'Greenwashing' reviewed in summer issue of Artforum

Eva Scharrer reviews 'Greenwashing' in the current issue of Artforum, Summer 2008, on p. 456. There is a printable pdf version on our Greenwashing archive along with other critical responses to the exhibition including from El Mundo, La Stampa and Artforum.com

Wilfredo Prieto wins The Cartier Award 2008

The Cartier Award 2008 has been awarded to Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto (b. 1978). The award enables artists to realise a major project as part of Frieze Projects at the Frieze Art Fair, curated by Neville Wakefield, as well as to enjoy a 3-month residency at Gasworks, London, to produce the piece.

According to Frieze Art Fair 2008, "Prieto will present Pond, a site-specific installation of more than 100 oil drums. The mirrored pond-like effect created by water in the lids of the drums will be punctured by the presence and movement of a frog. The work will be a beautiful and poetic reflection on the current international obsession with accumulation and growth."

A version of the work is currently on view in the group show Latitudes curated with Ilaria Bonacossa at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin as part of the exhibition “Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities” (until 18 May).

To know more about Prieto's work, read the profile that appeared in Frieze Magazine (October 2007, Issue 110) and the images of 'Grasa, Jabón y Plátano' (2006) in 'Extraordinary Rendition', the exhibition we curated in NoguerasBlanchard (March 2007).

Following is an excerpt of the artist entry in the 'Greenwashing...' catalogue:

The artist’s most visible contribution to Greenwashing is Estanque (Pond) (2007), a new sculpture in which a congregation of crude oil barrels have seemingly been transformed into an idyllic, ‘eco-friendly’ lily pond habitat with the addition of water puddles and a live frog. Though the oil barrel is not commonly part of our everyday surroundings as a physical object, it has a familiar significance as the standard unit of volume for the production and consumption of petroleum, and as such, it is often cast as a symbol of all of the ills of fossil-fuel dependency. Furthermore, the price of a barrel is a global index of macroeconomic conditions, geopolitical stability, and the fundamentals of energy supply-and-demand. [1] The environment that Prieto has created by converting the petroleum containers is no more ‘natural’ than the oil itself – which is, after all, an organic substance. Yet the sculpture inevitably suggests the prospect of eco-advertising, as if its graphic visual summary of apparent amphibian-petroleum harmony could perfectly lend itself to an audacious company marketing department in a bid to demonstrate their ‘green’ industrial principles. [2] – Max Andrews

1. According to the 2007 CIA World Factbook, in Italy the equivalent of 32.1 barrels of oil are used each day for every 1000 people – or 11.7 barrels per person per year. The figure for the US is roughly double this estimate, and for Cuba, roughly half.
2. The connection to a recent Ford Motor Company campaign is irresistible: the well-known character Kermit the Frog appears pedalling on a bicycle singing his 1970 song ‘Bein’ Green’, before he spots a Ford Escape Hybrid in a verdant wood, ‘I guess it is easy being green’, Kermit declares. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKotANcNVyo

[Image: Wilfredo Prieto 'Estanque (Pond)', 2008. Oil barrels, water, frog. Courtesy the artist and Galería NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. Photo: Courtesy Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino]

'Greenwashing' in Artforum Critics' Picks

Below you can read the review of the 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities' exhibition by Emily Verla Bovino in Artforum Critics' Picks. The project website (www.greenwashing.lttds.org) has also been updated with links to press articles (ongoing) and a photogallery with a selection of installation shots.

- - - "Greenwashing" Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Via Modane, 16 February 29–May 18

“Cyclus Offset,” “KeayKolour Recycled May,” “Shiro Alga Carta”: A series of “all natural,” “ecological” papers color the catalogue for “Greenwashing” in a muted rainbow of earthy greens, yellows, and pinks. Designed by the exhibition’s curators—Ilaria Bonacossa and Latitudes’s Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna—the volume offers its own version of “green sheen.” Are the Fondazione and the organizers self-consciously engaging in the same banal posturing they set out to critique? Or do they see the printing of an art catalogue on recycled paper as a step in the direction of philosopher Félix Guattari’s exhortation to “think transversally,” toward a reconciliation of the nature/culture dichotomy? Like most of the show’s twenty-five participating artists, the organizers are uncompromising in their ambiguity: They neither propose grand solutions nor shy away in passive resignation. An ambitious project that occasionally falters, “Greenwashing” is largely successful in broadening and interrogating the narrow views that dominate environmentalist debates. Works by Jorge Peris, Lara Almarcegui, and Chu Yun provide the most exemplary models of this approach. For Fairy, 2008, Peris bolted slabs of wet clay to the walls of a back room, transforming the space’s frigid architecture into a musty den of soft, sweating walls kept moist by a network of sprinklers. Like Peris’s installation, Almarcegui’s slide show and postcards, titled A Wasteland: Rotterdam Harbour, 2003–2018; Genk, 2004–2014; Arganzuela Public Slaughterhouse, Madrid, 2005–2006; Peterson Paper Factory, Moss, 2006–2007, documents microenvironments that are at once constructed and deconstructed, simultaneously additive and subtractive. In A Wasteland—wilderness by design—the artist negotiated with municipal authorities and landowners to preserve the atmosphere of disuse in a selection of urban lots, sparing them from the restoration and clean-up of urban planners. In Chu’s Constellation, 2006, various appliances set to “sleep” mode are arranged in a dark room. Their twinkling red, blue, and green lights are the stars of a heaven inhabited by obsolete electronics, including VHS players and soon-to-be-outmoded technologies, like CRT television monitors. While Chu’s work evokes what Andrews calls the “‘What can I do?’ responses to climate change,” it also explores the seductiveness of the spectacular apocalypse scenarios frequently invoked in environmentalist rhetoric. Such eschatological visions aren’t the province of environmentalists alone, however. As Noam Chomsky affirms in Cornelia Parker’s video, Chomskian Abstract, 2007: “About a third of the population probably believes it doesn’t matter what we do about global warming . . . because Jesus is coming and so . . . what’s the difference? . . . Those of us who are saved will rise to heaven, and everyone else will be massacred—and it’ll be wonderful.” —Emily Verla Bovino

'Greenwashing' en El Cultural (13 Marzo 2008)

A continuación una selección del artículo 'Verde es el color del dinero' de Mariano Navarro que se publicó en el suplemento 'El Cultural' de 'El Mundo' el 13 Marzo 2008 – podeis descargar un pdf aquí, en la sección de prensa de nuestra web:

Greenwashing se ocupa de un tema pujante, la situación del medioambiente en el mundo, y cómo su título indica lo hace desde una óptica tan amplia como determinada. Greenwashing es un neologismo que define la injustificable apropiación de las virtudes medioambientales por parte de la industria, los estamentos políticos o las organizaciones, con la finalidad de crear una imagen positiva de sus actividades o productos y una imagen mistificadora que distraiga la atención respecto a sus propias responsabilidades e impactos medioambientales negativos. Green significa verde, washing, lavar, y podría traducirse por “lavar con verde” o, más irónicamente, por “el verde lava más blanco”.

El comisariado ha sido un trabajo colectivo entre Ilaria Bonacossa, jefa de exposiciones de la Fondazione, y el estudio Latitudes, formado por Max Andrews y Mariana Cánepa Luna, colaboradores del programa Arts & Ecology, autores del libro Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook, organizadores en la Bienal de Sharjah de un simposio sobre el tema y editores de un número de la revista UOVO, de Turín, con el tema Ecología, Lujo & Degradación. Cito esta parte de su curriculum porque sin el conocimiento previo del temario tratado, difícilmente podrían haber llevado a cabo una lectura que, sin ilustrar tesis preconcebida alguna, resulte tan rica, tan alertadora e instructiva, en el mejor sentido del término. Tampoco para la Fondazione, que ha dedicado esfuerzos en esos aspectos desde 2001. (continúa...)

[Imagen: Ibon Aranberri 'Light over Lemoniz (without shockwave)', 2000–4. Cortesía del artista e Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin]

RAF / Reduce Art Flights. Gustav Metzger interview

The new RAF / Reduce Art Flights website is now up, featuring an exclusive audio interview with Gustav Metzger, by Emma Ridgway, about the project and its implementation in the Greenwashing show.

To be notified of future RAF activity subscribe to the mailing list here.

Greenwashing Update - Jorge Peris

Curated by Latitudes with Ilaria Bonacossa, Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities finally opened to the public on Thursday and continues at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, until 18 May (e-flux mailing). La Stampa previewed the show here. We are currently working on redesign of the project website (www.greenwashing.LTTDS.org) which will include installation photographs, audio interviews with participating artists, details about the 192-page catalogue (English and Italian editions) and more. Details to be announced here on the Latitudes blog.


Meanwhile to whet your appetite here are some photos of Jorge Peris's Fairy (2008), one of several new installations in the exhibition: a cave-like environment consisting of 400kg of clay kept from drying out through the use of a humidity system. Peris has likened the experience of the work – which took three weeks to complete – to being inside the belly of a whale.

All images: Courtesy the artist and Zero..., Milan

Greenwashing invitation

Latitudes in Turin

Tonight we are taking the 'Salvador Dalí' night train from Barcelona to Turin—in part as response to RAF / Reduce Art Flights—to install and work on the catalogue for our show 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities', which will open at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo on 28th February (19h-21h). It includes works by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Lara Almárcegui, Maria Thereza Alves, Ibon Aranberri, Amy Balkin, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Chu Yun, A Constructed World, Minerva Cuevas, Ettore Favini, Cyprien Gaillard, Tue Greenfort, Norma Jeane, Cornelia Parker, Jorge Peris, Wilfredo Prieto, RAF / Reduce Art Flights, Tomás Saraceno, Santiago Sierra, Simon Starling, Fiona Tan, Nikola Uzunovski, Sergio Vega, Wang Jianwei and James Yamada.

Art&Co Nº1, 'El arte después de la ecología' por Max Andrews

En primer número de la revista Art&Co., publicada por la Asociación Amigos de ARCO, se incluye un texto de Max Andrews donde se discute la obra de los artistas Amy Balkin, Cyprien Gaillard, The Bruce High Quality Foundation y Allora & Calzadilla - cuyas obras estaran presentes en la exposición 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities', que inaugura el 28 Febrero en la Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (exposición abierta del 29 Febrero al 11 Mayo).

pdf aquí (3.7MB)

Max Andrews, 'El arte después de la ecología' / 'Art after Environmentalism', Art&Co, Número 1, Invierno 2008 / Number 1, Winter 2008, pp.28-32 & 116-118 (English translation)

'Greenwashing...' preview in January's Artforum

A few comments:

• Curated by ... Mariana Cánepa Luna, NOT Cánapa

• The exhibition has now been extended until 11 May

'Greenwashing...' website

We have launched the temporary project website for 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities': www.greenwashing.lttds.org. The site will be developed and updated over time as an extension to the printed catalogue, with expanded contents such as installation shots, interviews, artists CVs, etc.

The list of participating artist (ongoing) is: Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Lara Almárcegui, Maria Thereza Alves, Amy Balkin, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Chu Yun, A Constructed World, Ettore Favini, Cyprien Gaillard, Tue Greenfort, Norma Jeane, Cornelia Parker, Jorge Peris, Wilfredo Prieto, RAF / Reduce Art Flights, Tomás Saraceno, Simon Starling, Nikola Uzunovski, Sergio Vega, Wang Jianwei, James Yamada.

The show will open on 28 February 2008 at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin and remain on view until 11 May. The exhibition is curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna).

For any press enquiries please email: press@fondsrr.org

[Image: Sergio Vega, 'Paradise on Fire', 2007. Series of five inkjet archival prints, 106 x 134 cm each. Courtesy the artist and Umberto di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Naples]

Greenfort & Uklanski, Secession, Vienna

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Piotr Uklanski 'A Retrospective' (main space) and Tue Greenfort's 'Medusa' (upper and lower galleries) at the Secession, Vienna, 20 September – 18 November 2007