Planetary Realism: Art Against Apocalypse formulates two overarching and intersecting questions. The first is how and to what degree art is able to turn us away from ‘capitalist realism’ to face the underlying biophysical reality of Earth’s planetary dynamics and their current crisis. The second is the question of what ‘realism’ in the visual arts might mean in the wake of thoroughgoing philosophical and political critique of objectivity in systems of representation and science undertaken over the last half century. If realism’s task of showing the “essential phenomena of our times” (Gÿorgy Lukács) remains as vital as ever given our ecological peril how – it asks – does the adjective ‘planetary’ alter the visual strategies of this new Earth-centric form of realism? The context of the book comprises the direct and tangible effects of the climate emergency and the social, existential and epistemological impacts of Paul J. Crutzen’s pronouncement of the Anthropocene (2000) after which (capitalist) humans now understand ourselves to be a terraforming force on a planetary scale. Both these radical and destabilising events pose important questions for the role, history and identity of art in relation to racial capitalist extractivism and its disregard for the more-than-human world. The book does not simply diagnose the problem of visual arts in the era of climate catastrophe; it also points to how artists, communal practices and activism are already doing significant work in “turning us to face Gaia” (Bruno Latour). This can inspire concrete social practice, artistic and curatorial strategies and pedagogy.

Josephine Berry is an art theorist, educator and editor. Here research explores the increasingly expanded politics of art's relationship to its site in globalised late capitalism. She is Tutor at the RCA's School of Arts and Humanities.