Environment

A picket fence made out of mirrors reflects grass and leaves with grass visible behind it.

Four people, two black women, one black man, and one white woman, sit on a stage in front of a crowd with the words "ACCELERATOR tang museum" projected behind them.

A woman stands in a gallery looking up at a red, yellow, black, and white cloud-like sculpture on the ceiling with rays extending to the floor.

A swirly, three-dimensional sculpture made of plastic bottles in front of a white wall with an abstract design made of wooden circles.

Four people stand on a plastic- and rubbish-lined floor looking at a variety of photographs next to a sculpture made with wood and bags of dirt.

Framed photographs of geographic scenes hang on white walls in a gallery space.

Four trees lined in a row sculpted with wood and paper green squares.

Thirteen triangular pieces of mirror hanging on a wall in a geometric pattern reflecting a gallery space.

Two light-skinned men sit in wooden chairs talking to each other in front of windows reflecting a crowd.

Two blurred people stand reading a wall label in a gallery next to numerous images of different sections of a human body.

A group of people sit around a table covered with plant and earth materials holding a string that connects them all.

A white, oval sculpture stands in a gallery surrounded by white walls with abstract, landscape paintings on them.

Four framed photographs, two black and white and two colored, of village scenes hang on a white wall.

Environment refers to the circumstances, surroundings, or conditions in which we exist—natural, built, or social. The natural environment—specifically the interactions between all living species, both flora and fauna; the climate; and earthly resources—is unquestionably essential to the health and longevity of human beings. Our well-being depends on the strength and vigor of all existing physical, chemical, and biotic elements, for which we are ultimately responsible.

Explore art about the environment by clicking on the images above and browsing the content below.

Explore collection stories—texts, videos, and creative responses from faculty, students, artists, scholars, and curators to works in the Tang collection.

A colorful, abstract painting depicting two discs with shapes coming out of them.

Ian Berry on

Paula Wilson’s Data Unloaded

Two tanned women, one older and one younger, sit in chairs facing each other in front of a metallic sculpture hung on the wall.

Uplifting Truth through Making with

Syd Carpenter & Leah Penniman

Detail view of a painting depicting a river surrounded by rocks and trees with a cruise ship floating down the river. In the style of old Chinese paintings.

Professor of Buddhist Studies Ryan Richard Overbey on

Yun-Fei Ji

A black and orange smoke cloud rises from a broken pipe in water in front of a tree-scape.

Sami Israel ’19 & Teague Costello ’19 on

George Osodi

A light-skinned, middle-aged man sits on a stool in front of a sculpture of the corner of a roof hanging from the ceiling.

Stress Tests: Un-Sites No. 1-2 & 3-5 (homage to Gordon)

David Brooks

A white, middle-aged man sits in a chair in front of a blue background.

The Unconscious Line

Whiting Tennis

Two, dark gray, skeletal crane legs rest against a white wall.

Science, Art & the Symbolism of Crane Legs

Michael Joo

Tang Museum Collection: Student Response

Ivory tusk carved to represent a parade of elephants moving from right to left.

Unrecorded artist, Tusk, 20th century, ivory, 6 x 22 x 2 ¼ inches, Tang Teaching Museum collection, Gift of Byron F. and Margaret J. Evans, 1998.143

A close-up painting of an elephant's head with broken tusks on a light yellow background.

Julia Danielsen, Ivory, 2020, oil on canvas panel, 16 x 20 inches, courtesy of artist

A sketchy drawing of two elephants resting their heads against each other on black paper.

Julia Danielsen, Mother and Child, 2018, colored pencil on black paper, 18 x 24 inches, courtesy of artist

On this delicately carved and pearly white sculpture, a parade of elephants makes their way in pairs across a curved base, which echoes both a hilly landscape and the form of an elephant’s tusk, from which the object is made. The ten, tiny elephants appear to march towards a snake, whose curved body creates tiny arches on the tusk’s wider end. Trailing behind and at the tusk’s opposite end is a small fish, whose form sinks into the ivory ground. While we know little about the artist, precise geographic origins of this work, and when it was made, it is undeniable that—like all the ivory carvings in the Tang’s collection and other museum collections—this is a controversial object. While it is art historically important and aesthetically striking, any pleasure that viewers might have when studying its form should be tempered when considering the origin of this rich, precious, soft white material. A response is shaped by not only the recognition that the sheer existence of this work is premised on the death of an elephant, but also from the knowledge that the current day market for ivory has become poisoned with greed.

So much of my own attention when staring at this ivory carving is lost in the particular curves, crevices, wrinkles, and slopes of the elephants’ ears, snouts, tusks, and feet. But while examining this or any ivory carving, I must also consider the fact that I am not looking at just any material, but part of an animal. It is precisely this feeling that caused me to create my own works of art for elephants and their ivory. Through my own research, I have learned that elephants are highly sensitive creatures. They are feeling animals; they can experience pain, sadness, mourning, and abandonment in the same way humans can. My own artworks, Ivory, and Mother and Child, attempt to showcase the range of emotions that elephants are capable of. Ivory is an oil painting that communicates mourning through a juvenile elephant. This elephant is still growing its ivory tusks, so we can understand that it was not poached, unlike the rest of its herd. The youthful elephant looks at the ground, avoiding eye contact with the viewer, alluding to its feelings of pain, abandonment, and loss.

Ivory trade used to be a sustainable practice, but because of the increased demand for ivory, populations of people are pressured into committing mass killings of elephant herds in pursuit of the economic gains that come from harvesting ivory. The market is now riddled with brutality and environmental injustice. An elephant’s tusk, similar to a human tooth, is embedded within its skull. For a poacher to harvest the full tusk, they must cut open the elephant. There are different methods for harvesting, but regardless of the method chosen, the elephant will die. Because of this, every ivory carving must now be approached with the question: “How has this ivory been obtained?” There is a chance that the ivory was harvested after the elephant’s natural death, but the greater possibility is that this elephant was poached, or cruelly stripped of its ivory and abandoned.

The Tang sculpture, then, raises a number of questions, art historical and ethical. Among the most important, in my mind, is this: how do we responsibly display, study, and even find aesthetic enjoyment in this and other ivory carvings as we grapple with the knowledge that herds of elephants were and still are brutally mistreated and murdered for the harvest of their tusks?

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Part of a checklist showing three rows of artwork information on the left and artworks on the right.

View or download the checklist here!

Teaching Ideas

In Visiting Assistant Professor of English Maude Emerson’s “EN105: Imagining Earth in the 21st Century,” students took an interdisciplinary look at the Anthropocene, which included examining and discussing photographs in the Tang collection.

Writing assignments throughout the semester explored the implications of environmental change. Students were encouraged to connect ideas about humans and nature and to imagine practical approaches to environmental problems that pose an escalating challenge. The class discussion around artwork from the Tang collection highlighted concepts related to this environmental discourse.

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Close-Looking Exercise

For a visual literacy assignment related to Katy Schimert’s Armored Landscapes, download the PDF below. Interested in other artwork from the collection? Contact Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs Rachel Seligman.

View or download the close-looking exercise here!

Five metal, silver, mountainous sculptures sit on a dark floor.

Environment

Thematic Collections

See 130 artworks

GE101: Earth Systems Science

Skidmore Courses

Bright Ugochukwu Eke on Ripples and Storm

The artist spent a month at the Tang working with students to create Ripples and Storm 1 and Ripples and Storm 2, site-specific installations made for Environment and Object - Recent African Art.

Environment and Object: Recent African Art Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition Environment and Object examines recent African art according to two fluid and often intertwined aesthetic and conceptual frameworks: the impact of the environment on contemporary African life, and the use of found objects and appropriated materials as a recurring presence in current African art. This extensive catalogue accompanied the exhibition, with new essays on a range of topics related to art and the environment.