LAND ART a definition
to be distilled from the views on land art of the
sculptor
land art - land mark
an interview with the sculptor
What is land art for
you? I know that lot of different artists take
part in this movement, what is land art for
you as a sculpture?
Which artist you think
to be the most important in land art movement?
Why?
According to you, what
is the difference between land art in past,
today and future? What kind of future of land
art do you expect?
What do you think,
will land art sometimes become an art for professionals
- I mean now days different kinds of artists
take part in this movement, will it change?
Will it be divided from other artists except
land artists?
The location for the
Walburg Project as photographed by me a few
years before I was asked in 1971 to propose a
location for a land work which became the Walburg
land Art Project. One of the power line pylons was
on the plot of land, which I chose for the land
art project. It reminded me of the
Watts Towers by Sam
Rodia, in Los Angeles.
answers
1.
What is land art for you? I
know that lot of different artists take part in
this movement, what is land art for you as a sculpture?
Land Art is not only a form of sculpture, for me
it is sculpture. I like to do large land art projects
because it uses the environment and changes it.
Art in the landscape and art as landscape is public
art. It reaches far more people than the usual works
that hang or stand in living rooms or museums. Landscapes
and urban open spaces belong to us all, and landscape
projects are works of art that can be experienced
by everyone, every day.
When land art incorporates living materials, like
grasses and trees, they grow with the people and
age with them. Land art can make use of the materials
which are inherent to the landscape: rock and rocks,
earth, sand and water. Also the weather can be a
part of land art — think of Lighting Field by Walter
De Maria, a land art project incorporating lightning
by attracting it with stainless steel pointed rods.
Land art is as old as humanity, it's only recently
that we call it art. Perhaps the same motives played
a role in prehistoric times as they do in present
day interventions in the landscape. Religion and
art have a common goal necessitating an environment
for ritual. Where religion needed to evoke the spiritual
emotion, art bases its interpretation on intellectual,
but also intuitive behavior. In the present time,
art has been defined to such extent that it has
been rationalized, analyzed and categorized.
Land art distinguishes itself from its surroundings
as an artifact differs from a natural rock. Its
surroundings are preferably a natural setting. Human
interaction draws attention to a new perception
of an environment. Sadly, most human dealings with
nature disregard and destroy it.
Characteristic for land art is, in my opinion, the
use of local materials and rearranging them in such
a way that a new, contemplated situation results.
Introducing foreign materials or objects would change
the notion of land art. Pouring asphalt down a hill
does not fit in this concept.
Land art in a city would lose its complementary
function.
2. Which artist you think to
be the most important in land art movement? Why?
contoured playground
- courtesy Wikipedia
I think Isamu Noguchi is the first
artist to make sculpture — using the land as a medium.
The term land art was coined twenty years after
he designed his Contoured Playground, in 1941. It
was a forerunner of later works of art which were
categorized as land art. In 1947 he made a
proposal for a sculpture to
be seen from Mars. Later he realized various projects
using materials of the land.
Sculpture to be Seen from
Mars
In 1947 Isamu Noguchi made a model, as a proposal,
for a monumental earthwork to be visible from mars
(to be viewed from Mars). From space it would be
symbolic for a human face, but on earth it would
have been a juxtaposition of plateau mound s (one
with an elliptical crater), two cones and a pyramid,
comparable to the ones in Egypt.
Roden Crater
- courtesy Wikipedia
James Turell is creating one of the most important
pieces of land art with his Roden Crater volcano
project in Arizona, USA. This project not only incorporates
the earth, but connects it to the solar system.
When it is finished it will be the best
examples of land art, as the land is land because
everything above it is something else.
I think Noguchi’s to be viewed from Mars and Turell’s Roden Crater are the two greatest examples of land
art — one (Turell) for being on earth and perceiving
the light and space from our solar system — and
the other (Noguchi) to be seen from the solar system,
or rather, which could be seen from the solar system;
knowing that, while you are actually within, or
on, the project, gives a totally different mental
perspective — the observation is in your mind.
3. According
to you, what is the difference between land art
in past, today and future? What kind of future of
land art do you expect?
the past
Land art in the past can be interpreted in two parts:
1. the past, before the term
’land art’ was coined
2. and the past, right after this form of art was
recognized and named ’land art’
Like the term ’land art’ was invented
forty years ago,
the term ’art’ itself came into existence long after
mankind had been expressing themselves with
representative and non-representative products.
Putting objects into museums and forming collections
strengthened the definition of art as we have
seen it for a few hundred years. Prehistoric
cave drawings and paintings may not have been
made with the intention, or hope, of having
it included in art history (let alone having
it collected by a museum — a very impractical
thing as far as cave drawings are concerned).
Even though they probably were made with another
goal in mind, they are expressions of the human
mind. As were the observatory in Jaipur, India
or Stonehenge in England. These are works of
land art avant la lettre.
In the past, making these enormous landmarks
must have given the makers the same satisfaction
as it gives nowadays to artists making their
projects in the landscape. This is why, I think,
most ’land artists’ (my term) are inspired by
these pre-historical artifacts.
I think that the difference between the
pre-land art period and the land art period,
in which we are now, there is not very much
visual difference. The visual function is more
or less the same — the feeling of encountering
a prehistoric monumental work or a contemporary
land art one, has a similar effect of astonishment
or wonder. The making of either one gives the
same level of satisfaction. Only the motives
differ; or do they? Are religion and worship
so much different from the wish to do something
impressive or inspiring? Sam Rodia, who built
the Watts Towers in Los Angeles said, when he
was asked why, ’I wanted to do something big
and I did it.’
The early art works titled land art mostly used
natural materials like rocks, soil and water
— often being rearranged by the artist. This
is why this art form was also referred to as
earth art or earth works. Now we use and introduce
other materials also.
One great difference is the techniques of making
such large projects. Were in the early ages
these works were made by hand and with handmade
tools, nowadays we have industrial tools and
techniques which are available to us — excavating
machines, bulldozers and cranes. Like the constructivists
of revolutionary Russia were eager to use the
techniques which had been developed — mass production,
machines and other industrial possibilities
— the artists, who were the first to propose
and make monumental projects in the landscape,
also availed themselves of modern techniques.
today
As the definition of land art evolves, the interpretations
begin to become wider. It is a personal choice
whether we want to hold on to the forms of land
art as they were in the sixties and seventies
of the twentieth century — or whether we are
willing to keep an open mind and not limit ourselves
to what we already know. The term environmental
art came in the very late sixties (I myself
used it for my work in 1969, calling my work
environmental sculpture). In that time I actually
meant the term to cover the same kind of work
that Isamu Noguchi was doing. I don’t think
the term land art had then yet been thought
of — the term ’earth art’ was. But the interpretation
of ’environmental art’ has evolved and now has
been adopted to cover too many subjects, from
ecological awareness to biodegradable art.
the future
What the future will bring, anybody’s guess
is as good as the other’s. A factor which I
haven’t covered yet is the influence of the
art historians who are trying to move art in
the direction they would like it to go. The
emphasis nowadays is on meaningful , literary,
art. And it has to be presentable in their museums.
The documentation exhibitions on all forms of
art in the environment have become surrogate
art; because the museums cannot show the real
thing. The experience of being at Lightning
Field by Walter De Maria can never be replicated
in a museum. The experience of walking between
Donald Judd’s concrete constructions, ’fifteen
untitled works in concrete, in the Marfa, Texas
desert can never compare to a documentary about
this work in a museum. Are these ’minimal art’,
a term rejected by Judd, or are they land art?
I don’t think he would care. Most categories
are invented by art historians anyway — or accidentally
by critics (for instance the term ’impressionists’).
4. What do you
think, will land art sometimes become an art for
professionals - I mean, nowadays different kinds
of artists take part in this movement, will it change?
Will it be divided from other artists except land
artists?
I think that artists do not really want to fit into
a so called movement. Of course we feel we have
affinity with other the work artists. Every work
of art should be unique — so, in this sense, it
won’t fit into any category or movement devised
by art historians. As many artists want to be recognized,
they will participate in exhibitions and manifestations
which have been given a name. This can’t hurt since
we are free. But once you have a stamp it is sometimes
very difficult to take this away: think of Donald
Judd, who is called a minimal artist in every other
text about him.
There will always be room for every art form, because
it is the artist who determines the uniqueness of
his work.
also:
an interview about land art with Topos
definitions |
