Planet B: Climate Change and the New Sublime

Planet B: Climate Change and the New Sublime

de Nicolas Bourriaud

132 pp.

Sternberg Press, 2022

9782493734013

By changing our collective relationship with the planet, global warming has transformed the artist’s gaze. Curator Nicolas Bourriaud invites artists from around the world to question the contemporaneity of the Romantic concept of the sublime in the age of the Anthropocene. Today, the sublime, grounded in the connection between humans and nature, takes a new turn, defined as a feeling of “delight tinged with horror”. The contrast between the individual and immensity thus becomes the aesthetic notion that determines our age. Bourriaud’s exhibition takes place in three acts: every exhibition is a forest; Charles Darwin and the coral reefs; and the tragic death of Nauru Island.