‘The saving sorceress’

How do we reorient our psyche when the din of a doomed news cycle becomes unbearable? As a diehard devotee of aesthetics, I turn to art as the “saving sorceress” that she is, an apt description as penned by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche writes: “She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.” Indeed, the goddess-sorceress of art offers healing from hideous disillusionment!

Urgent issues require our conscious resistance, and by that, I mean we must resist negativism by choosing beauty over chaos. Beauty is one of the great mysteries of being, and its allure has been a baseline for my understanding of the world since I was a teenager.

Now at almost 50, I have a thriving career that nestles within the international art world scene, and for nearly two decades I have managed a private high-end contemporary art collection. There is plenty to say about the curious innerworkings of any industry, and the frivolities and fascinations of the art world are ripe for overanalysis – I will not entertain that seductive path herein.

Nevertheless, I suggest the art world can be defined by four distinct pillars: artists (narratives), artworks (objects), ideas (theory), and the various locations for presenting art (exhibitions).

I mention all this to set the stage for honoring the supreme artist of all time: Earth! She is the boldest creator of boundless narratives, a colossal artwork of infinite objects, a multidimensional metaphysical concept of untold possibilities, and a perfectly realized realm for the ongoing spectacle of her radical exhibitionist tendencies.

While a complex global art world community continually redefines itself, artists who engage with nature for their raw materials are a special category. Known as land artists, earth artists, and environmental artists, these individuals create site-specific artworks situated in natural outdoors settings (or by bringing natural materials indoors).

Among the most famous of the land-earth-environment artists is the late Robert Smithson, considered a pioneer in the American land art movement during the ’60s. I first learned of Smithson’s remarkable Spiral Jetty (1970) as an undergraduate student of studio arts. About a decade ago I flew out to Utah and drove myself to the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake to see Smithson’s installation in real time. Build entirely of mud, salt crystals and basalt rocks, the experience of being with Spiral Jetty was otherworldly, both visual and audio, since the surrounding area created a vacuum – it was a “emptiness of sound” meditation like no other.

Another internationally celebrated earth artist is English sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, who recently had a major exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh to celebrate his 50-year career working with Mother Earth as his steadfast muse. Goldsworthy’s diverse land artworks have consisted of rocks, flowers, icicles, mud, pinecones, snow, twigs and other organic objects. These installations are the ultimate embodiment of artistic elegance.

Recently I discovered the work of Jon Foreman, a Welsh artist whose careful orchestration of natural elements will take your breath away. Citing impermanence as the inspiration for his dramatic land artworks, Foreman says, “the practice of land art is a really pure form of letting go.” Working with the windswept sandy beach on the Atlantic Ocean of the United Kingdom, Foreman engages with these natural locations as sprawling canvases to create massive artistic forms. Starting with a small cluster of stones or the sand itself, he crafts a pulsating star shape or curling spiral, creating installations that are visually stunning and spiritually uplifting for their fleeting beauty.

All these artists highlight the vulnerability of our shared planet, as well as the glaring intensity of changing environmental conditions. Above all, these artists remind us that the boundless beauty of this gorgeous Mother Earth is the greatest gift of our human existence.