Earth - Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy

Earth - Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy

01 December, 2009
by: Tom Jeffreys

By all accounts, our treatment of the environment is the major issue facing the world today. I say "by all accounts", but of course there are still those who suggest that the whole global warming thing may be more than a little overstated, and at worse, a downright lie. Recently, private emails leaked from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit suggest that scientists manipulated data in order to exaggerate the effects of climate change and humanity's contribution towards it.

Well I'm no scientist and don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of what is undoubtedly a complex issue. But ignorance doesn't seem to be something that has troubled some of the artists in the Royal Academy's latest exhibition, Earth – Art of a Changing World. As you'd expect there's some great work here, but there's also quite a lot of rubbish. And in a society that already produces far too much waste, there's a certain irony there.

Let's begin with the good stuff. At the top of the stairs, Antony Gormley's world-famous Amazonian Field from 1992 has lost none of its majestic power. Hundreds (thousands?) of terracotta figures fill the floor of the room, right up to the edge. One peers in, careful not to tread on the curious little fellows at the front. What do they mean? What do they want? There's power here, and beauty, sadness and a rare slice of humour.


Antony Gormley, 'Amazonian Field' (1992) terracotta, variable size, courtesy of the artist and White Cube, London

The one other moment of humour comes in the work of the wonderful Sophie Calle. Through exquisite photographic images, text, and a lightbox, Calle tells the story (briefly) of her journey to the Arctic with her grandmother's diamond ring. Calle's ability to fuse humour with searing pathos is masterful. That this personal anecdote echoes out across an overarching narrative somehow both lessens the sadness and magnifies the impact. It's quite incredible.

Clare Toney's unfired clay flowers are a picture of delicacy and respond well to the fireplace and old wood cabinet in the gallery. Emma Wieslander's six circular photographs taken in the Lake District utilise techniques used by the eighteenth century Romantics and echo a now nostalgic sense of the sublime. And, surprisingly, I like Tracey Emin's I Loved You Like the Sky. Created especially for this exhibition, this large embroidered work is moving and strangely poetic.

I also like Antti Laittinen's video and photographic work from the It's My Island series. There's a calmness and a unity about the way in which the subject slowly, laboriously, goes about constructing a little island out of sandbags. Is he working in harmony with nature? Or stubbornly against it? There's something solemnly beautiful either way.


Mona Hatoum, 'Hot Spot' (2006)  mixed media, stainless steel and neon tube, 234 x 223cm, David Roberts Collection, London

But these are personal highlights in a show that feels like a disappointment, a missed opportunity. Much of the work just seems meaningless, and attempting to impose an environmental apocalypse narrative doesn't really help. Mona Hatoum's neon and steel globe, at the top of the stairs as you walk in, looks cool but feels pointless. Likewise Tue Greenfort's seven hanging glass jellyfish, Chris Jordan's photograph of paper bags and Cornelia Parker's charcoal mobile, Heart of Darkness.

The contributions by Darren Almond, Ackroyd & Harvey, and Lucy + Jorge Orta don't even look cool – they're just aimless things. They don't explore or enlighten or make you think. They're just things, there, in a gallery.

Individually many of these works just seem flimsy, with no depth of thought or understanding. But scattered around together, they cast artists in general in a poor light. Even worse though is the effect it has on the good stuff. Somehow the works of both Edward Burtynsky and Keith Tyson (which I saw earlier this year in Flowers East and Parasol Unit respectively) seem to have lost the vibrancy that made them so memorably captivating. Maybe it's the taint of a poorly executed exhibition – one that neither guides one along with a purposeful narrative, nor revels in the diversity of artistic response. But then maybe it's just bad lighting.  

Earth - Art in a Changing World is at the Royal Academy until 31st January 2010.

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Tom Jeffreys