Patrick Dougherty, who lives in North Carolina, travels worldwide to create site-specific works of entwined sticks and branches. His sculptures resemble large bird nests, like those a weaver bird would fashion, but conceived on a human scale. It seems to be about habitats--our human dwelling places, and how they come from and separate themselves from the landscape around us. To my eye, his work also possesses a whimsical, almost humorous, quality.
Here is Dougherty talking about his work: "Beyond the huge personal pleasure I gain from working with the simplest materials in a complex world, I believe that a well-conceived sculpture can enliven and stir the imagination of those who pass. For viewers the pleasure is elemental and beyond politics and financial forces. I like activating public spaces and being part of the world of ideas."
Pierre Vivant is a french sculptor and
landscape artist who works mainly in Great Britain. Many of his works concern perspective and
perception. In the "Made in England" series the artist uses a simple slide projector and a portable word generator to project a word at night. This projection alters the English landscape.
He does this by picking or cutting crop wherever the light of the word
falls.
With the light of dawn, the landscape
reclaims the site and shows the word correctly only from the exact point of view
of the projector. In the "Made In England" series the artist sought to show that the continued beauty of the English landscape is but a screen which conceals the massive changes in food production.The field pictured below is now a gulf course.
Thirty years ago, accessing the private thoughts of celebrities, artists and public figures was unimaginable. Then the Internet happened, and the public now has direct access to Twitter accounts, blogs, and personal websites - we know what our favorite celebrities are up to, what they're eating, and which words they always misspell.
In the case of artists, this instant access is very gratifying. Blogs offer backstage passes into the lives and thought process of contemporary artists. Check out this blog by land artist Richard Shilling. He writes about his travels to Nepal, his artistic musings and seeing his work heavily advertising in the paper. Before art students and admirers may have seen his work in galleries or read an interview with him in a magazine, but now they have unique access to the work of artists like Richard Shilling.
Revival Field: Themes of Change, Mutability
and Transformation
Heather
Phillips
History
of Contemporary Art
Dr.
Alford
January
2013
This
one 1800-word blog post is a combination of the two 900-word blog post
requirements. All images are credited to Mel Chin’s website: http://melchin.org/oeuvre/revival-field
Artists have used land as a medium in a variety of different ways
since the Earthworks movement in the 1970s. While early Earthworks artists
focused on formal issues while creating minimalistic geometric forms,
contemporary artists often use land as metaphors and comment on current pressing
environmental and societal issues. Current day land artists use earth in a
larger variety of ways, even tackling discussions of politics and social
issues. For more than a decade, Mel Chin has embodied this new generation of
land artists while embracing several ways to use land to offer inquiries into
modern-day living. Through his array of interests, Chin’s work blends the lines
of science, social activism and art in his use of land.Chin’s multi layered work crosses through many
mediums including: toxic earth, soil analysis research, video games, works
re-purposing abandoned homes, and many others. These aspects of his art have
caused confusion by writers and critics.Though many struggle to classify his work, it
is often lumped together in the board category of activist art.This categorization, though it provides a
convenient lens through which to view his work, does his work an injustice. Ultimately,
Chin’s work is a cross-media poetic expression of change for himself, and others,
as well as the transformation towards that change.This central theme in his work can be seen in
one of Chin’s most famous works: Revival
Field.
Revival Field
Many who review the artwork of Mel Chin are quick to point out the
issue of classification. Though Chin is classically trained, his art is analytical and poetic and evades easy classification.[1] Mel Chin’s work is
hard to classify because of the variety of topics he explores which span across
many mediums. Chin bridges fields of inquiry in the creation of his
pieces.However, this aspect of his work
has gained flak from many critics and other outside sourceswho
often describe his work as being “whatever concept fires his imagination — in whatever medium seems
appropriate.”[2] Chin’s work often has a political edge as well as a research component.
These qualities led to initial disappointment in the creation process of Revival Field. This work by Chin
featured an experimental polluted field using plants whose offspring might hold
the cure for decontamination. Though seen as a science project by some, Chin’s
assertion of Revival Field as an art piece
was a strategic act in order to gain funding. [3]When official government agencies were reluctant to fund the
implementation of an alternative approach,
Chin transferred the experiment from the domain of art, because art is exempt
from regulations, certificates, and authorizations.[4] Current government methods
of disposing polluted land were already expensive; agencies saw funding Chin’s
work as only adding to the cost. Still, Chin’s choice was also made to assert the
many possible mediums for art work as a generator of change, a central aspect
of Chin’s work.
Despite Chin’s assertion, however, he still encountered opposition for
another reason.Upon a request for
funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the grant was denied after council
members had criticized the project for being too political in nature.[5] The grant
was ultimately denied, however, because of its connection to environmental
research: “Endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer rejected a proposal to fund Revival Field because he insisted it
pertained to the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, not the NEA.”[6] Though
funding for Revival Field was
eventually secured, the initial funding issue displays both the confusion and
objections concerning the levels of meaning in Chin’s artwork.
In explaining the multiplicity of topics and mediums in his work, Chin
states: “My work takes difficult political and ecological dilemmas and
expresses such topics in symbolic forms. I am interested in the mechanics of
ideas... I explore Ideas and how we live, what kind of society we have. I look
for a game plan, a possibility.”[7] Chin’s quest in exploring possibilities produce
works which are similar in that they pertain to today’s society, and possess no
limitations. By not having limitations, Chin’s work crosses many disciplines. The
root of the work lies in an idea new to the artist and society in general,
resulting in a work which provides possibilities unseen before. Chin’s art does
possess many ideas, mediums, and statements. Even so, a common thread
throughout his work is the metaphor of change and transformation.
Working on Revival Field
Revival Field is a work by Mel Chin which accurately displays
the artist’s use of change and transformation.The art projectis a circular
field of polluted land which features crops that are planted, maintained, and
harvested when they reach maturity. The key to eliminating the toxicity lies in
re-planting. The dense roots of the hyperaccumulators absorb the
contaminating metals from the soil and the harvested plants are incinerated at low
temperatures. The planting process is repeated until the site's toxicity
level is safe and acceptable.[8] The
change in Revival Field happens
literally as soil purification occurs through the growing and replanting
process. Chin started the project with a hunch about toxin-absorbing plants and
contacted scientists throughout the world. Eventually he learned of a research
paper that led him to his collaborator. Working with U.S. Department of
Agriculture agronomist Rufus Chaney, the artist proposed an art project introducing
a variety of species called hyperaccumulators that Chaney had been studying [9].
In Revival Field “[t]he success of
his work is measured in terms of real, not metaphoric, change.”[10] One display
of change in this work occurs through the well documented results. These
results, if they portray success in the purification process, could also lead
to a change in how we handle hazardous waste sites.
The hard facts showing change is but one way this work expresses
transformation. A change in your way of thinking occurs. Chin has listed this
change as an important condition. Chin believes that the survival of his own ideas may not be as
important as a condition he might create for others’ ideas to be realized.[11]
In today’s world, land (unpolluted land especially) is becoming more and more
scarce. Revival Field also presents a
change in a person’s way of thinking Chin pursues in the viewer as well as in
himself:
If you approach everything with a critical eye or mind, then the
world will reveal itself as something that's quite impossible to change. The
human ecological track record is so horrific that I don't have much hope for
it, really But the moment that you're captured by some other possibility, the
moment when you discover art that's new to you , other philosophies, other
music —those moments are very rare, but they transform you. Art can change who
you are. I don't think about changing the world; I think about changing
myself.[12]
Revival Field displays how change plays a central role in
the artwork of Mel Chin. Chin goes about trying to change his outlook on societal
topics, eventually seeking to share these possibilities with others. This
process can be seen in how Chin went about planning Revival Field. After studying the nature of pollution, Chin
was able to find another who shared in his theory for purification of earth.
The outcome was a new way to view the rate of land consumption through the possibility
of purifying land previously unworkable. This new way of thinking is first new
to the artist; this new found method then becomes a possibility when shared as
an artwork to the public.
Art:21 Segment on Mel Chin
Another way to view the art projects
of Mel Chin is through not just change, but mutability. Chin’s works embody the
notion of mutability through the transformation process that so often occurs in
his works. The changes he instigates apply to three categories-nature, the
human mind, and art-and can affect reform throughout culture. Revival Field is a
prototype for converting many forms of careless behavior into responsible
action. In this way Revival Field mutates as it transmutes despair over terrestrial despoilment into rays of hope. [13] Change occurs in Revival
Field literally as the land becomes cleansed. A transformation also occursthrough a change in the way one views
land consumption. However, another level of transformation is present in the
polluted land itself. The toxic environments Chin works with are products of
irresponsible misuse of hazardous materials. From this portrait of carelessness
Chin crafts a project employing responsible action, research and purification.
An irresponsible action mutates into a responsible one considerate of humanity,
in an effort to make a change for the greater good.
Mel Chin ultimately uses the aspect of change in order to present a catalyst
of sorts: “My goal for art is to create a condition where one can see the
possibility of change. Art is not static, it is catalytic. Art is not just a
language, its useful, it makes things function. It has a critical relationship
in society, not members of an elite. We have our function in society.”[14] In
light of this goal, an example of a successful work of art in Chin’s eyes is
seen in Revival Field. Chin’s goal of
finding change in the way he thinks, resulting in a new possibility for society
to benefit from, is achieved in Revival
Field.This possibility transforms
the mindset of society as well.Revival Field is a catalyst for change
both through the way one thinks and the functionality of earth itself. If the
project is successful, it will change how we treat toxic land, making it functional
once more.Therefore, Revival Field is not just an example of
Chin’s thematic use of change, transformation, and mutability. Its catalytic
nature makes it, in the eyes of the artist, a successful work of art society
can draw from.
Revival Field serves to portray
many aspects of Mel Chin’s work. The controversy involving the funding of the
work displays the confusion surrounding the multi-disciplinary and multi-media
approach Chin uses in his works. This work shows the theme of change,
transformation, and mutability resulting in the catalytic quality Chin strives
for. These themes are present in many layers of the work. The first layer of
change is seen through the literal change from toxic to purified, dangerous and
untouchable to useful once again. From this transformation, a second change has
the possibility of occurring: a change in how the government treats hazardous waste.
A second layer is present that demonstrates Chin’s proposed method in all of
his works. Chin arrives to a new way of thinking which he shares with society.
This new way of thinking and treating hazardous waste gives Revival Field the catalytic quality the
artist strives for. Lastly, a third layer is present in what the land stood for
in its beginnings. By using the toxic earth as a catalyst for societal change,
Chin displays a mutation from land showing the irresponsibility of humans to
land showing transformation for the greater good.
[2] Cudlin, Jeffry. 2010.
"Working By Any Means Necessary: A Conversation with Mel Chin."
Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) 29, no. 2: 32-39. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson),
EBSCOhost (accessed February 17, 2013).
Criticized as Political.” The
Washington Post. LexisNexis (accessed Feburary 15, 2013).
[6] Weintraub, 49.
[7] Weintraub, 48.
[8] Phillips, Patricia C. 1997.
"Subverting landscape: the work of Mel Chin." Public Art Review 8,
4-8. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed February 18, 2013).
Land artist James Turrell is currently at work on one of the largest pieces of art on the planet--his Roden Crater, begun in 1979. He is transforming the three-mile-wide site (located near Flagstaff, Arizona) into an enormous installation: an observatory of sorts, configured towards the summer and winter solstices. This work functions as a massive nexus between heaven and earth, and as such is an outrageously ambitious project. Vast, empty, and suffused with light, it represents a true American Sublime.
Of his work, Turrell says, "It’s about perception. For me, it’s using light as a material to influence or affect the medium of perception. I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin—and I mean, we are literally light-eaters—to then affect the way that we see. We live within this reality we create, and we’re quite unaware of how we create the reality. So the work is often a general koan into how we go about forming this world in which we live, in particular with seeing." I would love to experience this site in person. I imagine one would feel dwarfed by the immensity of both earth and sky.
Contemporary earthworks manipulate the land into art. As Heather's thesis points out, it's impossible to disconnect these contemporary works with ancient ones -- ancient earthworks continue to inspire modern artists, but the causes for creation have evolved over the years.
The topic of my own thesis is Andrew Rogers' enormous geoglyphs. He was inspired by the Nazca Lines in southern Peru. At first formed in the shapes of monkeys, hummingbirds, whales, etc., these gigantic geoglyphs started transforming into geometric patterns like trapezoids and rectangles. In National Geographic Magazine, Markus Reindel of the German Archeological Institute says, "Our idea is that they weren't meant as images to be seen anymore, but stages to be walked upon, to be used for religious ceremonies."
In present day, geoglyphs are not carved into the earth as ceremonial walkways, irrigation systems, or as -- in one theory -- messages to the gods. In the case of artist Andrew Rogers, he wanted to make a mark on the world and connect the Earth with his larger-than-life sculptures. The causation for creating land art has changed significantly since the days of the Nasca Lines in southern Peru.
Georgia Papageorge is a South African land artist. Much of her work centers around the theme of rifts: rifts between races, countries, and continents, as well as internal rifts. Her piece, Africa Rifting: Lines of Fire, for example features broad lengths of red cloth wrapped around the oceanic borders of two nations: Namibia and Brazil, who once shared a border before the continents drifted apart eons ago.
In addition, much of her work, she says, is "very religious. I’m Catholic, and I’m dealing with the trans-substantiation of matter. I’m taking and applying the idea of mass – the body and blood of Christ, which is transformed into bread and wine – and transforming mere cloth into lines of fire and blood. They are symbolic lines, symbolic of fire and blood. In my Kilimanjaro works, I see water as the lifeblood of Africa.”
In a relatively short span of time
between 1972 and 1985, Ana Mendieta created one of the richest and most
distinct bodies of work among the early earthworks artists. Though she was of
the generation of artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, she eschewed
their geometric, formal minimalism in favor of a fully embodied, spiritually
infused earth art. Jane Blocker writes, of Mendieta’s relationship to the
earth: “To anthropomorphize the earth is to endow it with sentience, desire,
and identity: it is to think of the earth as more than merely sculptural
material.”[ii]
Breaking land art from its geometric precedents, she embraced an alternative aesthetic
heritage in the feminist earth goddess movement, and drew from religious rituals
like those of Santeria, Mesoamerican religion (such as those of the Aztec, Zapotec,
and Mayan), Taino religion, and Catholicism. In addition, her practice drew
from the tradition of the performance and body artists more than the
minimalists. Mendieta’s earth was an extensions of her body, and that body was
permeated with spiritual immanence. In this essay, I will explore Mendieta’s view
of landscape through the body, specifically the female body, and particularly
how this exploration was informed by the religious ritual and practice she was
inspired by. While the influence of Santeria and Taino religion on Mendieta’s
work has been well documented, the role of Northern Mesoamerican (Aztec,
Zapotec) though and ritual has been explored less. This essay will focus on the
role of Northern Mesoamerican art in the earth/body works of Ana Mendieta,
particularly her Siluetas and bird
series.
As a young girl, Mendieta was taken out
of Cuba and away from her family by counter-revolutionaries intent on rescuing
the young from the threat of impending Communism.[iii]
Raised by nuns in Iowa,[iv] Mendieta
felt a strong sense of exile from her homeland—a sense of being “ripped from
the womb” as she described it later. In this borderline space between nations,
not feeling at home in either territory, she felt compelled to engage with the
meaning of her own identity. As a young art student, she received an
opportunity to travel to Mexico in 1971 and work at an archeological site in
Teotihuacan, site of the ancient Aztec capitol city (the largest city in the
world, in its day). Here, surrounded by Hispanic culture and art, she began to
feel a sense of the culture from which she was exiled for the first time since
childhood. Exiled from Cuba and uncomfortable in the United States, she “saw
Mexico as a surrogate motherland.”[v] As she said
at the time, “Plugging into Mexico was like going back to the source, being
able to get some magic just by being there.”[vi]
In Mexico, her exposure was not only to living Mexican culture and contemporary
life, but also to the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica—specifically the Aztec
and Zapotec, with whom she was already familiar through study but was now able
to experience more directly. Thus, her reacquaintance with her roots was
filtered through her exposure to ancient Northern Mesoamerican archeology and
mythology. On returning back to Iowa, her painting shifted to include themes
and motifs from Aztec culture.[vii]
She was able to return to Mexico on
several occasions, and created some of her earliest characteristic work while
in Oaxaca at the Yagul archeological site, including the beginning of her long Silueta series. Thus, Northern
Mesoamerican art and mythology as experiences at the Yagul site in Oaxaca
became the impetus for Mendieta’s most distinctive body of work.
One of the first pieces created on her
Mexican sojourn was Image from Yagul, the
work that Mendieta considered to mark the beginning of her Silueta series. Created in 1973, the photographic documentation of
the performance depicts Mendieta lying nude in an ancient tomb, her body mostly
covered by layers of white flowers, which almost appear to be growing from her
supine form. It is an iconic image, and one of Mendieta’s most recognizable. Flowers
played an important role in the symbology of the Northern Mesoamerican
imagination. Flowers were mythologically conceived to have been created from a
bit of flesh torn from the genitals of Xochiquetzal, the goddess of love, thus
giving them a highly sexually charged significance.[viii]
Flowers also played a hugely important role in Aztec life through the Flower
Wars—ritual mock wars fought with flowers instead of weapons in which enemies
were captured rather than killed (though many of these captives were simply
saved for later ritual execution).[ix] Thus flowers played a powerful role in
Aztec thought, their hidden corollas functioning as a portal between the
intertwined realms of life and death. In Image
from Yagul, Mendieta references this significance. Although her prostrate
body is laid in a tomb and appears lifeless and dead, it also brings forth
flowers and new life. Mendieta was fascinated by this theme of death and
renewal, the endless cycle of nature, and would return to it again and again
throughout her Silueta series and
further career, creating works made from melting snow, spreading grass, and
blooming flowers. This crucial aspect of Mendieta’s work appears to have direct
roots in ancient Northern Mesoamerican thought.
Another piece, created in 1974 while
Mendieta was in Oaxaca at the Yagul site, is Untitled, pictured above (Mendieta didn’t expend much energy on
titles). This piece, a continuation of her Silueta
series, uses the “Labyrinth” site at Yagul as it’s setting, and features a body
imprint Mendieta created by pouring animal blood on her body and lying on the
earth. This performance was then documented in a photograph. The effect is
haunting, and becomes a record of Mendieta’s absence as much as her bodily
impression. The ancient sacrificial site only reinforces the sense of mortality
and evanescence which this piece evokes. In Aztec practice, as Mendieta was
aware, blood contained a vital, life-giving energy. In one creation myth, the
feathered serpent-god Quetzalcoatl bestowed life to humanity by offering them
his own blood, and there are other examples of Aztec gods offering their blood
to mankind as a form of divine aid.[x] In return,
man’s blood was required to keep the universe in a kind of cosmic balance.
Thus, at Aztec temple sites like that in Teotihuacan, human sacrifice was
practiced routinely to replenish the life-force of the earth. This ritual
fascinated Mendieta, and informed Untitled,
which functions almost as a memoriam to the slain victims of the Aztec priests.
The record of violence remains, the body’s blood forever connected to the
earth, but the body itself has long since vanished. But the work is not purely
negative—again the life-force of blood plays a role, and the piece can be read
as a recognition of the continuation of life in nature. Again, life and death
are presented not as opposites, but as complements—differing points on a vast
and endless cycle. The presentation of this piece and it’s specific location
reveal a clear Northern Mesoamerican, and specifically Aztec, connection.
Mendieta also worked extensively with
feathers, connecting the human body to the earth and also the avian kingdom.
Feathers have an important role in ancient Northern Mesoamerican art. Aztec
artists created elaborate headdresses and masks with feathers from the sacred
quetzal bird, and also wove feathers together into tapestries. One of the most
important gods of the Aztec pantheon was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent—as
a mixed creation, he was able to traverse the worlds of both earth and sky,
making him a boundary-crosser, a transgressor. Like flowers, the feather became
a symbol of traveling between states, of moving between one state and
another—for example, navigating between the states of life and death.
Mendieta’s 1977 Silueta piece, Untitled, annexes this meaning to create
a profound experience of both connectedness and loss. In this piece, Mendieta
has again created a silhouette of her body in the earth. This time, her shape has
been dug into the ground and filled with large white feathers. This feathered
shape has then been surrounded by newly growing grass—another allusion to the
cycles of death and rebirth which Mendieta returned to again and again. Here
she has used the Aztec theme of feathers to represent the liminal state between
life and death, creating another portal between worlds. This becomes a
transgressive boundary-crossing, a view which becomes even more apparent when
looking at another, slightly earlier work, Bird
Transformation.
In this piece, conceived soon after
Mendieta’s return from her first trip to Mexico, she has adhered bird feathers
to the body of another woman. In doing so, she creates a boundary-crossing
transgression between human and animal, as she has elsewhere between earth and
body. Like the god Quetzalcoatl, the woman in this piece begins to mysteriously
take on the elements of both worlds. The feathered face recalls feathered masks
created by Aztec artists. Mendieta has left the genitals of her female form
unfeathered and intact, allowing the creative sexuality of the creature to
continue to play a role. For Mendieta, sexuality cannot be separated from
nature. And in her eyes, this refiguring of the human body is a source of
transcendence. In a review of her work, Donald Kuspitt remarks: “Mendieta wants to reconsecrate the body, that is, restore the sense of
it as a miracle, and with that, restore the value lost by its reduction to a
kind of machine—its modernization, as it were. The body becomes increasingly
differentiated—grandly simplified and emblematic—in her art, and finally
becomes a vital aura, a ghostly abstraction of organic life. Mendieta’s
mystical body stands in opposition to the body as conceived by science. Hers is the body as it is experienced
from the inside, rather than the body as it is understood from the outside. Her
art is an attempt to demonstrate that woman’s body is holy, not profane, as
science and man have conceived it to be.”[xi]Mendieta’s religiously inspired art aims
at a celebration of the body as sacred and sublime. In her bird series as well
as her Siluetas, the source of that
divinity is nature, and specifically life on earth itself, rather than an
abstract, otherworldly deity.
Mendieta continued the bird series with Ocean Bird Washup, created in 1974. In
this piece, as in her earlier Blood
Feathers, she covers her nude body in animal blood and then adheres white
bird feathers to herself. In Ocean Bird
Washup, she then floats out at sea and allows the feathers to slowly, over
time, dissolve away from her until she returns to fully human form. This
process was filmed on a short, four-minute reel. The theme of temporality and passing away, central to Aztec
poets like Nezahuacoyotl (as in the poem quoted at the opening of this essay),
is poignantly expressed in this image. The body has become a sacred space, and
a divine metamorphosis has occurred, if only for a brief amount of time. Before
long, the feathers drift away and the image, as is so often the case in
Mendieta’s work, becomes one of a pulsating absence. Jane Blocker describes
this as Mendieta’s “performative practice of marking through disappearance…a
redundant absence, an amplified sense of death” also apparent in her Siluetas. Mendieta chose to disappear
into the elements rather than dictate to them, just as the Aztec poets
described. As Nezahuacoyotl sang, “Not forever on earth / Only a little while
here.”[xii]
Ana Mendieta’s art is unquestionably
informed by religious ritual. As Donald Kuspitt asserts, “Mendieta’s art… is profoundly
religious—eschatological…She experiences the body as a sacred space: a kind of
cathedral in which consciousness can soar.”[xiii]
The roots of much of this religious impulse lie in the ancient Northern
Mesoamerican artists and thinkers. In the Aztec art of ancient Mexico, Mendieta
found her inspiration and muse, and this experience ignited her imagination to
produce some of the most incredible land art of her time. Her religious study
and experience were enriched by Santeria, Taino religion, Catholicism, and
other sources, but her deep passion and recognition of Aztec art remained
central to her work and provided her with a rich tradition from which to draw
inspiration. Mendieta’s use of Aztec ideas and mythology was not only exhilarating
and innovative, but also relevant to her time—and, through her universal themes
of body and earth, just as relevant to our time as ever.
[i]Miguel Leon-Portilla, Fifteen
Poets of the Aztec World, (London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 80.
[ii]Jane
Blocker,Where Is Ana
Mendieta?, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999),
18.
[iii]Olga
M. Viso, "The Memory of History,"Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and
Performance 1972-1985, ed. Olga
M. Viso (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2004), 38.
[iv]Mary Jane Jacob, "Ashe in the Art of Ana Mendieta," Santeria Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, ed. Arturo Lindsay (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 191.
[v]Olga
M. Viso, "The Memory of History,"Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and
Performance 1972-1985, ed. Olga
M. Viso (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2004), 143.
[vi] Petra Barrerras del Rio, “Ana Mendieta:
A Historical Overview,” in Ana Mendieta:
A Retrospective (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1987), 31
[vii]Olga
M. Viso, "The Memory of History,"Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and
Performance 1972-1985, ed. Olga
M. Viso (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2004), 143.
[viii]John Bierhorst, The Mythology
of Mexico and Central America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002),
147.
A great resource I found for locating Earthworks and other interesting sites is the Center For Land Use Interpretation. Through this database you can search by state or throughout the United States to find sites near you. The database provides a description of the site as well as information on how to visit and links with more in-depth information. On the database website, The Center For Land Use Interpretation describes some of the sites listed: "[I]ncluded in the database are works by government agencies involved in geo-transformative activities, such as the Department of Energy, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Defense. Also included are industrially altered landscapes, such as especially noteworthy mining sites, features of transportation systems, and field test facilities for a variety of high-impact technologies. The database includes museums and displays related to land use, and one of the most thorough listings of land art sites available."
The Land Art Generator competition is an annual contest for beautiful land art installations that are also designed for clean energy generation. These twofold designs are created in Freshkills Park in NYC and combine art and utility. You can learn more about the competition here.
Bringing the competition closer to home, in 2012 two teams of Georgia Tech students took first and third place! The first place project, "Scene Sensor" by James Murray and Shota Vashakmadze, is two panels that are designed to harness the strong winds of Staten Island Park. On a spring day, this installation could power 1,200 houses.
Opportunities like the Land Art Generator competition elevate land art to be more than just a pretty surface. It's also an interesting statement of urban values: cities could be enhanced both aesthetically and energy-wise by encouraging such installations.
Andrew Rogers’ Rhythms of Life Project
Divides Admirers and Artists
Hally Joseph
History of
Contemporary Art
Dr. Alford
January 2013
This one 1800-word blog post is a combination of the two 900-word blog post requirements. All images of the geoglyphs are credited to andrewrogers.org.
SLOVAKIA
While working as
an artist-in-residence at Technion Institute of Technology in Israel in 1998,
sculptor Andrew Rogers discussed the possibility of a work in the nearby Avara
Desert. Known for his sophisticated bronze sculptures, Rogers recognized that a
space as arid, massive and open as the Avara Desert would require something
unique. The immensity of the desert and the sky inspired Rogers to step outside
of his traditional sculptural object, which would be dwarfed in these new enormous
parameters, and create a gigantic work of water-washed stones.[1]
This first geoglyph began Rogers’s Rhythms
of Life project, which would eventually encompass forty works throughout
twelve countries. Over 5000 people have worked on these large-scale projects,
erecting gigantic stone sculptures that encompass Rogers’s thoughts on
connection, synchronicity and time.[2] Rogers
has used the phrase Rhythms of Life
frequently before in his work – it served as the name of several sculptures,
the title of two exhibitions, and the title of a book – but matching it to
these global geoglyphs is perhaps the most fitting use of the name.[3] Making
such large marks on the land, Rogers’ work gets noticed and has its fair share
of admirers and critics. By making the Earth his canvas, Australian sculptor
Andrew Rogers’s Rhythms of Life
project has resulted in artwork that connects the world and divides artists’
opinions by using traditional sculptural style, working with locals, and using
generous funding to cover a lot of ground – literally.
CHINA
Unlike
most land artists, Rogers does not manipulate the land to create art: his
sculptures rest on the ground. The designs are plotted out and then marked with
steel stakes as lines of “bucket brigades” move rocks from hand to hand to
begin creating the desired forms.[4] Thus,
the stones are set together in large symbols and figures, but do not alter the
lay of the land or incorporate additional natural materials; they are massive
sculptures resting on top of the land. His contemporary geoglyphs are inspired
by the Nasca Lines in Peru, giant lines incised into the earth that created the
forms of animals and could only be seen from above.[5] Rogers
brings these symbols above-ground with the same concept of creating fascinating
aerial views in unexpected spaces. Other artists criticize his standard
sculptural technique, saying it does not push the boundaries of earthworks as
an artistic genre. John Pancake outlines one of the chief complaints:
William Fox, a leading authority on art and the
environment… says Rogers is not doing what museums and art critics and art
historians admire most: “Are you pushing forward the medium with which you’re
working? The answer’s no. He’s not doing anything in terms of the actual earth
or the arrangement of stones on the earth that we haven’ t seen before. He’s
using pretty traditional technology, if you will.”[6]
Fox makes a good point: if
a work doesn’t push the envelope of its category, is it as great of a work as
art that does push its limits? Perhaps there are several types of art: the kind
of art that makes artists happy to create and the kind that strives to push the
boundaries of its industry, with room for art to overlap both categories. Rogers’
geoglyphs, however, fall more into the former category, as he believes “that his lack of formal training has given him a
freedom to experiment, since he is not restricted by what is known to be
possible or impossible.”[7]
Rogers never attended art school, so his lack of study allows him to think
outside of the box because he never knew the box in the first place. This lack
of training is manifold: not only does it allow him the freedom of thinking
without personal limits, but it also detaches him from the critics as he
strives to create artwork that resonates personally. Unlike artists pushing the
envelope of their mode of art, Rogers admits that he’s not interested in
immortality, and he doesn’t sign the works for posterity. Backed by anonymous
donors and his own bank account, Rogers claims that his only pay is the joy of
making the geoglyphs, calling the massive work sites his “sandbox.”[8] If
other artists call their working environments their studios, their retreats,
their workspaces, etc., it further emphasizes Rogers’ creative technique that
he calls his worksites his “sandbox.” Sandboxes are a place of imaginative
creation, where ideas can take literal shape and are not meant for critique or
display, only pleasure and experimentation. We associate sandboxes with
children and unhampered creation; perhaps for this reason, critics find Rogers’
geoglyphs “simple.” By making the world his sandbox, however, Rogers clarifies
that he is not creating artwork for museums or galleries. Should he be judged
by the same parameters that those indoor artworks are judged? Though some
critics call the Rhythms of Life project
clichéd, writer Ken Scarlett is a big fan, calling the geoglyphs “accessible
and life-affirming,” particularly in a day and age when the news is a constant
catalogue of murders, burglaries, missing persons, and other tragedies. He says
Rogers’ work provides optimism.[9]
The sculptures may not be reshaping the earthworks genre, but that does not devalue
their simplistic beauty.
KENYA
The Rhythms of Life works also impact their individual
communities significantly. This leads to another musing on art: is the approval
of one art critic more powerful than the happiness of an entire village? For
Rogers, it is not. To create huge works in remote areas of the world takes time
collaborating with local governments and seeking approval of the general
public. Ron Robertson-Swann, one of Australia’s most famous sculptors, told The Washington Post that he believes “Rogers’s work has ‘very
little soul or innovation.’ He says Rogers’s strongest suit may be in marketing
himself, then adds: ‘That may sound a little like sour grapes.’”[10]
Sour as those grapes do sound, Rogers’s marketing skills are indeed phenomenal
as he works with local governments to get permission, organize teams of
workers, and create a temporary industry. Carol Strickland writes that Rogers
differs from other earthworks artists by being collaborative in his efforts.
His crews often involve up to 5,000 local workers, making his geoglyphs not only
a “public art project” but a “public works project,” as noted by White Box
gallery curator Lilly Wei. By bringing these temporary micro-industries to
local communities, Rogers’ projects not only change the lay of the land but the
lives of the employees.[11] In this way, Rogers’ contributions to
grand-scaled land art may not be groundbreaking within art criticism, but the
projects become essential to the communities both as an industry and a cultural
experience. As a working environment, the Rhythms
of Life project comes with plenty of benefits. Rogers puts an unheard-of
standard on gender equality by hiring an equal number of men and women and
providing equal pay. Other benefits include paying twice the going rate,
providing food and drink, and creating medical stations for workers and their
families to take advantage of.[12]
In these poor communities and tough working conditions, this micro-industry
brings new vigor into town and allows everyone to partake in the “business” of building
geoglyphs.
CHILE
Another
critical complaint Rogers repeatedly runs into is not the technique, but the
symbolism in his artwork. John
McDonald, an art critic at the Sydney Morning
Herald, says he
believes that Rogers is without a doubt Australia’s most successful living
sculptor, but that his work is very clichéd. From his standpoint, Rogers has
taken advantage of his wealth to achieve prominence.[13]
Rogers’ geoglyphs often take on the symbols of their surrounding cultures: a
dragon in Chile, a Jewish symbol meaning “To Life!” in Israel. These unsurprising
subjects are actually the inspirations of local communities. Not only do locals
partake in making the sculptures, but they also assist in creating the design.
The symbols are taken from local culture or findings near the site, so that
when Rogers leaves and the geoglyph becomes part of the community’s landscape,
it fits into the belief systems of the local people. The geoglyphs are also
treated with the utmost respect of their respective cultures with ceremonies to
bless and celebrate them. Rogers does not use his money to buy or privatize the
land for his sculptures; on the contrary, several countries have personally
invited him to create something on their land, and the artwork is embraced by
the community. According to Ken Scarlett, the Bolivian people made the Rhythms of Life project their own by
having two Andean ritual ceremonies to bless and celebrate the geoglyph. Before
construction, a shaman sacrificed a llama, burying its entrails throughout the
geoglyph location and sprinkling its blood on the land before cooking the meat
for a meal. After the project wrapped up, the Bolivian people had a huge
celebration, showing up in the thousands to dance in colorful costumes.[14] In China, Rogers “assistants” were the
army troops, and the completion of the project led to an elaborate fireworks
display.[15]
Truly distinguishing himself from other land artists, Rogers’
incorporation of local workers, ceremonies and collaboration means the
sculptures are more than just artwork: they are an industry, a shared experience
and a cultural symbol. These are sculptures “for the people and by the people,”
and Rogers works as the catalyst who dreams them into being and makes them come
to life.
USA
By
creating gigantic geoglyphs and mini-industries, sculptor Andrew Rogers pushes
the boundaries of art by not pushing
them, a choice which divides artists’ opinions of his work and connects communities
worldwide. Writer Peter Webster notes that Rogers's geoglyph series echoes aboriginal art in his native
Australia. Indigenous Australians drew symbols and landscapes that could only
be perceived from the air, many of which modern technology now allows us to see
as they visualized.[16]
Instead of pushing the envelope on new land art techniques, Rogers echoes the
past with his traditional sculptures. He may not have the love of the critics,
but people worldwide are fascinated by the incredible symbols he is etching
across the Earth, and the local communities celebrate the opportunity to be part
of one. John Pancake suggests that while the art world’s criticism illuminates Rogers’ work, it may also offer
insight into the attitude of the art world itself.[17]
The art world expects more out of Rogers’ Rhythms
of Life project when it provides plenty of happiness and wonder to the
general public, calling into question how much critical approval is worth. Once
created, the massive stone structures are left on their own in their native
lands; like traditional land artists, Rogers does nothing to preserve them. As
foliage and earth shifts around them, the geoglyphs truly integrate with their
locations, looking as though they have been there for many years and unmarked
by any signage or explanation. Writer Andrea Voucher discussed with Rogers how
the geoglyphs could potentially be mistaken for ancient etchings, and he said
does not mind at all. His goal to is to take viewers out of the ordinary, and
he is fine having his geoglyphs be in the domain of speculation.[18] The largest-scale geoglyph project yet, Andrew Rogers’ Rhythms of Life is indeed out of the
ordinary, and will spark conversations, critiques and compliments for years to
come.
[1]Ken Scarlett, "Geoglyphs
Spanning the Globe: Andrew Rogers." Sculpture
28, no. 10 (2009) 58, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed January
24, 2013).
[2] Andrea
R. Vaucher, “Andrew Rogers: Rhythms of Life on Seven Continents,” Huffington Post (October 5, 2011),
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-r-vaucher/andrew-rogers-rhythms-of-_b_994975.html
(accessed January 24, 2013).
[3]Ken Scarlett, "Andrew
Rogers and the Rhythms of Life." Sculpture
23, no. 3 (2004) 58, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed January
24, 2013).
[4] John Pancake, “Andrew Rogers’s ‘Rhythms of
Life’ makes its mark on the planet,” The
Washington Post (July 28, 2012),
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-07-28/entertainment/35488204_1_andrew-rogers-planet-gobi-desert
(accessed January 24, 2013).
[5] Carol
Strickland, “The ‘land art’ of Andrew Rogers,” The Christian Science Monitor (May 12, 2009), http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2009/0512/p17s01-algn.html
(accessed January 24, 2012).
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