Artsts to Consider

Eduardo Kac
Genesis
1999




Steve Kurtz
Marching Plague
Video

"Marching Plague re-creates a 1952 British military experiment wherein guinea pigs were infected with the plague to see how fast it would spread. Only instead of plague, Kurtz used a harmless bacteria. It’ll be included in the Biennial, but just on video. The Whitney didn’t want the bacteria in the building."

I was very happy to read that after a 4 year ordeal, Kurtz's case (he was accused of attempting bioterrorism) was dismissed. Read more at the Critical Art Ensemble website.


Olafur Eliasson
360 Room for All Colours
2002




Guerrilla gardening
"The mission: to beautify unsightly, unloved spaces by planting on land that doesn't belong to them."

Guerrilla gardening in Chicago



Eduardo Kac
GFP Bunny
2000

The following statement is taken from Kac's website. I think it is important to awknowledge the reasoning behind Kac's creation. He speaks very strongly about Alba (the bunny) not as a project, but as a living creature worthy of respect, and it is clear that he sees bio art as not simply a question of aesthetics or exploration, but as field replete with moral obligations.

"My transgenic artwork "GFP Bunny" comprises the creation of a green fluorescent rabbit, the public dialogue generated by the project, and the social integration of the rabbit. GFP stands for green fluorescent protein. "GFP Bunny" was realized in 2000 and first presented publicly in Avignon, France. Transgenic art, I proposed elsewhere [1], is a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to transfer natural or synthetic genes to an organism, to create unique living beings. This must be done with great care, with acknowledgment of the complex issues thus raised and, above all, with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created.



Robert Smithson
Produced by Minetta Brook in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art
Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan
1970/2005