Documents of Contemporary Art: Oceans

Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, dividing and connecting humans, who carry saltwater in their blood, sweat and tears. At the same time, oceans represent a powerful nonhuman force, rising, flooding, heating, and raging in unprecedented ways as the climate crisis unfolds. The sea has long enthralled artists, who have envisioned it as a sublime wilderness, a home to countless mythical creatures as well as bizarre real species, a source of life and death, a site of new beginnings and tragic endings, a force both wondrous and disastrous. From migration to the melting of the polar ice caps, the sea is omnipresent in international news and politics, leaking into popular culture in the wake of the ‘Blue Planet effect’ and proliferating in contemporary art and visual culture.

This collection gathers together some of today's most exciting contemporary artists and writers to address the ocean not only as a theme but as a major agent of artistic and curatorial methods.

Artists surveyed include Bas Jan Ader, Eileen Agar, John Akomfrah, Eva Barois De Caevel, Betty Beaumont, Heidi Bucher, Marcus Coates, Tacita Dean, Mark Dion, Ellen Gallagher, Ayesha Hameed, Barbara Hepworth, Klara Hobza, Isuma, Brian Jungen, Ana Mendieta, Kasia Molga, Eleanor Morgan, Wangechi Mutu, Jean Painleve and Genevieve Hamon, Zineb Sedira, Shimabuku, Christine & Margaret Wertheim, Alberta Whittle.

Writers include Stacy Alaimo, Michelle Antoinette, Bergit Arends, Erika Balsom, Karen Barad, Rachel Carson, Marion Endt-Jones, Kodwo Eshun, Vilem Flusser, Paul Gilroy, Epeli Hau’ofa, Eva Hayward, Stefanie Hessler, Luce Irigaray, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Celina Jeffrey, Koyo Kouoh, Lana Lopesi, Jules Michelet, Astrida Neimanis, Celeste Olalquiaga, Ralph Rugoff, John Ruskin, Marina Warner.