140 ARTISTS' IDEAS FOR PLANET EARTH

The new book from the Serpentine Gallery

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos

What can artists offer in response to climate change?

5. September 2021

©140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos

Back to Earth by Penguin Design, 3 June 2021, £9.99,

Hardback, illustrated

©140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos

Back to Earth by Penguin Design, 3 June 2021, £9.99,

Hardback, illustrated

140 ARTISTS' IDEAS FOR PLANET EARTH

The new book from the Serpentine Gallery

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos

What can artists offer in response to climate change?

Published to coincide with the Serpentine's major environmental programme.

What can artists offer in response to climate change? The new book, 140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth, published by the Serpentine Gallery brings innovative responses from some of the world's most creative minds. The book has been compiled by the Serpentine's curator and artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, together with Kostas Stasinopoulos and the team of the Serpentine's long-term project Back to Earth. The book is a compendium of recipes, sketches, photos, essays, sayings and instructions from 140 artists, scientists, architects and filmmakers.

English artist James Bridle shows how to help a plant migrate through climate change by carrying it to a new place. Latai Taumoepeau has the idea of burying bananas. Ed Ruscha describes his idea of memorialising trees that didn't make it. 

An invitation from Judy Chicago, Jane Fonda and Swoon asks us to make art for the earth with the accompanying hashtag campaign to make art for the earth; Alejandro González Iñárritu offers a handbook for immigrants; Olafur Eliasson asks us to "look down and look up".  With many more actions and invitations from names such as Vivienne Westwood, Betye Saar, Brian Eno, Torkwse Dyson, Bhanu Kapil, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, Rose Wylie and Gustav Metzger, this book offers the reader 140 different ways to rethink our relationship with the world around us and to effect change with each of our actions.

Holding the book, flicking through its pages and listening to the many voices on alternative - yet interconnected - visions of the Earth provides food for thought, stimulus for cooking, for dreaming, for action and for expectations of what the Earth will be like in the next 50, 500 or 5,000 years.

"140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth" is a multi-year initiative by the Serpentine Gallery, inspired by Gustav Metzger, an artist and activist known for his efforts to combat climate change and raise public awareness in the 1970s and until his death in 2017. 

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a curator and writer. He is the artistic director of the Serpentine, London. He is also the author of Ways of Curating and, with Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei Speaks.

Kostas Stasinopoulos is a curator and art historian. He is assistant curator for live programmes at the Serpentine and works on the institution's interdisciplinary programme, Back to Earth, and the project General Ecology.

140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos

Back to Earth by Penguin Design

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/140-artists-ideas-for-planet-earth/