Interview | Gustav Metzger
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>> BLOG | The End of The Line reviewed
>> FEATURE | RSA Arts & Ecology meets US Energy Secretary Steven Chu
>> PROJECT | Dirk Fleischmann: myforestfarm
>> PROJECT | John Kinsella and Melanie Challenger
Photo: Gustav Metzger carrying out his Auto-Destructive acid/nylon painting on July 3, 1961 on the South Bank as a demonstration against war, capitalism and the commodification of art. Within 30 minutes Metzger and a team of students had totally destroyed the nylon sheets with hydrochloric acid.
Upcoming events
Jul 25 - 26 | Do something different summer weekend
A series of events involving workshops and performances at London's Barbican Centre, inspired by the exhibition Radical Nature.
Jul 19 | The Big Lunch
Conceived by Tim Smit of the Eden Project, The Big Lunch is a national picnic - a way of bringing communities together through sharing the food we've grown and cooked.
Jul 18 | INVOLVE
One-day community arts festival in King's Wood, Challock, Kent, run by Ashford Youth Forum with Stour Valley Arts.
Jul 18 - Sep 20 | Sequelism: Possible, Probable or Preferable Futures
Arnolfini, Bristol: exhibition/symposium/workshop/film screening series that looks at futures as seen through the eyes of Roy Ascott, Heman Chong, Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska, Haegue Mariana Castillo Deball, Graham Gussin, Will Holder, Victor Man, Francesc Ruiz, Jordan Wolfson and Haegue Yang.
Jul 16 | Joseph Beuys: Caroline Tisdall/Arena
Art historian Caroline Tisdall talks about the experience of collaborating with Joseph Beuys, plus a screening of the 1987 Arena documentary about the artist.
Jul 15 - Aug 6 | EXYZT The Dalston Mill
Alongside Agnes Denes' reinstallation of Wheatfield - A Confrontation in East London, Paris-based architecture collective EXYZT create a windmill to mill the harvested wheat alongside a social space for discussion and events.
Jul 15 - Aug 6 | Agnes Denes/Radical Nature
Artist Agnes Denes recreates her seminal 1982 work Wheatfield - A Confrontation in Dalston, East London, as part of Radical Nature.
Jul 13 - Aug 22 | East/Kate Corder
Norwich's open submission exhibition EASTinternational includes work by Corder documenting a local organic market garden over 12 months.
Jul 12 | Gregory Pryor
Stour Valley Arts unveil their latest in a remarkable series of commissions at King's Wood in Kent. Gregory Pryor's Miracle of the legs sees carved limbs grafted onto trees.
Jul 11 | Launch: Tell it to the trees
Meadow Arts unveil another year-long exhibition of sculpture, this time featuring new work about our relationship with trees by Mariele Neudecker, Philippa Lawrence, Brass Art, Laura Ford, Juneau / projects and Clare Woods. Location: Croft Castle, Herefordshire.
Jul 9 | Inivia: Arts & Ecology
Taking its inspiration from Zineb Sedira's exhibition Currents of Time, Iniva hosts a panel discussion about arts and ecology featuring Michaela Crimmin, Head of the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, Robert Butler of the Ashden Directory and Jane Trowell of Platform.
July 3 - 12 | Shift-Time
Shrewsbury's Shift-time Festival of Ideas includes the premieres of one of Theo Jansen's remarkable "Strandbeests", and a new film Follow The Voice shot locally by Marcus Coates.
Jun 27 - 28 | Land/Art symposium weekend
This summer a number of New Mexico arts organisations collaborate on Land/Art, an exploration of art, environment and community. This symposium, with artists' talks by Lynne Hull and Basia Irland and a panel discussion with Katie Holten, Matthew Coolidge and others coincides with the opening of the Experimental Geography exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum.
Jun 21 - 28 | Limitations permitted
Filmmaker Manu Luksch and artist Neal White collaborate on a site specific artwork in Peckham Square — a kiosk devised by Neal White and The Office of Experiments with films by Manu Luksch in collaboration with FLIX.
Jun 19 - Sept 20 | Modernism as a ruin
As ideas of the modern give way to financial and ecological crisis, Vienna's Generali Foundation exhibits works by Yona Friedman, Giuseppe Gabellone, Cyprien Gaillard, Isa Genzken, Dan Graham, Gordon Matta-Clark, Florian Pumhösl, Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij, Robert Smithson, Rob Voerman and Stephen Willats, to pose the question, "What happened to utopia?"
May 30 - Aug 2 | Subversive Practices
Württemberg exhibition of experimental and conceptual art from 60s-80s Europe and South America created under military dictatorships and communist regimes.
News
May 07 | Age of Stupid at the RSA
To launch the nationwide release of The Age Of Stupid the RSA holds a special screening on May 22, with a discussion by George Monbiot, director Franny Armstrong and Dr Richard Betts of the Met Office's Climate Impacts research team. Plus a video link from Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan, Vice-President of the Maldives.
May 06 | Olafur Eliasson
Eliasson's first permanent sculpture in the US, a man-made island called The parliament of reality will be unveiled in a New York state art centre on May 16.
Apr 30 | Futuresonic: new "citizen science" artworks announced
Blowing bubbles in the cause of art and science? Collaborating with the Natural History Musem and the Met Office, Futuresonic founder and artistic director Drew Hemment unveils two new projects for this May's festival that merge art and science in ways that can help us understand our environment better.
Apr 23 | RSA in major public art debate
As Channel 4 launch the Big Art series, the RSA hosts a debate featuring Grayson Perry, Munira Mirza, Andrew Shoben and Jonathan Jones of The Guardian. Can the public be trusted wtih public art? Chaired by Jon Snow.
Apr 03 | Guandu Sculpture Festival
The list of artists selected for the 4th Guandu International Outdoor Sculpture Festival have been announced. The annual event at Taiwan's Guandu Nature Park commissions sculptures with an environmental theme; this year it's "Land, water and culture".
Apr 03 | Call for Respond! events in June
If you have an event, exhibition, talk or any other activity going on in June that in some way addresses environmental issues, you'll want to know about Respond! - an RSA Arts & Ecology initiative in conjunction with Bash Creations that highlights what's going on throughout the UK that month.
Magazine
Interview | Gustav Metzger
With his Flailing Trees one of the centrepieces of the Manchester International Festival, Gustav Metzger's reputation as a major figure in radical art continues to grow. Emma Ridgway talks to the artist about his long career in art and activism.
2 Degrees | Arts, Activism & The Global Climate Emergency
Caleb Klaces takes a look at ArtsAdmin's ground-breaking performance-based festival 2 Degrees. What are the hightlights - and what's the fit between arts and engagement?
Review | Fourth Door Review No 8
The latest issue of the eco architecture/art magazine features architects Peter Zumthor and others alongside essays on Chris Dury, Jem Finer, Susan Collins and musicians David Sylvian and Harold Budd.
Steven Chu | The One Minute Interview
When it comes doing something about climate change, no one holds more power — or faces bigger challenges — than Obama's new appointee Steven Chu. Environment journalist Paul Quinn meets the Nobel Prizewinning scientist-campaigner turned US Energy Secretary and gets a glimpse of a man who seems remarkably upbeat the task he faces.
Simon Read | Sutton Saltmarsh
His work on the Sutton Saltmarsh Protection Scheme gave artist Simon Read more than just a space to engage with his chosen topic of landscape — it allowed him to rethink the whole notion of what an audience is to an artist.
Review | The Art Instinct
At first glance art philosopher Denis Dutton's suggestion that art is a hard-wired instinct, not a frivolous extra, is thrilling. But if art is as genetically wired in us as he believes, what are the implications for creative cultures? Review by William Shaw.
Review | The Contingency Plan
Steve Waters' double-bill of plays The Contingency Plan at London's Bush Theatre is an ambitious work about the failure of our media and politicians to respond to the science of climate change. Tom Bailey reviews it for RSA Arts & Ecology.
Interview | Leo Murray
In Wake Up, Freak Out, - then Get a GripPlane Stupid activist Leo Murray created an ingenous way of using stick-figure animation to explain complex climate system dynamics. Caleb Klaces interviews him for RSA Arts & Ecology.
Dialogue between the body and the soul
The poets Melanie Challenger and John Kinsella have vowed never to take transatlantic flights to promote their work. For practitioners of a form which often struggles for wider attention, to restrict themselves this way has been a difficult decision. In this new commission for RSA Arts & Ecology, they are collaborating over the next few weeks in an extraordinary exchange of poems that explores their decision. The poems are published online as they arrive.
Latest Blog Posts
Gustav Metzger: artists“taking moral standpoints”
Forty-eight years ago today, Gustav Metzger took a bottle of hydrochloric acid to the South Bank and set about destroying suspended sheets of nylon in an act of what he called Auto-Destructive painting. For Metzger, whose personal world view was formed in the shadow of World War II, this was ...
Tim Smit: sustainability as“hippy shit”
Yesterday I was at the Sustainable Development Commission Breakthrough Ideas For the 21st Century event in London. Ed Miliband came and gave a nice speech, the gist of which was,“We know you don't think we're doing enough, but we're doing as much as is possibly achievable.” Afterwards we all ...
Ed Miliband’s summer reading
Ed Miliband's summer reading from RSA Arts&Ecology on Vimeo.It was Robert Butler of the Ashden Directory who spotted what Ed Miliband had tucked under his arm as he came to announce the winners of the first TippingPoint Commision awards...