Exploring the capacity of climate art to communicate climate change from a cultural perspective

The word «art» can be interpreted in very different ways. Institutions such as museums, galleries and art schools, and art critics are the pinnacle of contemporary art and set certain «trends», which are easily spotted in contemporary galleries. Conceptual artworks presented in these exhibitions often go on to generate thousands-to-millions of pounds at art auctions therefore creating an elitist art world.

How can contemporary visual arts (and can they) offer different ways of imag(in)ing the problem of climate change, which would create an experience beyond visual (i.e. emotive and behavioral)? Here, I review «historical» climate art and propose that climate art can be split into three categories: representations (emphasizing visualization and communication of climate change); performance and conceptual art (engagement through immersion and experience); and interventions such as public engagement and activism (invoking motivation to take action). What are the challenges associated with these categories?

According to the art world, the good art, i.e. the conceptual art, or “art for art’s sake” as originally described by Clement Greenberg in 1940, appeals and creates a desired experience for a limited amount of people with an attained cultural capital, and thus, I argue that it ultimately fails to communicate climate change to the wider public; yet it’s the preferred category of the art institutions. In the meantime, the bad art, which is more illustrative and communicates the climate message clearly, disinterests artistic institutions and critics. This slowed the development, and led to a decline of climate art produced, or displayed in galleries in the late 2000s and early 2010s; however an explosion of climate art popularity has since occurred in the last five years, likely because the issue of climate change has been brought to the forefront of political debate and contemporary culture. Therefore, it remains an open question how to best portray, communicate and create an “ultimate” experience of climate change through art and how to assess the success of these pieces (eg. art critics opinions, public opinions/ interpretations, amount of income generated); but it is clear that collaboration between scientists and artists is desperately needed to develop climate art.