Question

Explain briefly how environmental artists began to express themselves.

Answer 1

Pop Art celebrated consumer culture, the next wave of artists began to question consumer culture. Television, especially, had created a distance between the viewer, the object and the representation. Some artists turned back to nature. In the 1970s, increased concern over pollution and environmental degradation began to take hold of the public consciousness. Smog-filled cities and chemical-laden rivers became public issues. Around this time environmental art emerged. In these works, artists used the land itself as a canvas. These artists took art out of the galleries and museums and placed it where people couldn't help but see it.

Answer 2

They started using nature as their artistic playgrounds, involving passers-by and the media. It can be argued that environmental art began with the Paleolithic cave paintings of our ancestors. While no landscapes have (yet) been found, the cave paintings represented other aspects of nature important to early humans such as animals and human figures.