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What is the Anthropocene?
It is the informal and unofficial term originally proposed for the geological epoch following the Holocene epoch, which began approximately 11,700 years ago. Originally coined by American biologist Eugene F. Stoermer in the 1980s and later popularized by Nobel prize winning Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen, the Anthropocene is used to describe an era in which human actions (war, deforestation, global warming, mass animal extinctions, etc.) have had devastating and irreversible effects on the planet.
However, the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) rejected that proposal in 2024. The IUGS rejection statement rightly noted that “despite its rejection as a formal unit of the Geologic Time Scale, Anthropocene will nevertheless continue to be used by Earth and environmental scientists, politicians and economists, as well as the public at large.”
Add artists to that list.
The New Bedford Art Museum is currently housing “Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures,” an ambitious and challenging exhibition that features six individual artists and a pair that work in tandem, working within a wide range of disciplines including painting, photography, mixed media, glasswork, sculpture and sound, and notes that “some of the artists investigate the boundary between collapse and adaption, while others envision post-human futures, ecological resilience and planetary memory.”
Anais Tondeur, a Parisian self-described “research-based artist,” exhibits a series of rich, sepia-toned photographs that inhabit a space between the sureness of botany and the maybeness of magic as leaves, stems and seedlings glow in a decidedly unnatural and lovely way. In addition, she displays several mixed media works, including “Mourning the Tears,” a salt print composed from the salt in human tears and silver gathered in one of the oldest silver mines in the world, and “Nuclear Mourning,” a single seed in a glass orb suspended from three fine wires.
Rachel Ostrow, a Brooklyn-based painter and printmaker, uses squeegees, brushes and spatter to manipulate transparent paint, culminating in translucent abstract works with a Necco Wafer palette. It is difficult to see how her paintings fit within the overarching theme of the exhibition. But her painting “The Traveler” features what appears to be a depiction of a bird wing (or wings), and perhaps that is a nod to the vanishing ecology that is the avian world, pecked off by climate change, poison, powerlines, cars, tall buildings and feline predation.
New York City artists Amy Lemaire and Nicolas Touron utilize glass, ceramics and “computational fabrication” to create thought provoking three-dimensional works that honor nature without being beholden to the fidelity of its forms. Instead, the sculptures work as prompts to which viewers are asked to bring memory, playfulness and curiosity to the proceedings. Nothing is spelled out or decoded and that is its joy.
In “Nature # 32,” (3D printing and borosilicate), Lemaire and Touron seem to be riffing on female anatomy with silly cartoonish exaggeration. Below there is a vessel of sorts from which a fetus emerges. But that is just one possible take. In other works by the pair, one might see a smiling monk or blue primates or a squid. Or not.
Beth Lipman, who resides in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, creates three-dimensional glass still compositions that explore materiality, materialism, mortality and memory. Firmly rooted in the still-life traditions of 17th century Dutch painting, there is a quiet elegance in her assemblages of broken vessels and shards of glass. Her work is, at least in part, about fragility, impermanence and inevitable collapse. And within that, there is depth and beauty. Lipman’s “Lapsed Concession” with its jagged edges and damaged forms, is both confession and apology.
Minga Opazo was born in Chile and moved to Los Angeles when she was 16. She is a fourth-generation textile crafter who creates art that comments on the textile waste industry by focusing on purposeful waste. Her fabric artwork is an indictment of the industry on which she depends to make that very same art. She has a particular focus on solastalgia, a term coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe the anguish experienced when one’s home is degraded while still living there. It is a kind of sorrow that is effectively the opposite of nostalgia, the longing for what once was.
Opazo’s art materials suggest frequent visitors to thrift stores and vintage clothing shops, and she makes the most of her finds. Her “Must-haves” is a fabric collage suspended from a wall, an array of primarily blue hues intermingled with white cotton threads and the occasional touch of yellow or gray. It includes a Goodwill tag: “Womens SS Top $7.99.” It’s a riches-to-rags story.
Rachel Berwick, a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, displays a remarkable series of glass sculptures that go back decades and somehow fall perfectly within the stated parameters of an exhibition focusing on the Anthropocene. She clearly got the memo.
Her “Living Fossil: Latimeria Chalumnae” is particularly stunning. The glowing orange fish is one of the highlights of the show, as is “Sending Messages: Human,” a bit of cast copal resin containing a negative impression of a human death mask.” It was created in 1993. Message received.
Berwick’s “Hovering Close to Zero: Crystal Skull” is a remarkable crystal cast work of a Tasmanian tiger skull. And then there’s “Lonesome George: Cast Clear Resin Galapagos Tortoise Carapace.” All are reminders of what the Anthropocene has already wrought.
Thomas Deininger is a Rhode Island artist well known on the South Coast. He displays a series of absurdist avian sculptures (blue jay, cardinal, falcon, parrot) that he hopes can be understood as social critique on our collective failure to protect the wildlife. And he accepts the possibility that his intricately designed and constructed artworks are “hopelessly ineffective, highly irrational solutions to existential anxieties.”
He creates his sculpture with non-recyclable and non-biodegradable waste, building up layers of junk to create charming “trick of the eye” facsimiles. Each is a wonderful trompe l’oeil of trash, well worthy of close inspection. And when you see the parrot in the cardboard Amazon box, take a peek in the back.
There will be an ArtTALK with Deininger on Thursday, Sept. 10 (AHA! Night) at 6 p.m.
“Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures” will be on display at the New Bedford Art Museum, 608 Pleasant St., until Oct. 11.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
