Plasticity of the Planet: On Environmental Challenge for Art and Its Institutions

Can plastic planetarism replace neoliberal globalization? This publication is informed by Catherine Malabou’s conception of destructive plasticity—an irreversible destruction of form that makes it possible for new phenomena to emerge. Here, the idea provides a framework for reflecting on an environmental crisis that is turning into an increasingly serious social crisis before our very eyes. This is a challenge to which neither contemporary art nor its institutions can remain indifferent; they must urgently develop their responses to it. The theoretical essays contained in this publication shed light on the nature and consequences of the destructive changes taking place in the natural/social environment. They are juxtaposed with artists’, curators’, and art researchers’ comments on more specific practices, protocols, and formats of reaction, with the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art serving as a particular case study. In a conversation conducted specially for the book, Malabou speaks of the consequences of man’s destructive activities and introduces the notion of ecological plasticity.