Why Look at Plants?

Giovanni Aloi is an art historian in modern and contemporary art specializing in the representation of animals and plants in contemporary art. Aloi currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York and London, and Tate Galleries. He is the Editor in Chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (www.antennae.org.uk). He is the author of Art & Animals (2011) and Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene (2018). With Caroline Picard, Aloi is the co-editor of the University of Minnesota Press series Art after Nature.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of FiguresNotes on ContributorsAbout This BookIntroduction: Why Look at Plants?Giovanni AloiPart 1: Forest1 Lost in the Post-Sublime ForestGiovanni Aloi2 The Humblest Props Now Play a RoleCaroline Picard3 Ungrid-able Ecologies: Becoming Sensor in a Black Oak SavannahNatasha Myers4 An Open Book of GrassJenny Kendler Part 2: Trees5 Trees: Upside-Down, Inside-Out, and MovingGiovanni Aloi6 Animation, Animism … Dukun Dukun & DNALucy Davis7 Tree Wound PortraitsShannon Lee Castleman8 Contested Sites: Forest as Uncommon GroundGreg Lee Ruffing9 Quercus velutina, Art of Fiction, No. 11111011Lindsey FrenchPart 3: Garden10 Falling from GraceGiovanni Aloi11 Hortus Conclusus: The Garden of Earthly MindWendy Wheeler12 Eden’s Heirs: Biopolitics and Vegetal Affinities in the Gardens of LiteratureJoela Jacobs13 Thoreau’s BeansMichael MarderPart 4: Greenhouse14 The Greenhouse EffectsGiovanni Aloi15 SolariseLuftwerk16 The Glass Shields the Eyes of the Plant: Darwin’s Glasshouse StudyHeidi Norton17 The Lichen MuseumLaurie PalmerPart 5: Store18 Hyperplant Shelf-LifeGiovanni Aloi19 Life in the AislesLinda Tegg20 Roomba Rumba: Interview with Katherine BeharFatma Çolakoğlu and Ulya Soley21 Home Depot Throwing Out PlantsVarious ContributorsPart 6: House22 Presence, Bareness, and Being-WithGiovanni Aloi23 Houseplants as Fictional SubjectsSusan McHugh24 Seeing Green: The Climbing OtherDawn Sanders25 Plant RadioAmanda WhitePart 7: Laboratory26 Psychoactives and BiogeneticsGiovanni Aloi27 Of Plants and Robots: Art, Architecture and Technoscience for Mixed SocietiesMonika Bakke28 Boundary PlantsSara Black29 The Illustrated HerbalTova FloresIndexPart 8: Of Other Spaces30 (Brief) EncountersGiovanni Aloi31 Places of Maybe: Plants “Making Do” Without the Belly of the BeastAndrew Yang32 The NeophyteLois Weinberger33 Herbarium Perrine: Interview with Mark DionInterviewer:Giovanni Aloi34 Burning Flowers: Interview with Mat CollishawInterviewer:Giovanni Aloi35 A Program for Plants: In Conversation, CodaGiovanni Aloi, Brian M. John, Linda Tegg and Joshi RadinBibliographyIndex

"The emergence of the botanical from quiet, passive existence that constantly hums around us to active/interactive politicization on gallery walls, in installations, and in critical studies is so potent that it has become a full-fledged art movement. This book both unravels and invites an artistic reimagining of the human relationship to plants, in all its manifestations. [...] in light of the ongoing environmental crisis, the book isinvaluable. [... It] could not be more timely." - J. Natal, Columbia College Chicago, in: Choice Magazine, Vol. 57 No. 1 (September 2019)"In sum, Why Look at Plants? is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of the arts in considering human/non-human interactions, plant blindness, posthumanist thought, or the myriad implications of the Anthropocene." - Stephen Goddard, in: Esse, issue 99 (2020), p. 111.