The Sad Truths Behind These Unsettling Works of Art

On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig set off the world’s largest marine oil spill. The inky ribbons streaking through Edward Burtynsky’s lush seascape testify to people’s complicated relationship with this fossil fuel—a source of both energy and degradation. Human effects on the Earth can be intentional and unintentional, and the results can be both beautiful and horrific—sometimes at the same time. It is the artist’s intent to both pull the viewer in and to repulse them once they understand the source or the extent of what they are seeing.

 Photo by Edward Burtynsky 

 Scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades.

 And the Natural History museum has tried to stress the point as well.

 But, as the museum’s Scott Wing says, “somehow those messages don’t always get across.”

 So the curators turned to art.

 “For a science museum to have an art exhibition is a recognition that we need to learn many ways of communicating,” says Wing, a co-curator of the exhibition whose full title is

 “Unsettled Nature: Artists Reflect on the Age of Humans.”