New Art Forms and Functions

Joining innovative artists like Christo, who wrapped a bridge in Paris with cloth, and those who create sculptures out of sand and ice are contemporaries using solar power in their art and creating digital art that exists as a piece of software. Other artists are activists expressing environmental concerns and promoting participatory art that can flourish outside galleries and museums.

     Visitors need to go deep inside a limestone cave in Puerto Rico to see a work by minimalist artist, Dan Flavin. Solar panels at the mouth of the cave power the pink, yellow, and red fluorescent lightbulbs that cast a reddish glow on the surrounding rock formations. To protect the lights from humidity and bats, the bulbs are hermetically sealed in a glass case.

      The Phillips Gallery in New York reports that a digital image of a grain silo in Kansas that was created using algorithms appealed to a geneticist and a high-frequency trader, because it related to the mathematical processes they used in their jobs.

     During a UN conference on climate change in Paris in December, 2015, visitors saw ice from Greenland slowly melting at the Place du Pantheon. Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson, created his work of art, "Ice Watch," by breaking an 80-ton block of ice into 12 chunks arranged in a circle.

     Artists, activists, researchers, farmers, scientists, and architects have come together to dramatize the importance of preserving the seeds of ancient grains no longer in wide use. A sailing ship will return the seeds from Oslo to their native soil in Istanbul and the Middle East. Some students are designing and making the ship's sail and sailing outfits out of plants grown from seeds used for ages.

    Not only can students be on the look out for new forms and functions of art around the world, they can try creating some themselves. Try attracting bees by planting a variety of flowers and vegetables in an artistic design this summer.