To Grouse and Kvech 2: Ruins, Climate Art, and Revisiting the Anthropocene

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/13

Alexis Rockman (b. 1962, New York City) is a leading painter of the Anthropocene, known for richly researched images that reimagine natural history through ecology and genetics. A School of Visual Arts graduate, he combines fieldwork with studio invention, sometimes using soil and organic materials for his “field drawings.” Museum highlights include A Fable for Tomorrow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He contributed concept art to Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Signature projects—Manifest Destiny, The Great Lakes Cycle, and Oceanus—stage dramas of adaptation, collapse, and resilience, marrying scientific attention to detail with a storyteller’s moral sense of consequence and scale.

In this interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Alexis Rockman discusses his latest series depicting American cultural icons as ruins, a continuation of his earlier masterpiece Manifest Destiny. Rockman reflects on decades of climate-themed art, from Future Evolution with Peter Ward to public works like The Farm. He critiques symbolic campaigns on climate change, the role of political distraction, and the difficulty of maintaining conviction without the “thread of the familiar.” Blending science fiction traditions with environmental urgency, Rockman situates his work between storytelling and scientific speculation, showing how art can hold tension between the familiar and the apocalyptic.

Interview conducted October 6, 2025, in the morning Pacific Time.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, what’s the latest art piece you’re working on now?

Alexis Rockman: I’m working on images of American icons in ruins. Go figure. It’s something I did about 20 years ago, an offshoot of my painting Manifest Destiny. That painting imagined New York after the ice caps melted—I started it 25 years ago—and it premiered at the Brooklyn Museum.

I plan to show these new works in Aspen next year or the year after. Today I’m working on the Getty Museum as a ruin. Institutions under pressure. Who knew I’d become a documentarian?

As some curators said: Planet of the Apes. I’m—yes—among many other things.

Jacobsen: Some climate news. Recently a super typhoon—I don’t know what “super” adds to it, but apparently it means a bigger typhoon—hit Taiwan and China. There’s been severe weather elsewhere. 

Rockman: I’m planning a project in India, speaking of typhoons. 

Jacobsen: You mentioned that. 

Rockman: I’ve got a list of places I want to go, and I’m applying for grants. I love the different names: hurricane, typhoon, monsoon—wonderful words. Same class of storms, different regions.

Jacobsen: What’s the difference?

Rockman: Geography. 

Jacobsen: Which name is more fun? “Typhoon,” because of the “y” and the “-phoon.” Who wouldn’t love to say that over and over? It’s as fun as hearing someone go, “Hey, you guys!”  The Goonies. 

Also, a tropical storm formed near the Bahamas and Cuba on the 28th and curved away from the U.S. East Coast. Are you almost numb to hearing these stories about climate change?

Rockman: I’m so numb and inured. I wouldn’t say indifferent, but I’m not as up in arms as I used to be. 

Jacobsen: Even during Obama’s administration, there were at least symbolic campaigns and public concern about climate change. Is it a fait accompli? Have people given up? Or have the campaigns gone quiet while work continues? 

Rockman: I don’t know more than you do, beyond the sense of futility and resignation. Not to say the will is gone, but without strong policies—especially from leading emitters—if not us, who? Perhaps China will step in. I’m no expert anymore.

It was a challenging target under the best of circumstances—almost impossible. Now, future generations will likely look back on roughly 1980–2030 with a frown.

Jacobsen: As Chomsky once put it—before his stroke—this was when the conditions for at least a decent, civilized human life were potentially going away. I was just searching for natural disasters in September this year. Starting in October, I specified climate-related events. Let’s say “weather-related disasters,” since some algorithm somewhere is probably going to edit out the phrase “climate change.”

Western North America heatwave in early September, with reasonably high temperatures. That’s right—the Pacific Northwest. Consistent with a warming trend caused by what’s called an “Omega block.” Heatwaves are among the most poorly distributed laws of nature. South and Southeast Asia had monsoons—your wonderful phrasing there.

Deadly landslides and floods hit India, Nepal, and the broader South Asia region. In Indonesia, there was an early and long wet season. That part isn’t talked about enough. I mean, the extended and contracted seasons, the greater variability—that’s more subtle. Indonesia experiences quite a bit of that. Spain had an extreme summer, raising late-season fire risk.

They had the worst wildfire season in roughly 30 years. Super Typhoon Ragasa was a deadly cyclone affecting the Philippines, Taiwan, South China, and Vietnam. Then there was Typhoon Bo Loi, which killed dozens in the Philippines and Vietnam, with heavy rainfall.

So that’s September. And to your question about October.

Rockman: This is circling the drain. Let’s talk about something more specific.

Jacobsen: Has there been a consistent retraction of funding from the United States government to combat some of these issues?

Rockman: Yes, from what little I know and read, I think there’s been a concerted and systemic effort to undermine anything related to these issues. They’re framed as the “radical left” or “psychotic climate embracers”—or whatever the catchy phrase is from this administration. It’s been a systemic dismantling of the feeble measures that might have started to turn things around slightly.

Jacobsen This is an important point we haven’t talked about. Since Charlie Kirk was killed, he’s become an odd distraction. If you track the interest, it peaked for a few days and then dropped off a cliff. What role do murders of public figures play in scandals? 

Rockman: They can be distractions. Who am I to say? But it could even be an inside job.

Rockman: Popular speculation—let’s just say Las Vegas betting establishments—would say anything to steer attention away from the Epstein situation. That appears to be the one thing this administration finds alarming.

Jacobsen: Have you changed your position at any point in your career on freedom of expression, especially in the context of political violence?

Rockman: That’s a third rail in many ways. Am I a fan of being a Nazi? No. Am I a fan of Nazi rallies? Personally, no. Do they have a right to express their revolting point of view? I suppose that’s what America is about, right? That’s what I was taught. As long as you don’t act on it, you can say whatever you want and face the consequences.

However, I don’t see that balance being respected anymore. I mean, the Jimmy Kimmel thing, of course. It’s a fascinating time, let’s put it that way. 

Jacobsen: Maybe we live in interesting times. Yes, I guess the North American version of that Chinese aphorism is “we’ll see.” 

Rockman: So, God bless South Park. I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but they’re the greatest artists of our generation. They are.

Jacobsen: A piercing light of clarity in moments of confusion. 

Rockman: For a lot of people, and with bravery—God bless them. It’s incredible.

Jacobsen: I’m wondering, in your own career, have you ever made pieces that offended people?

Rockman: Unfortunately, I’ve tried as hard as I could several times, and it didn’t go anywhere.

Jacobsen: What do you think that is? Is it because the message isn’t explicit enough?

Rockman: It’s either my fault or art’s fault. Probably both. People have seen disasters, they can imagine future catastrophes. I did a project 18 years ago at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Museum about a human ancestor, Homo georgicus. I hired a paleontological artist to reconstruct this extinct hominid from 1.8 million years ago, and I posed it like Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa—the angel. Then I had my wife pose as a human woman, obviously, in the pose of Saint Teresa. I made a painting hoping it would get the Bible Belt up in arms.

It got a big panning, and then there was a shrug and a yawn.

Jacobsen: You need to get in touch with The Satanic Temple. From my interviews with them, I know it cost them over $100,000 USD—not CAD—for a big bronze statue of Baphomet. They need a semi-truck to ship it in. When state legislatures try to put the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, The Satanic Temple places their statue next to it. Since they are a formally registered religion in the United States, they are permitted on the same grounds. Their point is: “If you allow them, then you must allow us.” Flip side of the coin. Have you done any art along those lines, or has it almost purely been environmental?

Rockman: I did a billboard on Houston and Lafayette Street in 1999 or 2000. I’ve done some public art.

Jacobsen: Have you done any ad commissions?

Rockman: I did an ad for Scotch—Chivas Regal.

Jacobsen: What did they give you in return other than money?

Rockman: A shitload of money. It was worth it. I sold liquor to children (joke). It’s great. That’s among the least bad things happening right now. I thought someone would knock on my door after that, but nothing happened.

Jacobsen: So you’ve had mixed responses, but nothing too dramatic. What words have been thrown around about your work when you’ve tried to make a stir?

Rockman: Nothing. No, I’m not kidding. 

Jacobsen: Do you have any regrets with respect to your art?

Rockman: Do I have regrets about what?

Jacobsen: With respect to your art. Not expressing yourself enough in some way? Not taking on a project?

Rockman: I have a couple of career blunders that I regret, but I’m not going to tell you. No—everything else was fine. When I quit smoking, it was a big challenge. I had panic attacks and trouble focusing for two years. That was my least favorite period of my work.

Jacobsen: What about The Farm from 2000 on bio-art ethics?

Rockman: Well, that’s the one that was built as a banner on Lafayette and Houston. It was commissioned by Creative Time, a nonprofit public art organization in New York. It’s probably one of my best-known works, but there was no negativity about it.

Jacobsen: Anything interesting in terms of controversy? For Manifest Destiny in 2004, it was called “Climate Ruin Porn,” might have been New York Magazine. 

Rockman: They also said it was a flooded, post-apocalyptic Brooklyn. Climate catastrophe images in museums—admired for urgency and criticized as bleak spectacle. That makes me laugh.

Jacobsen: What about critiques that are tinged with the positive—people calling your work preachy?

Rockman: You got me. I agree with all that.

Jacobsen: That line between science fiction and art has come up in a couple of our conversations.

Rockman: Here, I’ll show you a new painting. I lost my view of my studio—hold on.

Jacobsen: So that looks like the Statue [of Liberty] a little bit from the back end. Looks like a smokestack. 

Rockman: No—a Guggenheim. 

Jacobsen: The sea levels have definitely risen. There’s less haze in that sunset or sunrise than I would expect. To the book, what was the inspiration there? What was the cue?

Rockman: The cue is: how do you take something that, from my perspective, feels fatigued—these allegories of lost power, et cetera? There’s a tradition that all this stuff comes out of. Obviously, there’s science fiction from Amazing Stories. My friend Jonathan Lethem pointed this out on Instagram, and I’m going to send him a JPEG of this when it’s done.

Of course, Planet of the Apes is the most famous version of that. But even before 1968, there were many examples in the ’40s, ’50s, and early ’60s in science fiction rags—Astounding Stories and so on. He posted some of them. So anyway, I’m working in a tradition where those visions felt distant.

When I was a kid, I didn’t see Planet of the Apes when it first came out in 1968, because I was six and it wasn’t part of the deal. But I did see Beneath the Planet of the Apes. It’s not quite as good as the first one. What’s interesting, though, is that it imagines a whole landscape underground—New York as a ruin beneath the surface. So we all grew up with these images. 

Jacobsen: Futurama played on that.

Rockman: Because Matt Groening is about my age.

Jacobsen: These are clichés at this point. How do you find new life in these fatigued genres?

Rockman: That’s what this project is about. When I started this in the late 1990s—taking places and showing what climate change was going to do to them—my first piece was called Central Park. On one side, it showed “Snowball Earth,” the idea that if the Gulf Stream changes direction, it would create a snowball effect: much colder conditions in North America. 

That has proven to be untrue according to current models. But the big tipping point is still the possibility of the Gulf Stream collapsing. That conveyor brings warm water up from the Caribbean across the Atlantic to Europe. If it slows or stops, we don’t fully know the consequences.

I put that idea aside for 20 years—from 1996 to 2005 or 2006. But now that we’re facing a climate reality far more dire than I thought possible in 2005, and at the same time a political dynamic that is attacking institutions, it feels irresistible to revisit it.

Jacobsen: The immune system attacking the body.

Rockman: It’s like rheumatoid arthritis. Anyway, you think you’re done with a metaphor, something that seemed distant. Then 20 years later, you realize you’re living in it.

Jacobsen: So is it worth going back into that body of work? The process could be the same, but now the arrival feels real. 

Rockman: Back then I was projecting 20 years forward. Now, it’s here. I can’t literally do forest fires at the Getty—it would be too on the nose. More extreme. 

Jacobsen: Do you show one typhoon? Two? A “super” typhoon? Do we even know what that means? 

Rockman: That’s why the Getty ruin I’m working on is so interesting.

Jacobsen: I know that when I was in Ukraine, at least one hospital I saw had that same ruined look I’m imagining. Now I wonder—where’s the smoke, the haze, in front of the rising or setting sun coming from? 

Rockman: We’ve had clear skies. I don’t know. That’s up to you—that’s why it’s called art, Scott. It’s open to interpretation. Scotty Warp Speed.

Jacobsen: That’s right. In high school I was called Scotty. Never Scott. I found one of my old plays from back then—it was called Wile Away Hogwash. It was not half bad, actually. So what has happened to the Getty in your image?

Rockman: I don’t know, man. It’s an image. What do you want from me? A description from the artist? It’s up to you. It’s fucked up.

Jacobsen: When are these going to be released?

Rockman: I have to figure that out. These are for Aspen. I’ve had a long relationship with a gallery in Aspen since 1999. I’ve done eight or nine shows there, and I showed part of that body of work in 2005. We both agreed it would be fun to go back and revisit it.

Jacobsen: What I was getting at earlier is that the process can be the same, but now there’s an “arrival”—in the sense that you were talking about at the start of the conversation: feeling “numb” or “inured” to things. You’ve been doing art that projects forward, but only to a certain point in time. Now we’ve arrived at a period where some of that is happening—and in some areas worse. That same process could still apply, projecting 20 or 30 years forward.

Rockman: Twenty or twenty-five years ago, I co-authored a book called Future Evolution with Peter Ward, a paleontologist and a friend. We both grew up admiring Dougal Dixon’s After Man. We thought it would be fun to do something similar. Not that Dixon’s work isn’t serious, but it is ultimately a fantasy scenario—though logically constructed. We admired it deeply. It came out in 1979.

When I attempted this project, I did the illustrations and he wrote the text—you can still buy it on Amazon—I eventually considered my part of it a failure. I lost the framework of familiarity. You need the tension between something familiar and its extrapolation in order for it to resonate.

Have you seen the Apple TV series Extrapolations?

Jacobsen: No.

Rockman: It takes 10- or 15-year increments and projects what climate change will do to the earth every 15 years.

Well-intentioned and interesting, but it didn’t come out as well as I was hoping. I was talking to them about doing a cycle of posters for each episode, but it didn’t work out—Apple didn’t want to pay. 

Jacobsen: That’s quotable: Apple didn’t want to pay.

Rockman: Still, some episodes were compelling. Whale Fall, The Fifth Question, Face of God, Nightbirds, Lola, and my favorite—one about Indian seed banks. Anyway, my point is: when you lose the thread of the familiar, you lose conviction. The unfamiliar alone doesn’t hold. You need the tension of the familiar transformed.

Jacobsen: That’s your feeling now?

Rockman: Yes. 

Jacobsen: It could also a product of getting older. Everything’s familiar, and at the same time everything’s unfamiliar. The familiar stays more familiar, and the unfamiliar stays more unfamiliar. 

Rockman: My sense is that the work has to function like postcards of the familiar—transformed in one way or another. Let’s pick up that thread next time. By then I’ll have another two paintings started. We can touch on those, too—maybe even throw in some Gen Z phrasing. No cap.

Jacobsen: Thank you.

Rockman: You too.

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