Wivenhoe Park by John Constable.
“Black Earth Rising: Colonialism and Climate Change in Contemporary Art” is a large art exhibition to be held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, May 18 to September 21, 2025. Then the show travels to Europe. Here I present a preview review just of the catalogue, which is published by Thames & Hudson. The guest curator Ekow Eshun has worked with support from Katie Cooke, Baltimore Museum Manager of Curatorial Affairs. And the authors of the catalogue include Anna Arabindan-Kesson and Macarena Gómez-Barris. This exhibition, which presents more than 150 artists, many of them well known, deserves to be seen. But obviously even viewing these excellent illustrations cannot serve as substitutes for the artworks themselves. Here, then, in anticipation is a commentary on the fully illustrated catalogue, which contains important texts by the curators. I focus on this argument and one of its implications, in anticipation of viewing the exhibition. Putting their account in art historical perspective, I raise questions about its political significance.
An enormous amount of varied visual materials are assembled here. Frank Bowling, Middle Passage (1970) shows the slave ships. Kara Walker’s Restraint (2009) depicts an individual slave woman. And Anna Bella Geiger, Native Brazil— Alien Brazil (1976-77) presents the brutal history of that country. Finally, Alfredo Jarr’s Gold in the Morning B (1985) is an image of a mining site. Traditionally European landscape painting has very often been associated with escape from the urban environment. Looking at their Claudes or their Constables, the busy prosperous city dwellers could enjoy imagining being in their countryside house. But when we become aware that this ‘nature’ is a construct, the product of painstaking human labor, as much as the city environment, then making that contrast will seem more problematic. The countryside in Constable’s Wivenhoe Park (1816), the famous painting which was the stalking horse for Ernst Gombrich’s Art and Illusion, is a creation of human activity. As you can see by reading his text, or just by looking closely, it’s a working site, the property of the privileged people who own the land. And so leftist commentators have been legitimately much concerned to observe that a real act of repression is required to subtract out the workers whose activity creates those beautiful sites. Indeed, in his painting Constable shows the grand manor house of the property owners in the distance. A generation or two ago, John Berger and other left-wing commentators created an intellectual stir by focusing on these historical realities, which lie behind these beautiful depicted scenes. “Black Earth Rising” takes that critical political discussion a step further, in a dramatic unexpected way. We are very well aware of the dramatic present ecological problems. And we have seen, also, many shows devoted to non-white artists. This important exhibition connects them, by scrutiny of the racial dimensions of ecology.
“Black Earth Rising” presents maps showing the history of colonialism. Thus Jaune QUick-to-See Smith’s Tribal Map (2000) remaps the United States according to Indian tribal areas. Ingrid Pollard’s Valentine Days (2017) uses hand-tinted photographs to rework archival images of plantation life. And Todd Gray’s Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings (2021) reworks old photographs of Africa. Presenting the legacies of slavery and colonialism, the exhibition shows images of plantations as seen from the vantage point of the slave worker. Urging that we think seriously about how to reclaim nature, it presents images of the history of our long colonial exploitation of nature. Judging just by the catalogue, the power of the exhibition lies in its massive presentation of visual materials making this argument. Traditional histories of landscape painting show beautiful sites from the viewpoint of the victors. This exhibition presents what effectively is the other side of that picture, the ravaged landscapes as viewed by the victims of colonialism. You really need the text to understand the essential unity of these visual themes, for — as this evidence shows — the land looks very different if you’re forced to work on it.
Recently there has been a great deal of discussion in the United States and also internationally about art by Black people. And, also, and this is usually a separate topic, for some time visual artists of al races have often been dealing with climate change. What’s worth of attention, then, is the novel connections that this exhibition makes between these two themes. Aptly enough, so the museum press release explains, the phrase terra preta—Portuguese for “black soil”— refers to a type of fertile earth found in the Amazon Basin that was created by ancient Indigenous civilizations. Of course climate change affects everyone, but how and how much it affects you personally is typically a function of your race. The older leftist literature devoted to landscape painting takes note of the price of these landscapes. This show takes the argument a dramatic step further. Nature isn’t so beautiful when you look at this history.
The catalogue presents a convincing case for its claims, but doesn’t take up a crucial political issue. And so what I wish to discuss briefly are the implications of this analysis. As we all surely know right now, acknowledging responsibilities for serious unjustified inequalities is often politically perilous. The Germans acknowledged the Holocaust only after their unconditional surrender in 1945. And the United States is not yet prepared to pay reparations for slavery, which is an obviously comparable case.“Black Earth Rising” surely calls for grand changes in how we understand injustice. And since the responsibility lies primarily with White people, this show is surely to cause heated international discussion. It very hard to imagine, in the present state of things, how our nation will respond constructively. For that reason, this show is likely to be immensely important. Should we feel pessimistic? Allow me, if you will, to conclude on a speculative optimistic note.
It might be argued that the kind of self-critical evaluation of a culture of its own history such as is promoted by “Black Earth Rising” is a great constructive achievement. Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morality presents such a view of Western critical evaluation of Christian morality. The ultimate aim of the European search for truth led, so he claims, to dramatic self-critical reflection. Now, then, we could apply his argument to the history of colonialism ecology presented in this exhibition. Just as it is a magnificent achievement for a person to honestly judge themselves self-critically; so, it could be argued, it’s a great achievement for a culture to honestly evaluate its history, however painful that awareness may be be.
I wish that this might be true. But everything I see about recent history suggests that this line of thought is hopelessly overoptimistic. More likely, I think, people prefer to have delusions about their history rather than face uncomfortable truths. This, alas, is the dominant trend of American culture right now. Still, if that pessimistic prediction is correct, then this impressive catalogue tells us all too much about ourselves.
Source: Counter Punch
