This post is intended as a brief overview of the cultural historical roots of ecological and re-use art.Certainly humans are for the most part a resourceful lot. Re-use is not new. It is a rather old practice that developed due to a scarcity of materials from which to work. It has only been in these modern times that that we have lost sight of the preciousness of resources.
Many native cultures began using iron nails and other man made items that would wash up on shore from shipwrecks long before contact was made. The peoples of the Northwest coast of what is now Alaska and Western Canada made both tools and art using such items.
The roots of re-use in the euro-centric cannon of "high art" can be traced back to Marcel Duchamp's notion of the "readymade".
With the invention of mass reproduction many items became abundant and became to be viewed as materials for creation by some artists. With the publication of catalogs came the invent of collage. Artists associated with the Dada collective in the early part of the 20th century (1916-1920's) such as Hannah Hoch and Kurt Schwitters are excellent examples of early collage and found object art.Other notable artist who pioneered and influenced subsequent generations of artists in the areas of re-use are Joseph Cornell with his shadow box creations and the abstract expression painter Robert Rauschenberg for his use of found objects in his work. The use of found objects in the creation of artworks seems to explode in the post WWII era. (There are many notable artists working in re-use from this point in time on that I will not mention here.)
Enter the ECO
Most likely all the artists up until this time were exploring the possibilities of these new mediums rather than trying to explicitly make an environmental statement.
During the social revolution that took place in the 1960's many artists began to shift their focus to social and environmental issues. Artists such as Joseph Beuys and Hans Haacke began creating works of art, both physical and performative that challenged the status quo. Though the majority of what they did was focused more on the the socio-political aspects of their work, there was some degree of re-use happening. What is significant about these artists is their expansion of art as a tool for comment on the social and political environments.
With the broadening concept of what art was, walking artists such as Richard Long and Hamish Fulton began to emerge. Their works are based solely upon the act of walking and are represented in various forms of documentation, from photographs to poems, maps to installations. Their work paved the way for the most popularly known "environmental" artist to date: Andy Goldsworthy.
At the same time artists were continuing to break down the barriers that were thought to seperate art from other disciplines such as science. In the later part of the 20th century artists began to make significant contributions to scientific fields. 
Mel Chin's Revival Field (1990-present) and Buster Simpson's Hudson River Purge (1991) are both excellent examples of artists who have blurred the boundaries of these disciplines.
Re-Use Art with an Eco Message
What I would like to promote through BRING Gallery is art that is based in both re-use and contains an ecological message.( Of course I am also concerned with issues such as aesthetic value, quality of craft, etc. ) Here I will point to a few artists' work that we have received in our inbox and some of which you will probably be seeing at BRING Gallery in the coming months.
Jud Turner is a local sculptor who works in with lots of re-use and found objects. This piece is called "Wired" (2007) as I believe was made from items actually purchased at BRING Recycling. The statement it makes about waste and over consumption coupled with the re-use element make it a very strong piece in my opinion. This piece will be part of our up coming Earth Day exhibition.
U of O MFA student John Paul Gardner's current body of work Containment addresses the conflict between nature and man made structures. His sculptures will be on display this coming June and July at BRING Gallery.
With the broadening concept of what art was, walking artists such as Richard Long and Hamish Fulton began to emerge. Their works are based solely upon the act of walking and are represented in various forms of documentation, from photographs to poems, maps to installations. Their work paved the way for the most popularly known "environmental" artist to date: Andy Goldsworthy.
At the same time artists were continuing to break down the barriers that were thought to seperate art from other disciplines such as science. In the later part of the 20th century artists began to make significant contributions to scientific fields. Mel Chin's Revival Field (1990-present) and Buster Simpson's Hudson River Purge (1991) are both excellent examples of artists who have blurred the boundaries of these disciplines.Re-Use Art with an Eco Message
What I would like to promote through BRING Gallery is art that is based in both re-use and contains an ecological message.( Of course I am also concerned with issues such as aesthetic value, quality of craft, etc. ) Here I will point to a few artists' work that we have received in our inbox and some of which you will probably be seeing at BRING Gallery in the coming months.
Jud Turner is a local sculptor who works in with lots of re-use and found objects. This piece is called "Wired" (2007) as I believe was made from items actually purchased at BRING Recycling. The statement it makes about waste and over consumption coupled with the re-use element make it a very strong piece in my opinion. This piece will be part of our up coming Earth Day exhibition.U of O MFA student John Paul Gardner's current body of work Containment addresses the conflict between nature and man made structures. His sculptures will be on display this coming June and July at BRING Gallery.
Another artist we are considering for exhibition at BRING Gallery is Sarah Nicole Phillips who is currently working on a series of collages created from security envelopes that depict places in nature where one might find security...
NOTE: See my previous posts below for more examples of art that is compelling in either content and/or form...
