By evoking the serene visual beauty of the night sky, Chu Yun provides a particularly curious example of a disruptive eco artist.
Some artists are dedicated to disrupting society. Others are committed to confirming the status quo. Eco artists tend to be disruptive because they either protect and restore what is being mistreated and protest the wasteful and contaminating practices that have become commonplace.
a. By evoking the serene visual beauty of the night sky, Chu Yun provides a particularly curious example of a disruptive eco artist. His aesthetic means seems more common among artists who bolster the status quo than those who deliver social critiques. Constellation recreates the delicate splendor of a cloudless, moonless night seen from a mountain top or desert. Constellations of stars have also inspired the following works of art. Choose any one and compare it to Chu Yun’s installation in terms of its visual and emotional impact. Does it confirm or contradict commonplace values?
Maxfield Parrish
Stars
Maxfield ParrishStars1926
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Watercolor of Hundertwasser House
Olafur Eliasson
Analemma for Kunsthaus Zug
2009
C print
90 x 120 cm
b. Compare the role of beauty in Chu Yun’s works of art to works by any two of the following artists in this book: Andy Goldsworthy, Red Earth, Steiner & Lenzlinger, Lin, Haapoja, Merz, and Krajcberg. Do these works enlist beauty to confirm or challenge social norms?