Land Art

LAND ART Edited by Ty Dudley-Mann

LAND ART Edited by Ty Dudley-Mann

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 01 - 02 1.

WHAT IS LAND ART 08 - 11 History Inspiration Arte Povera

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MALE ARTISTS 39 - 51 Andy Goldsworthy Richard Long Robert Smithson Carl Andre

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SAN FRANCISCO LAND ART 16 - 27 Skygate Sea Change Language of the Birds Earth Wall Cupids Span

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ART IN NATURE 53 - 63 The Passage Spencer Byles Ash Dome Clemson Clay Nest

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FEMALE ARTISTS 29 - 39 Agnes Denes Nancy Holt Alice Aycock Lita Alburquerque

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FUTURE LAND ART 65 - 81 Solar Land Art Sun Ray Night & Day Head in the Clouds Radiance Ribbon Solar Orbs

INTRO DUCTION Earth art, also referred to as Land art or Earthworks, is largely an American movement that uses the natural landscape to create site-specific structures, art forms, and sculptures. The movement was an outgrowth of Conceptualism and Minimalism: beginnings of the envronmental movement and the rampant commoditization of American art in the late 1960s influenced ideas and works that were, to varying degrees, divorced from the art market.

What began as trends in sculpture to incorporate natural material like dirt, rocks, and plants quickly grew into a process based approach to art-making in which artists would make excursions into the surrounding environment to either collect objects or perform site-specific interventions. Some artists used mechanical earthmoving equipment to make their earthworks, while others made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape. The artists typically documented their earthworks using photographs, films, and maps for exhibition in galleries.

Land artists were especially attracted to the vast spaces and sublime emptiness of the American West. The austere environments of the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau offered an abundance for space and material far removed from the urban centers of the art world. In Utah, we are fortunate to live in proximity to such grand artistic achievements, especially our own.

KEY IDEAS The favored materials for Earthworks were those that could be extracted directly from nature, such as stones, water, gravel, and soil.

Influenced by prehistoric artworks such as Stonehenge, the Earth artists left their structures exposed to the elements. The resulting ephemerality and eventual disintegration of the works put them outside of the mainstream where works of art were typically coddled and protected in controlled environments.

Earth artists often utilized materials that were available at the site on which their works were constructed and placed, honoring the specificity of the site. Locales were commonly chosen for specific reasons. Robert Smithson, for example, picked damaged sites for his works in order to suggest renewal and rebirth. This idea of sitespecificity was something introduced to the art world by Earth art, again placing the artists at the vanguard and the pieces had often required wide, open spaces, meaning that many of their works were not available to the average viewer and thus questioned the very purpose of art as something to be viewed.

The rejection of the traditional gallery and museum spaces were defined Earth art practices. By creating their works outside of these institutions, Earth artists rebuffed the commodity status these venues conferred on art, again challenging traditional definitions of art as something to be bought and sold for profit.

WHAT IS LAND ART HISTORY INSPIRATION ARTE POVERA

CHAPTER 1

HISTORY

“Art’s development should be dialectical and not metaphysical.”

-Robert Smithson

Land Art, a term coined by the artist Robert Smithson, is a movement that occured in the U.S. during the late 1960 and during the 1970’s. However, the art form has existed for thousands of years. Land Art is a work of created with and embodied by the physical landscape. The movement sought to take art out of the museums and set it within a natural context. Many works of Land Art are temporary or left to change with the elements of nature.

The essential feature of Land Art is the inseperable link between the work of art and the landscape in which it’s placed.

Land Art is often comprimised of such materials as stone, bed rock, water, branches and other natural elements, but concrete, metal and pigments are often employed as well.

Initially Land Art became popular in the American Southwest but these works now only exist as photographs or recordings.

The artists of these works began to create Land Art as a way to condemn the artificiality of commercialized art that was popular during the era. The first work termed as Land Art was created at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture by artists Douglas Leichter and Richard Saba.

Projects were often large in scale, therefore artists required the use of equipment in order to move the earth to their design. As these projects were frequently costly, the artists depended largely upon supporting foundations or private patrons. For this reason, Land Art declined during the hard economic times of the 1970’s. Smithson, the leading figure of the movement, died in a plane crash in 1973. However, other prominent Land Art artists include Hans Haacke, Alice Aycock, Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt, and Andrew Rogers.

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WHAT IS LAND ART

SPIRAL JETTY

ROBERT SMITHSON 1970 GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH

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CHAPTER 1

INSPIRATION

Land art is to be understood as an artistic protest against the perceived artificiality, plastic aesthetics and ruthless commercialization of art at the end of the 1960’s in America.

Exponents of Land Art rejected the museum or gallery as the setting of artistic activity and developed monumental landscape projects which were beyond the reach of traditional transportable sculpture and the commercial art market. Land art was inspired by minimal art and Conceptual art but also by modern and minimal movements such as De Stijl, cubism, minimalism and the work of Constantin Brancusi and Josephy Beuys.

Many of the artists associated with Land Art had been involved with minimal art and conceptual art. Isamu Noguchi’s 1941 design for Contoured Playground in New York is sometimes interpreted as an important early piece of Land Art even though the artist himself never called his work “Land Art” but simply “sculpture”. His influence on contemporary Land Art, landscape architecture and environmental sculpture is evident in many works today.

CURVED STICKS

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY 2006 WOODY CREEK, COLORADO

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WHAT IS LAND ART

ARTE PROVERA

Arte Povera - the italian phrase for “poor art” or “impoverished art” was one of the most significant and influential avant-garde movements to emerge in Southern Europe in the late 1960’s and included the work of dozens of Italian artitsts. The most distinctively recognizable trait was their use of commonplace materials that evoked a pre-industrial age, such as earth, rocks, clothing, paper and rope; literally ‘poor’ or cheap materials that they repurposed for their practice. These practices presented a challenege to established notions of value and propriety, as well subtly critiquing the industrialization and mechanization of italy.

Their work marked a reaction against the modernist abstract painting that had dominated European art in the 1950’s, which they distinguished themselves from by focusing on the sculptural work rather than painting. They also rejected American Minimalism , and in particular what they perceived as its enthusiasm for technology and dominance over the art world. Arte Povera echoes Post-Minimalist tendencies in American art of the 1960’s in its opposition to modernism and technology, its evocations of the past, locality and memory have distinctly Italian aesthetic and strategic characteristics.

KEY IDEAS

Some of the group’s memorable work comes from the contrast of unprocessed materials with references to the emergence of consumer culture. Believing that modernity threatened to erase collective memory and tradition (key aspects of Italian cultural heritage) Arte Povera sought to contrast the new with the old in order to complicate it’s audience’s sense of passing time. In addition to opposing the technological preoccupation of American Minimalism, artists associated with Arte Povera rejected what they perceived as its scientific rationalism. In direct contrast to its methodical and almost clinical approach to spatial relations, they conjured a world of myth whose mysteries couldn’t be easily explained. Artists presented absurd, jarring and comical juxtapositions, often of the new and the or the highly processed and the pre-industrial.

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“My work is about helping humanity.�

-Agnes Denes

DESERT BREATH DANAE STRATOU 1977 SAHARA DESERT

FLOATING PIERS

CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE 2014 LAKE ISEO, ITALY

SAN FRANCISCO LAND ART

SKYGATE SEA CHANGE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS EARTH WALL CUPIDS SPAN

CHAPTER 2

SKY GATE Skygate was built in 1985 as San Francisco’s first piece of public art funded by a corporation. Made of stainless steel and sculptured by Roger Barr, it is dedicated to the memory of Eric Hoffer, a longshoreman, poet, and philosopher.

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S.F. LAND ART

SKYGATE

ROGER BARR 1985 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER 2

SEA CHANGE Artist Mark di Suvero gained fame in San Francisco with an exhibit of his sculptures on Crissy Field in 2013. This is one of two permanent SF works, built in 1978. It is built out of stainless steel and weighs ten tons and sits at the port where Di Suvero first entered the U.S. from China as a child.

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S.F. LAND ART

SEA CHANGE

MARK DI SUVERO 1995 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

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CHAPTER 2

LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS These illuminated books appear to be taking flight over Chinatown. Words and phrases from the books are embedded in the plaza, recognizing the area’s literary history, in this permanent site-specific sculpture

by Brian Goggin with Dorka Keehn. Goggin is probably best known for Defenestration, the flying-furniture sculpture that came down in 2015.

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S.F. LAND ART

LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS BRIAN GOGGIN 2018 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

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MIRROR COVERED MIRAGE DOUG AITKEN 2017 GASTAAD, SWITZERLAND

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EARTH WALL Andy Goldsworthy’s newest Presidio sculpture is a ball of branches and earth set in within an earthen wall. It makes up part of an enclosure at the back of the Presidio Officers’ Club.

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S.F. LAND ART

EARTH WALL

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY 2014 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

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CHAPTER 2

CUPIDS SPAN A pre-Instagram marvel, chances are that you know the famous Cupid’s Span sculpture along the Embarcadero.

It was created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen to to evoke the myth of Eros. Today it provides the backdrop for many outdoor weddings and like-heavy social media moments.

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CUPIDS SPAN

CLAES OLDENBURG 2002 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

FEMALE ARTISTS AGNES DENES NANCY HOLT ALICE AYCOCK LITA ALBUQUERQUE

CHAPTER 3

AGNES DENES A primary figure among the concept-based artists who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, Agnes Denes is internationally known for works created in a wide range of mediums. A pioneer of several art movement she is difficult to categorize. Investigating philosophy, linguistics, psychology, poetry, history, and music, Denes’s artistic practice is distinctive in terms of its aesthetics and engagement with socio-political ideas.

As a pioneer of environmental art, she created Rice/ Tree/Burial in 1968 in Sullivan County, New York which, according to the renowned art historian and curator Peter Selz, was “probably the first large scale sitespecific piece anywhere with ecological concerns.”

Denes is also known for her innovative use of metallic inks and other non- traditional materials in creating a prodigious body of exquisitely rendered drawings and prints that delineate her explorations in mathematics, philosophy, geography, science and other disciplines.

Works by Agnes Denes are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art; the Metro- politan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and many other major institutions worldwide.

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FEMALE LAND ARTISTS

RICE TREE BURIAL AGNES DENES 1977 NEW YORK, NEW YORK

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CHAPTER 3

NANCY HOLT A primary figure among the concept-based artists who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, Agnes Denes is internationally known for works created in a wide range of mediums. A pioneer of several art movement she is difficult to categorize. Investigating philosophy, linguistics, psychology, poetry, history, and music, Denes’s artistic practice is distinctive in terms of its aesthetics and engagement with socio-political ideas.

As a pioneer of environmental art, she created Rice/ Tree/Burial in 1968 in Sullivan County, New York which, according to the renowned art historian and curator Peter Selz, was “probably the first large scale sitespecific piece anywhere with ecological concerns.”

SUN TUNNELS

NANCY HOLT 1973 GREAT BASIN DESERT, UTAH Denes is also known for her innovative use of metallic inks and other non- traditional materials in creating a prodigious body of exquisitely rendered drawings and prints that delineate her explorations in mathematics, philosophy, geography, science and other disciplines.

Works by Agnes Denes are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art; the Metro- politan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and many other major institutions worldwide.

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FEMALE LAND ARTISTS

Holt began her artistic career creating photography, poetry, and video work, but quickly changed course after visiting the Las Vegas desert with her husband and fellow Land Artist Smithson in 1968. “We stepped off the plane into the vastness of the desert,”she said of the encounter. “I had an overwhelming experience of my inner landscape and the outer landscape being identical. It lasted for days. I couldn’t sleep.”

Remaining in the American West, Holt spearheaded a new strain of Land Art that emphasized the land over the art. In contrast to many of her peers, who sought to make their mark on the earth, she instead cultivated experiences that enabled viewers to see the landscape through a new lens. While creating a work of urban reclamation, Holt transformed an area that was once a gas station and dilapidated warehouse into a municipal park with pools, stone spheres and pillars, and tunnels along with “shadow” impressions that she embedded in the ground.

Each year at 9:32 AM, August 1st, the date in 1860 on which the land that became Rosslyn was purchased, the natural shadows of the sculptures align with the fabricated shadows. Another of Holt’s notable works is the Solar Rotary (1955) at the University of South Florida, Tampa, a public art installation of eight connected poles and benches arranged in a circular plaza.

“It is a very desolate area, but it totally accessible, and it can be easily visited making Sun Tunnels more accessible really than art in museums. Eventually, as many people will see Sun Tunnels as would see many works in a city - in a musuem anyway.”

-Nancy Holt 33

COMING WORLD REMEMBER ME

KOEN VANMECHLEN 2014

CHAPTER 3

ALICE AYCOCK

Alice Aycock has lived in New York City since 1968. She received a B.A. from Douglass College and an M.A. from Hunter College. She was represented by the John Weber Gallery in New York City from 1976 through 2001 and has exhibited in major museums and galleries nationally as well as in Europe and Japan. Currently she is represented

by Marlborough Gallery, New York and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin. She had her first solo exhibition of new sculptures with Marlborough in the fall.

Her works can be found in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the LA County Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Sheldon, Storm King Art Center, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, and the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany. She exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Documenta VI and VIII and the Whitney Biennial.

She has had three major retrospectives. First was organized by Wurttembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart in 1983 and traveled to Kolnischer Kunstverein Koln; Sculpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl; Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag; Kunstmuseum Luzern. In 1990, the second retrospective entitled “Complex Visions� was organized by the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. In 2013, a retrospective of her drawings and small sculptures was exhibited at the Parrish Art Museum

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FEMALE LAND ARTISTS

in Water Mill, New York coinciding with with the Grey Art Gallery in New York City. The retrospective traveled to the Design & Architecture Museum in Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2014).

She received the International Association of Art Critics Award for this exhibition.From March 8th through July 20th 2014, a series of seven sculptures were installed on the Park Avenue Malls in New York City, entitled Park Avenue Paper Chase, in collaboration with Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin.

Three of the sculptures traveled to the Chicago Lakefront in August 2014. Two other works from this series were exhibited in “Beyond Limits: Sotheby’s at Chatsworth”at the Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK in 2013/2014. In 2015, Hoop-La was exhibited in a large outdoor sculpture exhibition in Bad Homburg, Germany. The MoMA reinstalled her sculpture Studies for a Town as part of the exhibition “Here Is Every,” curated by Connie Butler (2008-9), and the Whitney Museum exhibited Untitled (Shanty) in “Sites,” that was curated by Carter Foster and Gary Murayari.

Her early works were site-specific structures, were constructed of wood, stone, and earth, that drew heavily on childhood memories but were also rich with allusions to ancient history and architecture.

In the late 1970s her sources expanded to include literary references, often accompanied by cryptic cryptic, elusive texts. During the 1980s the work incorporated steel and other components evoking industry, which reflected her investigations into the power and poetry of the machine and the mystery of metaphysical forces.

TWISTER AGAIN ALICE AYCOCK 2017 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

In addition to her work at Graphicstudio, Aycock has also worked at Tandem Press at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has produced screenprints in Chicago with John W. Roberts, and also Ohio University. A sculpture edition, Celestial Alph- abet (1983), was published by Multiples, Inc., NY.

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CHAPTER 3

LITA ALBUQUERQUE

LITA ALBUQUERQUE 2017 38

FEMALE LAND ARTISTS Albuquerque’s latest large scale ephemeral Earth Art work Stellar Axis: Antarctica, which is a star map of blue orbs on ice installed on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2006 combines art with science and examines human connection with the cosmos and the possibility of light as that link. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including: A National Science Foundation Grant in the Artists and Writers Program; the Cairo Biennale Prize at the Sixth International Cairo Biennale; Arts International award for U.S. Artist Representative for the Cairo Biennale; National Endowment for the Arts, Art in Public Places Award (1983, 1984, 1990), a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship Grant and the esteemed Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship in the Visual Arts, Perugia, Italy (2002).

In June 2004 she was honored by the MOCA Los Angeles for their 25th anniversary celebration for her contributions to the museum. Her work is featured in their anniversary catalogue and permanent collection. Lita Albuquerque’s work is also included in The Archives of American Art at the

Smithsonian institution and is collected by prominent Museums and Foundations, such as: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Getty Trust, The Frederick Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum Of Art, The Orange County Museum, The Laguna Art Museum, The Palm Springs Museum, well as numerous embassies and corporations, on an extensive world wide basis. She is a noted educator and has been on the core faculty of the Fine Art Graduate Program at Art Center College of Design for the last twenty years. She recently completed working in collaboration with astrophysicists from the Spitzer Science Center at California Institute of Technology for OBSERVE, an exhibition at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, and most recently in Alaska in collaboration with architect Christoph Kappeler for “Freeze” an exhibition of Ice, Snow and Light in the city of Anchorage.

STELLAR AXIS

LITA ALBUQUERQUE 2014 ANTARCTICA

MALE ARTISTS ANDY GOLDSWORTHY RICHARD LONG ROBERT SMITHSON CARL ANDRE

CHAPTER 4

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY Andy Goldsworthy, (born July 26, 1956, in Cheshire, England), is a British sculptor, land artist, and photographer known for ephemeral works created outdoors from natural materials found on-site. As an adolescent growing up in England, Goldsworthy worked as a farm labourer when not in school. His experience their fostered an interest in nature, the cycles of the seasons, and the outdoors. He studied art at Bradford School of Art (1974–75) in West Yorkshire, England and at Preston Polytechnic in Lancashire (B.A.,1978). While in school he discovered his preference for creating art outdoors rather than in studio.

He began to make temporary site-specific works with stones, leaves, sticks, snow, ice, and any other natural materials available to him. Some of his earliest works were rock sculptures at a beach near his art school.

He also established the practice of photographing his works once he had completed his art and before the materials and structure typically arches, cones, stars, spheres, or serpentine lines succumbed to the elements.

Goldsworthy viewed his process as a “collaboration with nature,” in which he was uncovering the essence of his his materials and determining what they were capable of. His process required patience and flexibility; when sculpting with ice, for example, he would have to wait for the temperature to drop low enough. His Rain Shadows (1984) involved lying down on the ground just before a rainfall and remaining in that spot until the rain stopped, thereby creating a “shadow” in the shape of his body, which he then photographed.

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SCREEN ANDY GOLDSWORTHY 1988 LAKE DISTRICT, ENGLAND

MALE LAND ARTISTS

In the 1980s Goldsworthy worked often with snow and ice and created works such as Ice Arch (1982, in Brough, Cumbria; 1985, in Hampstead Heath, London), IceBall (1985, Hampstead Heath, London), Ice Star (1987, Penpont, Dumfriesshire, Scotland), and Touching North (1989, North Pole). In the late 1990s he made a series called Sheep Paintings, for which he placed a large canvas on the ground in a sheep pasture with a sheep lick placed in the middle of the canvas. The finished works had a white circle in the center (where the lick had been) surrounded by the smears and splatters of sheep dung and urine and mud.

He also began Sheepfolds in 1996, which entailed restoring sheepfold structures (four-walled sheep enclosures usually made of stone) and adding a sculpture to many of the sites throughout Cumbria in northwestern England. Goldsworthy created Midsummer Snowballs in 2000, which relocated 13 enormous snowballs from the Scottish countryside to London streets in the middle of June. Each of the snowballs had what he called “hidden treasures”—odds and ends that were rolled up into the snowballs, such as twigs, chalk, stones, animal hair things that might remind the urbanite of country life.

OAK SPITS

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY 2015 DUMFRIESSHIRE, SCOTLAND

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RICHARD LONG 2008

RICHARD LONG 44

MALE LAND ARTISTS Using his walks as art, Richard Long’s excursions into nature and his minimally invasive marks on the landscape have broadened the definitions of sculpture to include performance and conceptual art. While the work is often theoretical and hermetic, he contextualizes his actions in more universal and historical terms, however explaining, “if you undertake a walk, you are echoing the whole history of mankind.” This primal quality runs throughout his art, even pieces designed for a gallery or museum setting are crafted from elemental materials of stone, sticks, muds, or else are simply photographic or textual records of his experiences.

With his simple forms of circles and lines, Long connects the viewer with lyrical and timeless elements of nature. His truthfulness to the natural state of his materials and his respect for the landscape results in works that emphasize the beauty of nature. He makes small gestures that carry deep meanings, suggesting the long history of man’s relationship to the environment. Whether in the minimal footprint of his walks and interventions in the landscape, or his reverence for the unadorned beauty of elemental materials like mud, sticks, and stones, he encourages the viewer to appreciate the straightforward, primal beauty of nature.

Moving stones between remote locations or treading a path through grass, Long’s most iconic works leave minimal impact on their natural environment and are often erased by the progression of time. In repeating these understated gestures, Long legititimizes these quiet interventions as art. He’s aware that, because his works are often undetectable, that viewers might not even know they are looking at work of art, but that his experience itself and his intentionality qualifies even the simplest actions as artistic expression.

STRAIGHT LINE

RICHARD LONG 1990 TATE GALLERY, LONDON

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BEAUBORD

NIKOLAY POLISSKY 2013 MOSCOW, RUSSIA

CHAPTER 4

ROBERT SMITHSON ROBERT SMITHSON 2010

Born in Passaic, New Jersey, (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973), spent his formative years in New Jersey.

In 1963, Smithson married Nancy Holt (1938–2014).

Childhood interest in travel, cartography, geology, architectural ruins, prehistory, philosophy, science fiction, popular culture and language inspired his art across all media as he matured. In 1954 Smithson received a two-year scholarship to study at the Art Students League in New York City. Post war abstract expressionism influenced the young Smithson, and the late fifties and early sixties found him immersed in the vitality and experimentation of the burgeoning downtown New York art scene.

Smithson is best known for his earthworks Spiral Jetty (1970), Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971), and Amarillo Ramp (1973). At age thirty-five, while photographing Amarillo Ramp, Smithson was killed in a small airplane accident, along with pilot Gale Ray Rogers and photographer Robert E. Curtin. Nancy Holt, Richard Serra and Tony Shafrazi completed Amarillo Ramp one month after his passing. Prior to this earthwork trilogy, Smithson created performative entropic landworks, made to have a finite life rather than transform over long periods of time.

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MALE LAND ARTISTS

SPIRAL JETTY

ROBERT SMITHSON 1970 GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH

The ephemeral earthworks Asphalt Rundown (1969, Rome), Glue Pour (1969, Vancouver), Concrete Pour (1969, Chicago), and Partially Buried Woodshed in (1970, Kent State) speak poignantly to issues of time and the human condition. Smithson’s first solo exhibition, with emphasis on ‘expressionistic work’, took place in 1957 at Allan Brilliant’s gallery in New York.

The artist’s peripatetic life took him to Rome in 1961, when George Lester offered him his first solo international exhibition at Galleria George Lester, where he explored quasi-religious subject matter.

Influenced by minimalism, in 1964 Smithson declared his quasi-minimal sculptures made up using industrial materials of metal and mirrored Plexiglas as his well known ‘mature’ works, distancing himself from his early expressionistic paintings and drawings. In 1965 he exhibited these works at the American Express Pavilion, New York World’s Fair.

His ‘nonsites’ were made from treks into non-urban environments. Incorporating maps, bins or mirrors with organic materials, such as rocks and earth, the nonsites create a dialectic between outdoors and indoors, ruminating on time, site, sight, nature as well as culture.

Robert Smithson defined the area from which organic materials were collected as the ‘site’, while the indoor placement of the materials is the ‘nonsite’.

The first was A Nonsite, Pine Barrens, New Jersey (1968), which premiered in his solo exhibition at Dwan Gallery, New York City in 1968. Following an introduction by the artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) in 1966, Virginia Dwan became Smithson’s gallerist and supported the creation of Spiral Jetty.

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CHAPTER 4 Carl Andre was born September 16, 1935, in Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.), was an American sculptor associated with Minimalism. Andre is known for abstract work made of repetitive blocks, bricks, and metal plates arranged directly on the floor. Like other Minimalists of his generation, Andre constructed his work out of industrial materials that called attention to the inherent physical structure of the piece and types architecture of the surrounding space.

CARL ANDRE 1935

CARL ANDRE 50

Andre attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, from 1951 to 1953. After serving in the army for a year, he moved in 1957 to New York City, where he met and then later married the Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta. Andre then became associated with Frank Stella in 1958 and worked in Stella’s studio while developing his own drawings and sculpture.

Stella’s abstract paintings of that period were an important influence on Andre’s developing aesthetic.

Types of experiences including four years of work in railyards in the early 1960’s and a trip to the prehistoric archaeological site of Stonehenge in England, solidified Andre’s determination to work with modular units, which are seen in his work today.

Andre began his sculptural practice by carving into wood timbers, but then he became more interested in using the timber planks themselves as structural pieces. In 1965, he shifted from stacked wood pieces to commercially prefabricated materials—blocks and bricks—with the intent of demystifying the role of the artist’s hand. He next became interested in placing square metal tiles onto larger squares, upon which he invited viewers to walk.

MALE LAND ARTISTS

THEBES

CARL ANDRE 2003 GRETA MEERT GALLERY, BELGIUM

STEEL BLUE RANGE CARL ANDRE 1989 BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

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ART IN NATURE THE PASSAGE SPENCER BYLES ASH DOME CLEMSON CLAY NEST

CHAPTER 5

THE PASSAGE Gateways feature heavily within Konrad’s work. Passage, installed in a forest clearing in Germany opens a literal pathway back into nature. Gathering the cut down branches to a cleared area, Konrads provides a direct, graceful and yet playfull link between our own interventions into nature and the beauty of the nearby untouched wilderness.

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THE PASSAGE

CORNELIA CONRAD 2015 DOMAINE DE CHAUMONT-SUR-LOIRE, FRANCE

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SPENCER BYLES In an extraordinary act of devotion to his art, artist Spencer Byles spent a year creating beautiful sculptures out of natural and found materials throughout the unmanaged forests of La Colle Sur Loup (where he lived with his family), Villeneuve Loubet and in Mougins. He worked together with elements of his natural surroundings to create artwork that blends seamlessly with the environment.

Byles’ project is intentionally secretive and the only way you’ll see these works short of his photos is by going into the woods and finding them yourself. I Imagine that coming upon such a fantastic structure unexpectedly in the woods is sure to be quite a magical suprise.

FOREST MONTAGE SPENCER BYLES 2013 LOUP RIVER, FRANCE 56

“I don’t feel the work really sits that

comfortably within it’s surroundings until nature begins to reclaim it. It

becomes less of a part of me and

more a part of nature”.

-Spencer Byles

ART IN NATURE

FOREST MONTAGE SPENCER BYLES 2013 LOUP RIVER, FRANCE

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FIGURES IN MOTION ISAAC CORDAL 2018 LANPINJARVI, FINLAND

CHAPTER 5

ASH DOME

In 1977, sculptor David Nash cleared an area of land near his home in Wales where he trained a circle of 22 ash trees to grow in a vortex-like shape for an artwork titled Ash Dome. Almost 40 years later, the trees still grow today. The artist has long worked with wood and natural elements in his art practice, often incorporating live trees or even animals into pieces. The exact site of Ash Dome in the Snowdonia region of northwest Wales is a closely guarded secret, and film crews or photographers who are permitted to see it are reportedly taken on a circuitous route to guard its location.

Nash shares in an interview with the International Sculpture Center: “When I first planted the ring of trees for Ash Dome, the Cold War was still a threat. There was serious economic gloom, very high unemployment in our country, and nuclear war was a real possibility. We were killing the planet, which we still are because of greed. In Britain, our governments were changing quickly, so we had very short-term political and economic policies. To make a gesture by planting something for the 21st century, which was what Ash Dome was about, was a long-term commitment, an act of faith. I did not know what I was letting myself in for�. https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/ uploads/2016/05/ash-3.jpg

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ART IN NATURE

ASH DOME

DAVID NASH 1977 WALES, UNITED KINGDOM

CHAPTER 5

CLEMSON CLAY NEST German artist Nils Udo is one of the most prolific Environmental artists. Starting out in the 1960’s and still working to this day. This enourmous bird nest was built by Udo in the botanical gardens of Clemson University. Built with the help of students and volunteers, the installation was made using bamboo for the interior of the nest and pine for the exterior. Using 80-tons of locally sourced pine logs, the piece stood for two years before its logs were turned into mulch to fill in the hole.

But for this gigantic nest, he drew attention to the labor and building skill that goes into a bird’s nest.

By harnessing the power of clay, normally a material used in building bricks for houses, he created a solid structure that suggested its own permanence.

Udo juxtaposed this, however, the use of untreated wood, which would invariably decay, change and mold. The piece asked us to consider what we, as humans, emulate from nature, in our own world.

Birds build with no regard to a guarantee of permanence in their homes. Even their residence is subject to the natural forces of climate and decay.

We, on the other hand, favor building things for permanence. By paying attention to the birds in the natural order of Mother Nature, whether it is constructive or desctructive, we are encouraged to trust more in life’s harmonious processes.

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CLEMSON CLAY NEST NILS UDO 2005 CLEMSON SOUTH CAROLINA

FUTURE LAND ART SOLAR LAND ART SUN RAY NIGHT & DAY HEAD IN THE CLOUDS RADIANCE RIBBON SOLAR ORBS

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SOLAR LAND ART For the last ten years, artists, architects, designers, and engineers around the world have designed site-specific works of land art that also generate clean energy for Abu Dhabi and Dubai, New York, Copenhagen, Santa Monica, and now Melbourne. this chapterare five new designs for the 2018 LAGI design competition that demonstrate just how beautiful solar power can be in relation to land art, with teams incorporating everything from linear Fresnel reflector technology to dye-sensitized solar cells in their dazzling proposals for a new landmark in St. Kilda Triangle, in the City of Port Phillip.

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SOLAR DUNES ROBERT LEVIT 2018 ABU DHABI

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SUN RAY Epitomizing the notion that less is more, Antonio Maccà has incorporated very simple linear Fresnel technology into a sophisticated design that acts like a “specular sun”. Measuring at 279-feet in diameter, the round solar field of parallel flat mirrors, each with its own single-axis tracking system, beams sun rays onto a linear solar receiver located in a common focal point. Below grade, a power block contains the equipment necessary to convert harvested energy into electricity, which is then fed into the city grid.

Capable of producing 1,100 MWh of clean energy annually, enough to power up to 220 Australian homes, this gorgeous work of art also creates a cultural attraction, and a place for reflection, relaxation, learning, and play.

SUN RAY

ANTONIO MACCA 2018 PADOVA, ITALY

“A specular sun mirroring the Sun, living symbol of the passage of time. A light- house in the sky, showing the way to the future of energy, and of human life on our planet”.

-Antonio Maccà

SUN RAY

ANTONIO MACCA 2018 PADOVA, ITALY

The floating solar canopy’s 50 primary mirror lines create a shaded space where visitors are encouraged to rendezvous, unharmed by the overhead power plant, which doubles as a unique site-specific public art installation. “Changeable light under the canopy creates a constantly mutating space as the mirrors vary their inclination throughout the day,” according to the artist’s narrative. “Their seductive play of light and shadows creates a welcoming place for walking, playing, performance, screenings, and family picnics.” Elevevated on thin steel columns, the design has a negligible footprint, yet its visual impact ressounds especially at night when the solar receiver becomes illuminated.

Pointing to a kind of “love affair” that he has with the linear Fresnel reflector, the artist, engineer, and architect says there are numerous benefits to using this proven clean technology, which happended to be first developed in 1961 by another Italian, Giovanni Francia, at the University of Genoa. These include low operation and maintenance costs, constructive simplicity, an easy assembly process, and a fast return on capital investment.

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THE WHITE WALKERS MIODRAG ZIVKOVIC 1971 TJENTISTE, BOSNIA

CHAPTER 6

NIGHT AND DAY

NIGHT AND DAY

SOLAR GENERATOR 2018 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

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Designed by the Seattle-based architecture firm Olson Kundig, this iconic project combines solar power and a hydro battery to leverage St. Kilda’s natural energy resources. An inhabitable machine, the Hydro-Solar Generator works night and day, taking the form of a pedestrian bridge that links The Esplanade and waterfront. Suspended above the walkway are a solar sail and water vessel, exhibiting the generator’s transformation of sun and water into power.

During the day, harvested solar energy is used to pump bay water into the hydro battery storage vessel, high above St Kilda Triangle. As the sun sets, the water is released through a turbine, transforming the kinetic movement of water into electricity. This release becomes a lively community event, expressing the power of the battery’s embodied energy.

The hydro-solar generator is the latest icon to spring from the world famous, yet down-to-earth design practice, which was founded in 1967 by architect Jim Olson. Their office in Seattle feels like a never ending wonderland of gadgets, gizmos, and material samples. Stone, wood, and marble, all neatly organized. Tools. And delicate, intricate models.

Anything you would expect to find in an architecture firm, Olson Kundig has it all. Plus some. A few team members who participated in the 2018 Land Art Generator design competition for Melbourne gave a tour of the office, which included a very much anticipated demonstration of a mechanical skylight powered by water pressure.

During daylight hours, energy produced by a 5,400 m2 photovoltaic (PV) solar sail is used to directly power homes while also safely pumping bay water into a suspended hydro battery vessel. After sunset, water is released through two Pelton turbines, transforming the kinetic movement of water into electricity through a generator, proven technology that is already used at the utility scale, according to Kudo-King.

SOLAR LAND ART

NIGHT AND DAY

MACKENZIE COTTERS 2018 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

NIGHT AND DAY

MACKENZIE COTTERS 2018 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

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CHAPTER 6

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS This design comprises a translucent tensile fabric woven with Sphelar solar cells made with tiny silicon balls that can harvest energy from any direction.

Oriented towards the north to collect maximum sunlight, the cloud-like canopy also captures wind energy with aerostatic flutter wind harvesting devices embedded within telescoping columns in the skeletal steel structure. These will produce enough energy to operate the cloud fabric’s vertical billowing effect, which will help create a dynamic and interactive experience for visitors to the site. Head in the Clouds focuses on generating electricity by harnessing solar energy.

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SOLAR LAND ART

Every day, solar radiation provides 5000 times more energy than the needed amount for all activities on Earth. Therefore, Head in the Clouds aims to maximize the usage of this energy source, which is the most freely available and abundant source. In context, Melbourne receives a considerable amount of sunlight to use solar energy as the primary form for renewable energy collected.

Learning from this efficiency in design, a translucent tensile fabric embedded with Spheral solar cells is used to transform a typical flat roof canopy into a billowing cloud-like structure, creating rolling peaks that orient towards the North to collect maximum sunlight, ensuring maximum efficiency. The innovative Spheral solar cell is woven into the fabric of the structure and generates twice as much energy as typical flat solar panels and solar fabrics due to its spherical shape, which enables it to capture solar energy from all angles as opposed to the restrictive one dimensional surface of flat solar cells.

This ultimately informed the design by providing the possibility of creating a light-feeling structure that is still able to capture solar energy. Combining this idea with the traditional method of maximizing solar energy gain by orienting panels at 30 degrees North gave way to envisioning the ethereal and undulating cloud structures which were conceived in the end.

The cloud structure and form furthermore changes and responds to the amount of daylight, educating visitors about renewable energy while allowing them to directly engage with the moving structure. Opennings within the structure regulate the amount of daylight that directly penetrates it. During hot sunny days while the fabric is mostly exposed to the strong North sun, the openings are oriented South allowing a diffuse light to enter below, while keeping most of the covered space shaded.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS YUXUN EMMEILY ZHANG 2018 CAMBRIDGE, CANADA

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ANGELS OF THE NORTH ANTONY GORMLEY 1988 GATESHEAD, ENGLAND

CHAPTER 6

RADIANCE RIBBON Radiance Ribbon supports the St. Kilda Triangle masterplan by complimenting the proposed landscapes and programs with a minimal footprint and up to 569Mwh of annual, clean energy. The installation landscape scheme supports use of native, non-irrigated plantings and passive rain water mitigation.

Additionally, Radiance Ribbon contributes to St. Kilda’s public well-being and healthy living environment. By augmenting the existing outdoor recreational space, the installation promotes physical activity, especially around the interactive dance floor, and encourages local eating and agriculture by offering greater access to locally grown food, through the marketplace.

In addition to this tangible resource, Radiance Ribbon inspires and educates visitors about emerging forms of renewable energy technology. By wandering the path and experiencing its different systems at work, tourists and St. Kilda natives alike can come to understand how energy generating technology can contribute to the beauty and function of public space.

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RADIANCE RIBBON NATALIE HEMLICK 2018 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

CHAPTER 6

SOLAR ORBS Equipped with dual-axis tracking concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPV+T) technology, these solar-powered orbs for St. Kilda would literally flip visitors’ perspective of the land, looking through a marble or a camera mirror. Each 20 sphere, which concentrates sunlight onto a small surface of solar panels, is made with acrylic, filled with water, and supported by stainless steel structural elements.

Fourteen of them would be 10.65 meters tall and 16 meters in diameter, while the remaining six would be 8.65 meters tall and 1.8 meters in diameter. All of them would come with an 18 inch PV+T panel that could not only generate electricity, but also capture thermal energy. This could either heat buildings or water for the City of Port Phillip. At night, they light up with low energy LEDs, creating a vibrant public display 24 hours a day.

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SOLAR LAND ART

SOLAR ORBS

KAITLIN CAMPBELL 2018 LATHAM, NEW YORK

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INDEX

A Agnes Denes 30 Alice Aycock 36 Angels of The North 76 Andy Goldsworthy 42 Ash Dome 60 B Beaubord 46

C Carl Andre 50 Clemson Clay Nest 62 Coming World Remeber Me 34 Cupid’s Span 26 E Earth Wall 24 F Figures in Motion 58 H Head in the Clouds 74 I Inspiration 10 L Language of the Birds 20 Lita Albuquerque 38 M Mirror Covered Mirage 23

N Nancy Holt 32 Night and Day 72 R Radience Ribbon 78 Richard Long 44 Robert Smithson 48 S Sea Change 18 Sky Gate 16 Solar Orbs 80 Spencer Byles 56 Sun Ray 68 T The Passage 54 The White Walkers 70