what I will present in a larger movement of ecological art in response to our times, is my one opportunity here to express another point of view based on what I've observed here. And after all, it is that observation that us artists are trained to do. As far as I know, it is the ONLY event where an artist will address the policy community here and I will do it thru the media. Just wish for me, please, that I have the time & skill, to bring them into the room and then fire their imagination once they are there.
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