Summary. Since the 1980s, the cultural industries have gained a key role in strategies to deal with urban problems, seen as able to provide a new economic base in post-industrial settings. Cases of flagship cultural institutions such as Tate Modern or the Guggenheim in Bilbao imply that a cultural turn in urban policy delivers urban revitalisation. Following the turn in Glasgow's fortunes after being European Capital of Culture in 1990, it is easy to understand how city authorities and developers alike are captivated by cultural projects. But there are questions: is advocacy for the creative industries to be trusted? To what extent can policies and strategies which are successful in one city be mapped onto others? And to what extent do cultural producers, such as artists, subscribe to the party line? An increasing number of voices of dissent in the arts suggest an alternative approach to urban regeneration. This paper questions the rhetoric of the cultural industries and investigates emerging alternative scenarios.
Climate change is now an established scientific fact, and dealing with it may require significant shifts in consumption and economic organization. A key question is how these changes can be achieved, by regulation or shifts of consciousness on the parts of individuals. Among the means by which a shift of awareness might occur is cultural work — including the production and reception of art and literature. But does art which represents climate change distance or normalize the problem, or can new kinds of art construct new ways in which to see or intervene in the conditions and systems which produce global warming? The article considers recent exhibitions of art dealing with environmental and climate change issues in the UK and USA. Before that, the article summarizes aspects of recent relevant work on art by geographers. Looking at cases of environmentalist art, the article initially differentiates art representing climate change in dramatic images from an emerging tendency to practical intervention. It argues that art may contribute to a shift in attitudes, but wonders whether intervention-as-art is in its way another form of representation, and whether art inevitably distances whatever problems it addresses. This is an insoluble difficulty: the real is always mediated and distanced in culture, yet art may still draw attention to conditions and to the inherent contradictions they contain.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.