ABSTRACT
What I propose in this short chapter is that as our understanding of earth systems science has grown, so has our artistic response co-evolved from the same set of observations about and measurements of the world; the two modes of inquiry, the artistic and the scientific, are inextricably linked in a common set of stimuli.1 This is clearly evident in much Euro-American art produced during the Anthropocene. As anthropic effects on the planet increased, became more visible, and finally started to have negative impacts on human society, both art and science were paying attention and reinforcing one another’s actions. Art museums, as it turns out, are excellent laboratories in which to test this proposition, which describes an ongoing synergistic process as well as a conjoined history. The ideas expressed here stem from the writing about art and the Anthropocene that I
began in 2003, and the mission that the Nevada Museum of Art subsequently set out in 2008 for its Center for Art+Environment. The adoption of the rubric was logical, given the history of the Museum, which was established in Reno eighty-one years ago by two close friends, James Church and Charles Cutts. Church, a classics professor at the University of Nevada, was an aspiring polar explorer who took to climbing several times every winter nearby Mt. Rose, at 10,775-feet the highest Sierra Nevada peak outside Reno. His excuse to the University for his frequent ascents was that he was measuring the annual water content of snow, which allowed him to predict to farmers in arid Nevada how much water they would have for irrigation in the spring. Although Church never reached the North Pole, he did gain international recognition for establishing the world’s first snow survey and spreading his techniques around the world. His methodology is still used today, and his work generated an early and valuable climate data set.
