A Silent Crisis
The term ‘the climate beast’, used by the scien- tists Wallace Broecker and Robert Kunzig to refer to the current climate system, combines this idea of ‘limit’ and of ‘death’ that cuts across the exhibition: “Every now and then (…) nature has decided to give a good swift kick to the climate beast. And the beast has responded as beasts will—violently and a little unpredictably.”
A summary overview of the works on show would give us a better understanding of this viewpoint, which is ultimately of a planet caught up in a silent crisis—if I may use ‘silent’ as an homage to Rachel Carson and would at once help to evoke the creeping processes of climate change. In this silent crisis, the ‘slow violence’ which Rob Nixon spoke about is increasingly more present, though just as invisible—however paradoxical that might seem in situations where ploys like greenwashing continue to play a central role. The artist touches on this phenomenon in an installation of three artificial gardens that reproduce the logos of major corporations responsible for biopiracy practices and the use of transgenics: Dupont, Bayer and Monsanto (this last named now ultimately absorbed by Bayer). Also the petrol industry as BP,Texaco and so on.
