Earth Art
Because of its space-articulating function we might be tempted to
call the Vietnam Veterans Memorial a work of architecture, like Stonehenge ;
yet it is so sculptural
that it belongs equally well to Primary Structures. The two categories
merge in "Earth Art," which is the ultimate medium for Environmental
Sculpture, since it provides complete freedom from the limitations of
the human scale. Logically enough, some designers of Primary Structures
have turned to it, inventing projects that stretch over many miles.
These latter-day successors to the mound-building Indians of Neolithic
times have the advantage of modem earth-moving machinery, but this is
more than outweighed by the problem of cost and the difficulty of
finding suitable sites on our crowded planet.
Robert Smithson
The few projects of theirs that have actually been carried
out are mostly found in remote regions of western America, so that the
finding is itself often difficult enough. Spiral Jetty, the work
of Robert Smithson
(1938-1973), jutted out into
Great Salt Lake in Utah (fig. 1156)
and is now partly submerged. Its appeal rests in part on
the Surrealist irony of the concept: a spiral jetty is as
self-contradictory as a straight corkscrew. But it can hardly be said to
have grown out of the natural formation of the terrain like the Great
Serpent Mound.
No wonder it has not endured long, nor was it intended
to. The process by which nature is reclaiming Spiral Jetty,
already twice submerged, was integral to Smithson s design from the
start. The project nevertheless lives on in photographs.
1156.
Robert Smithson.
Spiral
Jetty. As built in 1970.
Total length 457.2
m: width of jetty 4.6
m. Great Salt Lake, Utah
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Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson, (born Jan. 2, 1938, Passaic, N.J.,
U.S.—died July 20, 1973, Amarillo, Texas), American sculptor
and writer associated with the Land Art movement. His
large-scale sculptures, called Earthworks, engaged directly
with nature and were created by moving and constructing with
vast amounts of soil and rocks.
Smithson preferred to work with ruined or
exhausted sites in nature. Using the earth as his palette,
he created archetypal forms: spirals, circles, and mounds.
Although, like other land artists of the late 1960s and
early ’70s—including Walter De Maria, Nancy Holt, Michael
Heizer, and Carl Andre—Smithson chose to make his major work
outside what he and his colleagues considered a compromised
gallery system, he nevertheless also created smaller
objects, which he called “nonsites,” for museum and gallery
settings. These nonsite pieces employed topographic maps of
an area juxtaposed with minimalist displays of materials
taken from the actual sites as a form of
pseudoarchaeological evidence that made reference to the
“real” outdoor work. He also documented his work extensively
with photographs and film.
Smithson was largely self-taught. He
earned a two-year scholarship to the Art Students League in
New York City, and he studied briefly at the Brooklyn Museum
School in 1956. His initial artwork was in the form of
painting in the manner of the Abstract Expressionists. After
a trip to Rome in 1961, he brought mythological and
religious subjects into this work. After marrying the
American sculptor Nancy Holt in 1963, he started making
painted metal sculptures. As he did so, he began to question
the role of the autonomous object in the museum context. He
proceeded to make a number of minimalist sculptures, using
industrial materials such as glass and mirrors. As he became
increasingly preoccupied with the context for works of art,
he began to work outside in natural sites ruined by
industrial waste or mining. In 1971, for one of a growing
number of outdoor projects, he took a 20-year lease on 10
acres (4 hectares) of lakefront land at the Great Salt Lake
in Utah, and, using hired contractors, he made a huge spiral
extending 1,500 feet (460 metres) into the lake. This work,
titled Spiral Jetty, can still be seen periodically,
depending on the water level.
In this and all of his other Earthworks,
Smithson was interested in evoking geologic time through
scale and the use of ancient rocks and dirt. He investigated
many prehistoric sites, such as Stonehenge in England, and
felt that his work was directly associated with such
locations. Smithson was also interested in concepts of
entropy—how energy gets dispersed in nature from the orderly
to the disorderly over time—and he saw that as a metaphor
for a philosophical orientation to life. He was a highly
romantic artist whose most sublime and spiritual thoughts
appear in his numerous writings, collected in Robert
Smithson: The Collected Writings (1996), edited by Jack
Flam. Smithson died in a plane crash at age 35 while
inspecting a site in West Texas for an Earthwork to be
titled Amarillo Ramp. This piece was finished posthumously
(1973) by Holt, Tony Shafrazi, and Richard Serra.
Lisa S. Wainwright
Encyclopædia
Britannica
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Christo.
By way of contrast, the projects of
Christo (Christo
Javacheff, born
1935), who
first gained notoriety for wrapping things, are deliberately
short-lived. They enhance the environment only temporarily instead of
altering it permanently. Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Miami,
his most satisfying project to date, was installed for all of two weeks
in the spring of 1983.
Part Conceptual Art, part Happening, this ambitious repackaging of nature was
a public event involving a small army of assistants. While the emphasis
was on the campaign itself, the outcome was a triumph of epic fantasy.
Photographs hardly do justice to the results. Our collage of
Christo's drawings, an aesthetic object in its own right, gives a
clearer picture of the artist's intention by presenting the project in
different ways and conveying the complexity of the experience it
provided (fig. 1157).
(Drawings such as this helped to fund the project.) In effect, Christo
turned the islands into inverse lily pads of pink fabric. If Smithson's
Spiral Jetty suggests the futility of grandiose undertakings,
Christo's visual pun is as festive and decorative as Monet's water-lily
paintings (fig. 958), an
inspiration the artist has acknowledged.
1157.
Christo. Surrounded Islands, Project for Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami,
Florida.
1982.
Drawing in two parts, 38 x 244
cm and 106.6 x 244 cm.
Pencil, charcoal, pastel, crayon, enamel paint, aerial photograph,
and fabric sample.
Private collection.
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Christo
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, respectively, in full Christo
Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon (respectively, born
June 13, 1935, Gabrovo, Bulg. born June 13, 1935,
Casablanca, Mor.—died Nov. 18, 2009, New York City, N.Y.,
U.S.), environmental sculptors, noted for their
controversial outdoor sculptures and monumental displays of
fabrics and plastics.
Christo attended the Fine Arts Academy in
Sofia, Bulg., and had begun working with the Burian Theatre
in Prague when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 broke out.
He fled to Vienna, where he studied for a semester, and
then, after a brief stay in Switzerland, moved to Paris and
began exhibiting his works with the nouveaux réalistes.
While working there as a portrait artist, Christo met
Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon, whom he married in 1959.
Jeanne-Claude was once described as her husband’s publicist
and business manager, but she later received equal billing
with him in all creative and administrative aspects of their
work. In 1964 the pair relocated to New York City, where
their art was seen as a form of Arte Povera.
Christo’s earliest sculptures were
composed of cans and bottles—some as found and some painted
or wrapped in paper, plastic, or fabric. Christo and
Jeanne-Claude’s first collaborative works included Dockside
Packages (1961; Cologne), Iron Curtain—Wall of Oil Drums
(1962; Paris), and Corridor Store Front (1968; New York
City). In 1968 they also completed a suspended 18,375-foot
(5,600-metre) “air package” over Minneapolis, Minn., and
“wrapped buildings” in Bern, Switz.; Chicago, Ill.; and
Spoleto, Italy. Their monumental later projects included
Valley Curtain (1972; Rifle Gap, Colo.), Running Fence
(1976; Marin and Sonoma counties, Calif.), and Surrounded
Islands (1983; Biscayne Bay, Fla.). In 1985 in Paris, they
wrapped the Pont Neuf (bridge) in beige cloth. In a 1991
project, the couple installed 1,340 giant blue umbrellas
across the Sato River valley in Japan and 1,760 giant yellow
ones in Tejon Pass, California. Four years later they
wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in metallic silver fabric.
The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979–2005 was
unveiled in 2005. Stretching across 23 miles (37 km) of
walkway in Central Park, the work featured 7,503 steel gates
that were 16 feet (5 metres) high and decorated with
saffron-coloured cloth panels. The Gates was on display for
16 days and attracted more than four million visitors.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s huge, usually
outdoor sculptures are temporary and involve hundreds of
assistants in their construction. Seen as they are by all
manner of passersby, including those who would not
necessarily visit museums, these works force observers to
confront questions regarding the nature of art. As the scope
of the projects widened, increased time was needed for
planning and construction phases, the securing of permits,
and environmental- impact research. For each project, they
formed a corporation, which secured financing and sold the
primary models and sketches. Most installations were
documented in print and on film, and the materials that
created them were sold or given away after the projects were
dismantled.
Encyclopædia
Britannica
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Christo.
Wrapped Painting
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Christo.
Bicyclette empaquetée sur galerie de voiture
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Christo.
Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971
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Christo.
The wrapped Reichstag
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Christo.
Air Package.
Project for the Garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New
York City, 1968
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Christo.
The Gates, Project for Central Park, New York City
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Christo.
The Pont Neuf
Wrapped - Project for Paris I
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Christo.
Wrapped Reichstag, Project for Berlin
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Christo.
Over the River from Underneath
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Christo.
The Blue Umbrellas, 1991
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Christo.
The Gates, Photo No. 26
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Christo.
Wrapped Coast, 1968-1969
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Christo.
Wrapped Trees XIV
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Christo.
Over the River, Project for Colorado, From Above
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Christo.
Corridor Store Front Project
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Christo.
The Wall, Gasometer, Oberhausen, 1999, No. 3
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