"The First Green": Ancient Life Inspires Modern Art

"The First Green" at the Marianne Boesky Gallery. (Image: Ana Pantelic) Every morning at Hamelin Pool, in Western Australia, the first rays of sunshine illuminate knobby reef-like structures, submerged or peeking just above the gentle waves, depending on the tide. On the crudely rounded surfaces of these rocks, microorganisms stir and begin the daily task of photosynthesizing, fighting against occluding sand grains to harvest the sunlight. This scene, or something like it, has likely been occurring every morning, somewhere on Earth, for the last 3.7 billion years. To artist Thiago Rocha Pitta, the timelessness of these structures, known as stromatolites, makes them an important mirror of the human impact on the natural world. “Human history is just a little part of the history of our planet,” he explains. “I have no problems realizing how insignificant we are.” In his latest exhibition, The First Green, at New York’s Marianne Boesky Gallery ...