Environmental art

Environmental art is art that addresses social and political issues relating to the natural and urban environment

Joseph Beuys
The End of the Twentieth Century (1983–5)
Tate
© DACS, 2025

Anselm Kiefer
Lilith (1987–9)
Tate
© Anselm Kiefer

Environmental art often takes the form of installation. The term came into use in the late 1960s and is often closely related to land art.

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Explore this term

To the Ends of the Earth: Art and Environment

Nicholas Alfrey, Stephen Daniels and Joy Sleeman

Introducing the group of articles devoted to the theme of ‘Art & Environment’ in Tate Papers no.17, this essay reflects on changing perceptions of the term ‘environment’ in relation to artistic practices and describes the context for a series of case studies of sites, spaces and processes that extend from the immediate locality to the most remote boundaries of knowledge and experience.
MicroTate 9: Environment special

Richard Shelton, Dai Qing, Mike Hulme and Paulo Barreto

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world. Rising ocean temperatures and increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are clear signs, as David Attenborough has said, that our planet Earth is ‘changing more extremely and swiftly than at any time in the past several million years’. Four leading environmentalists outline their concerns to Tate Etc. taking their cue from a work in the Tate collection.

Selected artists in the collection

Joseph Beuys

1921–1986
Lothar Baumgarten

born 1944
Dennis Oppenheim

1938–2011
Christo (Christo Javacheff)

1935 – 2020
Bruce McLean

born 1944

Selected artworks in the collection