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The CAC's Ecovention exhibition will feature work
such as Jackie Brooker's "Die Gabe des Wassers
(The Gift of Water)."
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This summer, the Contemporary Arts Center, in coordination with Ecoartspace in New York, presents Ecovention, a two-part exhibition of environmental art. The term "environmental art" refers to art that reflects and impacts its surrounding ecosystem.
Ecovention, the brainchild of co-curators Sue Spaid of CAC and Ecoartspace's Amy Lipton, is the first museum exhibition focusing on real projects that have come to fruition bearing a positive impact on the ecological systems in which they're a part.
Spaid and Lipton conceived of the show in 1999, before Spaid joined the CAC. When she came on board as curator, the concept for the exhibition came with her.
"The idea began as something retrospective," Spaid says, "but then our focus turned toward current projects. The resulting show is very current."
Ecovention features selected artists who -- in conjunction with eco-scientists, civic leaders, architects, engineers and urban planners -- have contributed positively through their art to the benefit of their community ecosystems. The exhibition is divided into two parts: The first archives past environmental art projects, and the second features 25 projects currently underway in the United States and Europe, six of which will impact Cincinnati's ecology.
Spaid says working with Ecoartspace has been a positive experience for the CAC.
"The whole idea of Ecoartspace is dedicated to promoting artists who do ecological work, which is such a niche in the art world," she says. "In curating, Amy and I each brought about half the artists. But Amy has more direct experience than I do in this regard, since Ecoartspace is focused on the 'eco' aspect."
Spaid credits Lipton with compiling the original list of artists working on projects impacting Cincinnati's ecology.
That list includes Susan Liebovitz Steinman, a nationally renowned artist collaborating on an urban garden at the Federal Reserve Plaza, a demonstration of growing organic food in an urban environment. For Ecovention, Steinman has converted the formal brick and marble garden into an art piece. Using recycled and green materials, she's built raised beds, revitalizing the space with recycled materials and living matter.
According to Steinman, the garden as an art form involves many complex ideas.
"On the surface, it can look like a sculpture, for instance," she explains. "But, in effect, it's the result of bio-intensive gardening, using good companion plants that replenish the soil, making the growing of food more of a life cycle than a cycle of completion."
The soil isn't the only thing this garden will replenish. On Sept. 4, food from the garden will be harvested for the FreeStore/Food Bank.
Steinman's work typically takes her to neighborhoods with limited access to healthy food, where she hopes the idea of community gardening catches on.
"I'm probably the only artist who feels my artwork is a complete success if 10 other people successfully initiate it," the good-natured Steinman jokes. "So I make my gardens simplistic, easy to do."
She does this, in part, by planting in simple containers. "I plant in any kind of container that can hold clean, healthy organic soil to produce organic, healthy food."
Other Cincinnati-based projects in the exhibition include a renovation of Solway Park, conceived and produced by artist Jackie Brookner, featuring a unique bio-sculpture designed to clean parking lot runoff.
In another local project, Buster Simpson has designed a structure to catch the HVAC runoff from the roof of the Mercantile Building (current home of the CAC). The structure will pass water through a filtering system, cleaning it before releasing it back into the environment.
Ecovention couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. This June marks the 10-year anniversary of the United Nations Conference of Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. To mark the decade's progress, representatives the world over are meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, for Rio+10, a follow-up to the original summit. Spaid says that the coinciding date of Ecovention is "a happy accident."
Spaid hopes visitors to the CAC gain a better understanding of the role artists are playing in rethinking how our society handles environmental problems. Another objective of the show, she says, is to provide people with an understanding of the wide-scale application of environmental art.
"Most people, even in the art world, have no idea how far-reaching these projects truly are," Spaid says.
Finally, she hopes to see Ecovention become a communitywide project.
"I want the people of Cincinnati to see that the motion of art can expand beyond what we tend to think of as art," she says. "Environmental art can touch the lives of a variety of people, and it provides a real bridge connecting a wide range of interests."
Steinman would agree.
"All art is about seeing something in a new way, simple material transformed," she says. "Even a painting transforms paint from a paint tube. It's the same thing with a garden. It's all about the miracle of transformation."
Ecovention is on display June 22-Aug. 18 at the Contemporary Arts Center, 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown.
