7

Contemporary Art: The Natural World

Summary

  • Contemporary Art - The Natural World aims to provoke thought about how we use and abuse the environment.
  • Artists featured within this theme are Dave Muller, Elger Esser and Nigel Cooke.

The Natural World has long held artists’ fascination, but concepts such as global warming and climate change have altered our perception of nature, which today is rarely depicted in simple romantic terms.

English painter Nigel Cooke and German photographer Elger Esser toy with the disparities in the viewer’s comprehension of their work when viewed from near and far. For them, recognising a specific location is unimportant.  Instead, they emphasise thinking about landscape, and how we use the environment.

Dave Muller’s work on paper divides a skyscape into separate panels that can be rearranged variously by the curator. On the one hand his work can be seen as playful: Muller is also a DJ and this ‘mixing’ aspect he likens to music sampling. However it also comments on the degree to which humans are determined to control the land and rearrange the world; even the sky can be manipulated.

 
 

Artist

Dave Muller The Northerly Set # 8,20,21,22,32,36,97 & 104, 2002-2003

Dave MULLER - The Northerly Set #8, 20, 21, 22, 32, 36, 97 and 104, 2002–03

Dave MULLER
American 1964–
The Northerly Set #8, 20, 21, 22, 32, 36, 97 and 104 2002–03
acrylic on paper, eight sheets
Two sheets: 81.6 x 101.3 cm each; Six sheets: 101.3 x 81.6 cm each
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Purchased with funds contributed by the Young Collectors Council
© Dave Muller, courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York
2005.73

 

It seems unusual that Dave Muller creates paintings of skies and clouds. Many people think of landscapes as representations of hills, trees and animals. Muller only includes snippets of the man-made world. In The Northerly Set # 8,20,21,22,32,36,97 & 104, 2002-2003, Muller has included the small detail of triangular flags that are often used in car yards. This detail suggests that this is an urban landscape.

The Northerly Set # 8,20,21,22,32,36,97 & 104, 2002-2003 attempts to capture the immensity and vastness of space. Areas too large to comprehend are segmented, and then rearranged to render them more accessible to the viewer. This set is derived from a sky in Vancouver, but the flags were seen in a car yard in Los Angeles.

He has created a number of skyscapes from different locations including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. He sometimes uses images of different locations within the one work. It is the potential for continual change that is most exciting about his work. Muller plays with urban landscapes, linking vast areas of sky with smaller elements of the urban world.

Born and bred in Los Angeles, USA, Muller’s art is a product of this culture, particularly his love of music and his work as a DJ (Disc Jockey). Muller rearranges parts of the sky just as he manipulates and transforms many musical styles into new versions of an ensemble. He is known for his Three Day Weekends, where he brings together art, music and people. Art becomes ‘laid back’, interactive and entertaining. It is not hierarchical, nor pretentious. His Three day Weekends give him the opportunity to collaborate with other artists. He has a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) attitude and a shareware mentality. His style is eclectic. He moves from idea to idea, swapping and changing, adapting and reassessing his work. His finished pieces are based on informed decisions.

" A couple of years ago a collector told me he thought I had no recognizable style. I wish I was faster with the comebacks, but about five minutes after he left, I realized that I do have a recognizable style: a style of thinking."
Art Forum, October 2004, Artist quote as told to Matthew Higgs. p.55

 
 

Artist

Elger Esser Ameland Pier X , Netherlands 2000

Ameland Pier X, Netherlands 2000

Elger ESSER
German 1967–
Ameland Pier X, Netherlands 2000
chromogenic print, face-mounted to acrylic, ed. 1/7
182x 235 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee
© Elger Esser/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia
2001.75

From a distance Esser’s atmospheric photograph of a pier in the Netherlands appears to be purely abstract, yet closer examination reveals its refined realism. A quality of stillness suggests a suspended moment or memory, intimate and yet experienced at a distance.

Esser’s sea and beach scenes suggest the influence of Caspar David Friedrich, a 19th Century German romantic painter, for whom the landscape was a motif of spiritual significance. The approaches of modern masters such as Claude Monet might also come to mind.

Although Esser’s quiet scenes echo the romantic traditions of landscape painting, the historic tendency to express humankind’s power over the land and all it symbolizes is missing. It is replaced with a study of light, space, and form, the landscape reduced to a striking central horizon, provoking a sense of universality and anonymity.

 
 

Artist

Nigel Cooke, Mummy, 2004

Nigel COOKE, Mummy 2004

Nigel COOKE
English 1973–
Mummy 2004
oil on canvas
182.9 x 274.3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director’s Council and Executive Committee Members: Ruth Baum, Edythe Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Harry David, Gail May Engelberg, Shirley Fiterman, Nicki Harris, Dakis Joannou, Rachel Lehmann, Linda Macklowe, Peter Norton, Tonino Perna, Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, Mortimer D. A. Sackler, Simonetta Seragnoli, David Teiger, Ginny Williams, and Elliot K. Wolk, and Sustaining Members: Tiqui Atencio, Linda Fischbach, Beatrice Habermann, Miryam Knutson, and Cargill and Donna MacMillan © Nigel Cooke, courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
2004.74

 

Nigel Cooke’s manner of painting also provides challenges for visual comprehension. What appears to be a muted tonal study of a romantic or icy landscape, in fact reveals a whole world of minute debris. Social disorder and physical decay appear in his canvasses in the form of graffiti, back lane detritus and toxic rubble.

The images of ruin, refuse, and mutant fruit call into question the historical quest to dominate the land, and the ongoing effects of humankind’s use and abuse of it. Cooke’s painting provokes thought about the future treatment of our planet.

 
 

Activities

Middle Years

7.1 Creating Panoramas

Senior Years – VCE Art & VCE Studio Arts

7.2 Dave Muller: His Art and Style

7.3 Dave Muller: A Gallery Visit

7.4 Dave Muller: A Comparative Study