I have been listening to the podcast An Anatomy of Cultural responses to Climate change. It was pointed out that cave men showed a response to climate change. Obviously, as the game changed because of the changing climate, different animals would have been painted, and also different measures would have been taken to hunt them which changes would also have been documented in the paintings. Art has always documented both changes themselves and the cultural responses to those changes.
I think however that there is a big division, which was not brought out in the podcast, between artists (and I include all the arts) who paint (or write) simply 'for art's sake', and those whose driving force is an attempt to educate the public, to highlight the things that are wrong with society. I think the difference is in the personality of the artist, in how they relate to their art. You cannot say that artists who do not attempt to hold a mirror up to society, are asocial, or that artists who mix their art with the mundane, are less truly artists. It is simply that artists do fall in the main into one of these two categories.
The question was asked at the end when did climate change art start? An interesting thought. Could artists have been aware of it before the scientists were? Or even before the public were? Actually I doubt it. But artists who do explore society can pick up things at an early stage. This is why they have the power to shock. But they have this power because although they have picked up what will become mainstream, they will usually have seen something about the issue which the public have not realised. Artists need to have the ability to look outside the box. That is what makes them artists.
So I reiterate my original question, to all the artists reading this. Are we barking up the wrong tree on the issue of climate change?