CHRIS THURMAN: As art points a finger at climate change, three point right back
The global visual arts industry is responsible for 80-million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year. The primary contributing factor is the shipping (or flying) of works from exhibition to exhibition. More difficult to estimate is the pollution embedded in, or generated as a by-product of, the act of creation.
Compared with most other spheres of economic activity, this is not an egregious footprint. There is nevertheless a climate reckoning for artists, curators and gallerists — and, as art works draw attention to ecological crises, this arguably places a higher burden of expectation on the sector when it comes to sustainability...
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