World’s Most Famous Climate Change Artist and Others

World’s Most Famous Climate Change Artist? According to The Economist’s September 9-21-2019 climate change issue, the answer is Olafur Eliasson. He began his career at age 15 in Iceland. He is now over 50 years old. He has been producing art in this area for at least 35 years. Climate change is not new. Climate change art is not new. Really, we have known about global warming and have understood the solutions for decades. In the 1970’s it was brought to the forefront of the nation with the oil crisis at that time. I had hoped people would begin driving more compact cars, but the cars only became larger, and larger — SUV’s. Station wagons, a thing of the past, now seem small.

Olafur Eliasson created the Rainbow Panorama (pictured below). He began his career selling gouaches (a type of painting) of landscapes from his walks with his father, an Icelandic painter. He photographed shrinking glaciers and polluted rivers. He became famous for his sensory experience art shows such as the “Weather Project.” He had 14 massive chunks of ice moved from Greenland to the Thames for the Paris Accord to demonstrate global warming.

Artists producing works in the area of climate change are growing.  “The Edible Hut” in Detroit, Michigan, was created by Mira Burack (Matterology). Renzo Martens works in the Congo and draws attention to the palm-oil industry’s impact on the environment. Vivien Sansout collaborates with farmers in Honduras and other areas.

“Cooking Sections” serves food for their performances in unlikely, polluted areas around the world. For the brave! Instead of carnivores or herbivores, they suggest people become “climavores” and eating locally sourced food.

There are art shows, sculptures, and a wide variety of artistic representations of climate change. There are professional and homemade signs at protests. The Politicians Discussing Climate Change sculpture in Berlin is one vivid example.

Recently we were inWorld’s Most Famous Climate Change Artist. David Attenborough’s image is on a building there.

The global warming art show by Neil Grabowsky is an example of a gallery display.

Emerging artists are also finding this topic important to document. The next image is “Passing Winds” and is the first such work of this person.

Even Pixabay.com has climate change pictures. There are many resources and articles online about climate change. Art is part of it all.

Thank you for reading, Carolyn