Man and Nature, a Timeless Matter of Toil

The multifaceted relationship between man and his natural environment sparks discussions among everyone from artists and farmers to fishermen and scientists. Partaking in the sensory delight of fruit, or intensely debating over the use of natural resources, man's interactions with nature range from personal to political.

An act as ordinary as peering into the horizon inspires awe, so it's no wonder that the relationship between man and nature has been a timeless source of contemplation, evident in our agricultural practices, art, literature, philosophies, religions, and more.

In the Carnegie Museum of Art's exhibit Natural History, on display in the Forum Gallery until October 14, a small collection of works by international artists invites visitors to explore ideas concerning man as an inhabitant and appreciator of Earth.

The text on the gallery's exterior wall describes the artworks as "reveling in contradiction and complexity while nonetheless aiming for different kinds of truths, representations, and wonder." This offers a nice introduction to one room that approaches a subject so large it seems unapproachable. American Rachel Harrison's limestone green sculpture Utopia (2002) emulates this feeling with precision. A porcelain figurine confronts a giant cavernous entity, appearing to represent Mother Nature, which not only holds the figurine as to be of support, but also boldly marks its power over the figurine through its inherent advantage of size. What shelters man can also endanger man.

Gelatin silver prints by American photographer John Divola are both honest and surreal, displaying grainy, black and white images of majestic west coast landscapes evidently impacted by humans. In an artist statement, Divola writes, "While the literal subject of [The Four Landscapes (1992)] is California, its figurative subject is the psychological location of the natural from the vantage point of the cultural."

Next to Divola's photography rests German Florian Maier-Aichen's Untitled (2005), a chromogenic print. Maier-Aichen cleverly uses the medium to challenge what it represents. Does photography communicate truth? An ominously dark body of water rests aside the unreal red of Los Angeles' coastline, and a deep turquoise shroud of sky hovers over the whitewashed horizon. Through digital manipulation, Maier-Aichen dramatizes the naturally angular coastline into a luminous composition, like an inhabited red Mars (if it had beaches).

Other displays, such as 45 wooden boxes stretched across a wall, two videos of a cat and dog, and white pails containing castings of grass, are less astonishing but still thought-provoking. Don't miss two works that border the exterior wall and could be carelessly overlooked: Brazilian Beatriz Milhazes' Nazareth das Farinhas (2002), an acrylic burst of floral patterns on canvas, and American Mel Bochner's Measurement: Plant (Palm) (1969), an ode to man's desire to understand and document the physical development of a naturally occurring life form.

All artworks in Natural History are part of the museum's permanent collection. Centered around an inexhaustible, classic theme, the exhibit enables viewers to interpret some modes through which artists represent their surroundings, encouraging them to think about their own surroundings a little more.