A B

G E N E R A L A R T I C L E R I
T O

The Ecological Imperative:

L
& O
G
Y

Elements of Nature in Late

A B S T R A C T

T he author draws atten-

Twentieth-Century Art tion to visual artworks of the

1980s and 1990s in which
artists, drawing upon diverse
trends, disciplines and artistic
generations, applied materials
directly from the surrounding
Aleksandra Manczak environment in pieces called
eco-installations. The text
attempts to explain certain
creative postures and artistic
decisions in the context of our
advanced civilization its
achievements and threats alike.
The eco-installations subtle,
There are different ecological impulses; there is no ecological sense. iting waste, of economizing water
subdued, gentle, fragile, eet-
resources, if we do not perceive the ing, whose nite existence (like
Umberto Eco
necessary co-existence of all life- that of living organisms doomed
forms, if we do not treat earth, to pass away) reects the
The history of human activity can, with great simpli cation, be water and air as our mutual artists own decisions are in
urgent need of identi cation,
called one of perpetual destruction and restoration. A sad qual- homewhere, then, is our will to analysis and documentation.
i cation ought to be made, though, that since a certain point live and who, in truth, are we? If it Among artists recognized in
in time, the activity of restoration has been unable to keep up is a fact that the limits of growth international circles, the author
with that of destruction. Particularly the nineteenth and twen- have been scienti cally proven, situates two Polish artists
perhaps less well known than
tieth centuries have been the most disquieting in this respect. should there not be another di-
their colleagues.
It is easy to surmise that this situation cannot last forever. mension to our existence? What is
There are opinions in some scienti c milieus that our an- the role of art in this situation?
nihilationwhether by means of our exhaustion of natural re-
sources and other life-forms or through some cosmic
catastropheis but a matter of time. This seemingly distant
but still impending limit to civilization does not absolve us of Fig. 1. Anna Goebel, from the cycle To Winds and Birches, birch
responsibility, however, and it does not reduce the extent of twigs, hemp, linen, 240 3 198 3 60 cm, 1994. ( Anna Goebel)
our present problems, in urgent need of radical solution. As
Eco has written, There is no way of pretending any more that
the burning issue of our planets salvation does not exist [1].
Human activity has been constantly accompanied by a pe-
culiar inner split resulting from the great expectations raised
by scienti c discovery and theory, as confronted with the re-
sults of our in uence upon the environment. In time hu-
manitys drive for cognition and knowledge has brought forth
bitter disappointment and disillusionment with the human
being as such, and with the effects of our activity.
Stanislaw Lem reminds us, We must realize that anthropo-
genesis occurred over roughly a million years, while culture-
making human civilizations have taken up but a few most
recent seconds upon the face of the four-billion-year-old geo-
logical clock [2]. It is also worth noting that, in those few
most recent seconds, our very culture-making human civi-
lizations have become capable of putting an end to the exis-
tence of all Earths living creatures. It has been our choice and
our fault that the world of owers, animals and people has be-
come endangered. It was not long ago that the maxim Ars
longa vita brevis (Art is long, life is short) rang true. Now
it seems we must alter it to Ars brevis vita in periculo (Short-
lived art, life in danger).
To all these perturbing questions yet another could be
added: if we do not understand the multiple advantages of lim-

Aleksandra Manczak (artist, teacher), Adwentowicza 6/91, 92 536 L odz, Poland.

Translated by Malgorzata Musial.

2002 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 131136, 2002 131
A B
R I
T O
L
& O
G eco-arrangements and eco-installations.
Y
Fig. 2. Anna Goebel, Triangular, 56 elements of 40 130-cm-high barked pine trunks, 1992.
( Anna Goebel)
NATURE AS MATERIAL
AND CO-CREATOR
When writing for Leonardo in 1987 I cited
J.P. Hodin [3]. I could not know then
how much signi cance and validity I
would come to nd in his words. Has any-
thing changed since then? Unfortu-
nately, the spiritual crisis of culture has
persisted, if it has not in fact deepened.
The human race, now better than ever
equipped to recognize environmental
threats, is now trying to cope with them,
yet their scope remains frightening.
In 1988 I spent 3 months in Australia
visiting regions of its south and center. I
was overwhelmed by the lavishness of na-
ture in those places, the endless open
spaces, the brightness of the colors, the
strength of the natural light. Yet, while
facing natures power, I could not for a
minute get rid of the pressing thought
how long will we still be able to enjoy the
works created solely according to Nature
and Times scenario?
In uenced by my impressions of and
re ections on this place, I eagerly altered
my own means of artistic expression on
my return to Poland. I proclaimed my-
self more determinedly in favor of creat-
ing spatial arrangements; I call some of
these works eco-installations.
We can nd in such types of works il-
lustration of the writings of Colin Wilson,
Thomas Berry, James Hillman, Suzi Gab-
lik, Charlene Spretnak and, in Poland,
Grzegorz Dziamski:
The question of what art will be at the
end of the millennium now coming to its
132 Manczak, The Ecological Imperative
close can now be answered with a great
deal of probabilityit will be eco-art. It
is ecology that unites the dispersed plots
of our culture: ecology unites what is ra-
tional with what escapes rational specu-
lation; scienti c thinking with
experiences of a religious and mystic na-
ture; civilized pragmatism with the
dream of transcendence. And all of that
progresses towards some new, integral
consciousness. Art brings closer and cre-
ates that sort of consciousness, getting us
ready to enter a new epoch some
philosophers call the environmental
epoch, and others, the global policy
epoch [4].
Among the rst modern artists to turn
to nature for materials to realize their
ideas were Walter de Maria, who in 1968
piled 45 sq m of fresh soil at the Heiner
Friedrich Gallery in Munich; Mario
Merz, who realized the piece Island over
the years 1975 1982; Joseph Beuys, with
his idea of planting 7,000 oak trees; and
certainly Robert Smithson, rst of all with
his Spiral Jetty, piled in Utahs Great Salt
Lake in 1970.
These artists, in search of a broad base
of existential reference for their art, re-
vealed that quotations taken directly
from nature could act to co-create the
work of art; they introduced a new di-
mension to the process of creation (ac-
centuating its mental and intellectual
aspects and de-emphasizing manual vir-
tuosity). I nd the examples of Arte
Povera and Land Art, as well as the real-
izations by the artists mentioned above
notwithstanding their acknowledged
status in the elds of art criticism and art
historybelonged to a pre-ecological art
that, in a most spectacular fashion, pre-
pared the ground for the soon-to-appear
Without the Spiral Jetty there would be no
Early Morning Calm (Cumbria, 1988) by
Andy Goldsworthy, for example.
From a perspective of 30 years, Spiral
Jetty remains something special. Let me
pass over contemporary arguments
about the problem of extending the no-
tion of the work of art and direct all my
attention to the relation of the artist to
nature. Here we have a human-artist in-
terfering with nature; nature then as-
sumes the artists role: by answering in its
own language, the language of the pow-
ers of nature, it transforms the humans
work. A return to the works original state
is acted out, perhaps even a complete re-
turn, but in a different way than in a lm
screened backwards. The traces of the
artwork slowly disappear until it nally
vanishes in the lake waters. Human cre-
ation becomes absorbed by nature.
ECO-INSTALLATIONS
Since the mid-1980s, eco-installations
have been most widespread in Scandi-
navia, Japan and the U.S.A. Interesting
propositions have also come from Bel-
gium, Denmark, Germany, Poland and
Hungary. Some artists, such as Britt
Smelvaer (Denmark), Nils-Udo (Ger-
many) and Kimio Tsuchiya ( Japan), have
been involved in this trend for as long as
two decades, producing many pieces of
note. Others have participated in this
trend more peripherally, as if in passing,
yet with no less signi cant results than
the former; some examples are Andy
Goldsworthy (U.K.), Bob Verschrueren
(Belgium), Ilona Lovas (Hungar y),
Miroslaw Maszlanko (Poland) and Ed-
ward L azikowski (Poland), to name only
a few.
Nils-Udo and Andy Goldsworthy, who
also practice photography, created a
number of ephemeral landscape works
that can still be viewed thanks only to
their photographic recording. One
might categorize these works as staged
photography, yet the objects created are
special, and such images have never been
shown in photography before. Also, the
choice of environment is unusual. As a
consequence, these two artists go beyond
staged photography and thus break away
from that classi cation.
A very strong impulse toward eco-
installation has come from individuals
classi ed as ber artists: Carol Shaw-
Sutton (U.S.A.), Machiko Agano ( Japan),

Fig. 3. Anna Goebel, Capsheaves, birch twigs, hemp, 16 elements, 160 3
( Anna Goebel)
Margareta Klinberg (Sweden), Emiko
Tokushige ( Japan), Anna Goebel
(Poland) and Shirley Paes Leme (Brazil).
The majority of eco-installations are
characterized by color reduction; this re-
sults from the preservation of natural col-
ors unaltered by the artists. There are
beiges, sun-faded whites, the colors of
fading away and withering (although ex-
ceptions exist in certain pieces by
Smelvaer and Shaw-Sutton).
In eco-installations, whether described
by the artists as spatial arrangements,
constructions or simply objects, primary
importance is reserved for organic vege-
tation structures. Twigs, branches, wicker,
bark, leaves, seed, fruit and living plants
predominate as materials in ber art,
from which solid forms or see-through
constructions are often built. Moving
through these spaces, we feel an identity
both with the objects as well as with their
environment. Grandeur emanates from
the eco-installationssome nature-
derived perfection. We perceive their
fragility and transience. We feel humility,
which makes us introspective.
These pieces inscribed in the land-
scape yield slowly to the workings of nat-
ural forces; they change in color, texture,
structure, shape, even volume, naturally
shrinking and nally fading away, like liv-
ing organisms. Embedded in and fully
225 cm high, 1993.
dependent upon their external context,
they slowly but irrevocably end their lives.
The works of greatest appeal are those
in de nite, consciously selected land-
scapes, in which speci c topographic fea-
tures and conditions are used. Nils-Udo,
Bob Verschrueren and Andy Goldswor-
thy are masters in this respect. Goldswor-
thy, especially, chooses places rendered
to us by nature alone: ice slabs or solids
upon brook banks, snow patches en-
closed by forest borders, or the beautiful
scenery of the tranquil and smooth sur-
face of a lake with an almost tangible fog,
softening the mountain ridges. There are
no frames or edges, for the whole image
fades away only at the limits set by our
sight. He has said: What is important to
me is that at the heart of whatever I do
are a growing understanding and sharper
perception of the land [5].
His own descriptions of his pieces are
most interesting. In the place following
the title, where a pieces media and di-
mensions are usually given, Goldsworthy
writes: Early Morning Calm (Cumbria
88)knotweed stalks pushed into lake
bottom, made complete by their own re-
ections [6] or Slab of Snow ( Japan
87)a slab of snow, carved into leaving
a translucent layer, horse chestnut stalks
pinned together with thin bamboo [7].
Ample Western literature exists on the
A B
R I
achievements of many of these artists, T O
however; that is why I now discuss two less L
& O
well-known artists, who yet merit recog- G
Y
nition.
Anna Goebel (Poland) has been rec-
ognized for her work in ber art, but for
many years, especially since the 1990s,
her activity has far exceeded that sphere,
touching upon problems of sculpture or
installation. The materials she now uses
are twigs (as in the To Winds and Birches
series) (Fig. 1) or nearly whole trees (Tri-
angular) (Fig. 2), as well as maple leaves,
of which she prepares multi-element
compositions in a way that only she has
mastered (Recorded Traces). As a profes-
sor at the Fine Arts Academy in Poznan,
she has incorporated her own fascination
with nature into the curriculum of the
Tapestry Studio and added plein-air
study stay, which are rare in Poland out-
side of painting studios. This is how she
describes the study stays:
The plein-air study stay and its activities
enable the students to practice and ex-
periment in open space with the use of
readily available substances, e.g. foil, tex-
tile, paper, metal, etc. and make obser-
vations in the context of landscape,
water, mud, and rain [8].
Goebel believes it is nature that most
inspires her and provokes her to ask
questions. Goebel is concentrated upon
problems of rhythm, growth, harmony,
contrast and changeability. Every mate-
rial has its own language and expression.
Goebel observes, moreover, that organic
substances have their own particular
past. There is a stor y connected with
them. For Goebel, her activity is an ex-
pression of a deep emotional attitude to
humanitys most immediate environ-
ment; it is the expression of our link
with the structure of the biological
world, of which she herself is but a tiny
particle, among many other forms of ex-
istence (Fig. 3).
From the many-faceted work of Ed-
ward L azikowski, let me draw the readers
attention to his realizations from the
early 1990s, e.g. Kalkus and the series Ob-
jects, including Object No. 192A and Object
No. 280(1)A.
In his works from those years
Lazikowski makes use of trees, branches
and leaves. In Object No. 192A (Figs 4
and 5), unlike his other works designed
for the gallery space, we observe a bizarre
fragment of forest-garden, in which a
single tree-like construction has appar-
ently resulted from the artists successive
interventions. The whole gives the im-
pression of a suffering forest or growth
Manczak, The Ecological Imperative 133
A B
R I
T O
L
& O
G furthermore emanates a wonderful scent
Y
Fig. 4. Edward L azikowski, Object No. 192A, wood, white fabric, string, bark, gauze, straw, 300
3 1200 3 500 cm, 1991. From an individual exhibition at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in
Oronsko, 1998. ( Edward L azikowski. Photo Aleksandra Manczak.)
that is being offered an attempt at help;
yet the process of its devastation is so far
gone, its impending doom seems in-
evitable. Perhaps, though, the roots en-
veloped with delicate tissue in a protective
gesture symbolize a hope of salvation.
Object No. 280(1)A, brought into being
in a landscape, is a different form of a
trees existence. Hung under a con-
struction and garland of leaves, the tree
appears to create a sort of altar trans-
ferred from a temple into open air. A ref-
Fig. 5. Edward L azikowski, Object No. 192A, detail, 1999. ( Edward L azikowski. Photo
Aleksandra Manczak.)
134 Manczak, The Ecological Imperative
and owers in vases visible through
gauze. It is an extraordinary grave, which
of the mixture of grass, hay and owers.
NATURAL MATERIALS AND THE
PROBLEM OF IMPERMANENCE
An artists materials can be treated as a
component of the culture of a given his-
torical time. Maybe, then, such strong
emphasis on plant building materials in
eco-installations will be treated as a symp-
tom of end-of-twentieth-century cultures
concern about the worlds future. Can
anything replace twigs, needles, palm
bark or an entire tree? Do we need to
search for ways of imitation, i.e. falsity, if
a true, authentic quote from nature can
be made? Clearly, these artists in the
1980s and 1990s felt the need to use
those means of expression for artistic
purposes.
What is the role that these artists have
left to themselves? A manual gesture in
the sense of a slash of the sculptors chisel
or a trace of the painters brush are not
erence to architecture gives it an aspect
found in their works. As Zbigniew
of timelessness. Kalkus is a plein-air sculp-
Makarewicz states about such works,
ture in which a huge bag in the embrace
of trunks, sheaves and twigs holds what A work of art [i.e. an eco-installation] is
may be presumed to be precious con- as if ancillary and altruistic: it is ancillary
tents. Object No. 233(1)A (Fig. 6) has the for it is entirely directed towards identi-
cation of a value rendered by nature,
form of a long table covered with a white even though it could be some anony-
tablecloth/bedsheet, with pockets of the mous and non-attractive landscape, a
cloth hanging from the top. When one lonely plant; it is altruistic since it puts in
views 233(1)A at a distance, a human g- shadow any formal virtuosity, for ulti-
mately it does not aim at mans praise
ure seems to be resting under the cloth;
but the praise of something that has
on approaching, we can see grass, herbs been given to him and at the same time
has outgrown himnature [9].
Thus the role of the artist as maker is
consciously reduced to the necessary
minimum, hidden behind the woven cur-
tain, whose weft is prepared by nature it-
self. It is obvious that all artists who make
eco-installations are aware of the short,
even eeting existence of their pieces.
Goebel humbly accepts the fact that her
works will soon crumble and return to
the earth. Kazuo Kenmochi of Japan says:
I dont care if a work of mine is de-
stroyed by the wind or rots in the rain. It
is part of a cycle of life [10]. Maria Ko-
morowska of Poland says: I dont plan
long life for those pieces. Let it breathe,
let it have the natural cycle of existence,
and then let it pass away [11].
This awareness of the brief duration of
ones own pieces, calculated in the cre-
ative process from the ver y start and
shared by so many artists, is striking
enough. The artists attitude to the last-
ing, or rather non-lasting, of their work

Fig. 6. Edward L azikowski, Object No. 233A,
white fabric, gauze, arti cial owers, soil,
wood, 180 3 250 3 80 cm, 1993. ( Edward
L azikowski. Photo Aleksandra Manczak.)
raises the need for documentation of
these ephemeral pieces, in both texts and
images. These works demand swift criti-
cal assessment. To a large extent, their
memory depends upon the exactness of
the means of their technical documen-
tation and generally upon retaining some
trace of them. In contrast to the turmoil
of everyday life, with its all-abiding bru-
tality, the uniquely subtle posture of these
artists is indeed something extraordinary.
ART AND ETHICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
At the Flexible Pan-European Art exhibi-
tion, which in 19931994 traveled from
Germany to Poland via Holland and En-
gland, the Hungarian artist Ilona Lovas
showed the piece Station No. 12 (1992). It
presented ve oval forms, made of animal
intestines, lying on the oor. Before the
exhibition was reviewed by professionals,
public opinion was piqued and doubts
raised by circles of animal-rights defend-
ers regarding the morality of Lovass ex-
pression of her artistic vision. Some felt
that, if the animals were not killed for their
intestines, the artist had the right to treat
them as material for her purposes [12].
It is a good prospect for the future, in-
deed, that there does exist a concern that
art not contribute, at any stage, to the de-
struction of various life-forms or cause
any negative results to nature. If these are
the demands of eco-installations, I think
people will start asking similar questions
Fig. 7. Aleksandra Manczak, Arboretum I, installation, discarded agricultural fruit-trees,
paper tape, corrugated cardboard, linen string, 18 elements, 200 3 45 3 14 cm, 19911995.
From the Memory of Images exhibition, Centre of Polish Sculpture in Oronsko, April 2000.
( Aleksandra Manczak)
about all human activity, therefore en-
acting the betterment of humankind in
the ethical-moral sphere.
It happens that I, too, am asked, par-
ticularly when abroad, if the trees of my
series Arboretum were killed (dried up) by
my own decision. I needed young fruit
trees for my Arboretum, which was of great
importance for me. I used trees that
could not be sold because of their de-
fects, perhaps because they would not
bear fruit. They were regarded as scrap.
Because they had been grown in a culti-
vated area, subject to continual grubbing
and re-plantation, they would not have
been be able to grow in a wild state
(Fig. 7).
CONCLUSIONS: THINKING
ABOUT ONESELF WITH THE
UNIVERSE IN MIND
We nd it hard to admit that we must often
think of humanity as part of the universe,
as we especially must in the context of two
situations: on the occasions of manned
space ights or inter-planetary unmanned
scienti c expeditions, and in the face of
huge, unexpected disasters, with their
causes rooted in global climate change, El
Nio, explosions in the Sun, etc.
Yet it is we who quietly bring calami-
ties upon ourselves every daywith our
laziness, our desire for excessive comfort,
our stupidity and our short-sightedness.
This must change, and it can change
thanks to, among other things, science
A B
R I
T O
L
& O
G
Y
and art. Science offers us new facts and
arguments that we must consider. Art can
render this knowledge accessible to wider
viewing circles, so that we may all possess
a deeper, more sensitive, more acute
awareness of nature.
The metaphysical aim Nature leads us to-
wards is unknown. Man discovers his ex-
istence in the world, which was created,
without his participation, but he can and
he ought to participate in the further
development of the consciousness of the
Earth. Locked up in the present, he can-
not leave it. A perpetual dialogue with
his surrounding reality is the basis of his
consciousness [13].
This desired higher state of conscious-
ness and resulting pro-cosmic behavior
can make us more human than we have
been, in the opinion of British thinker Isa-
iah Berlin, who once said that the twen-
tieth century had been the worst of
allthe expression of humanitys ex-
treme barbarity and thoughtlessness [14].
Just as science brings us closer to the
truth, including that about ourselves
even the worst of truthsso does art
offer hope for our activity, according to
Barbara Czochralska:
When I express my thoughts, even
though they might stem out of suffering,
they need to be translated into the logi-
cal order of events, cause and effect, in
which, as if in a cage, my experiences will
be contained, so that this thought can
reach other people. Yet logic, which
serves to describe the world, and also my
thoughts, is not adequate for the under-
standing of man, since man is always
Manczak, The Ecological Imperative 135
A B
R I
T O
locked up in the presence of his body.
L Science does not grasp mans life hidden
& O in his bodys darkness. A cry from this
G the human race; the ethical forces of the human race
Y enclosure can be heard by art alone [15].
I daresay that eco-installations, among
other works, have been born out of this cry.
References and Notes
1. Umberto Eco, Drugie zapiski na pudelku od zapalek
(in Polish) (Poznan: Historia Sztuki, 1994) p. 46.
Originally published as La Bustina di Minerva (Milan:
R.C.S. Libri & Grandi Opere SpA Bompiani, 1994).
2. Stanislaw Lem, Twinkling (Krakow: Literackie
Press, 2000) p. 53.
3. As I quoted Hodin, The true artists of our times
undertake the heroic ght against mediocrity and
mean values; in case of their defeat art in its most es-
sential sense will die out. And when art dies, human
spirit relapses into decline and the world goes back
to barbarity. The crisis in art is the re ection of the
spiritual crisis in our times, the times marked by the
136 Manczak, The Ecological Imperative
technological achievements of the so-called second
Industrial Revolution; we can say that not only art
but life itself is imperiled by the destructive forces of
may turn out to be much weaker than the forces lib-
erated by its genius of knowledge. J.P. Hodin,
Farewell to Art, a lecture given at the Eleventh
AICA Congress in Poland, 1975, p. 30; quoted in
Aleksandra Manczak, Photography and Textile Art:
Tapestry in the Form of a Triptych, Leonardo 20,
No. 1, 2730 (1987).
4. Grzegorz Dziamski, Wolanie Ziemi (Earths
Cry), Artelier 2, No. 3 (1993) p. 12.
5. Andy Goldsworthy, Andy Goldsworthy: A Collabora-
tion with Nature (New York: Abrams, 1990) p. 8.
6. Goldsworthy [5] pp. 9297.
7. Goldsworthy [5] p. 59.
8. TEXT i TEXTIL (Winter 1996) p. 18.
9. Zbigniew Makarewicz, The Ecological Consciousness
of the Artists (Wroclaw, Poland: Association for Land-
scape Protection, 1994).
10. A Primal Spirit: Ten Contemporary Japanese Sculptors
(New York: Abrams, 1990) p. 36.
11. TEXT i TEXTIL (March 1992) p. 10.
12. Zoe Buckley, Art Is Hard to Stomach, Wilmslow
Messenger (17 March 1994).
13. Barbara Czochralska, A Maze of Thought, in
1st Oronsko Space-Ecology-Art Confrontations (Oronsko,
Poland: Centre for Polish Sculpture in Oronsko,
2000) p. 80.
14. Henryk Skolimowski, Creative Space, The
Blessed Human Condition in [13] p. 47.
15. Barbara Czochralska, Logical Thinking, in [13]
p. 86.
Manuscript received 25 June 1999.
Aleksandra Manczak is a photographer and a
ber and installation artist. Since 1995, she has
been head of the Fiber Art Studio at Strzeminski
Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Lodz.