In the late 1960s, a limited number of artists, especially from New York, United States, left the classical settings of the workshop, gallery and museum, to work directly in nature, or introduce natural elements into museums. According to GillesTiberghien, this new Land Art can be defined as "a moment in the history of contemporary art, situated at the crossroads of modernism and with what has been challenged, battled, or replaced". This trend is not exclusive to the American continent. In Europe, particularly in England, Holland and France, artists have been pursuing this new environmental trend. Therefore, Land Art or Earth Works denote works performed in a natural setting.
It is neither a style nor a school, much less a movement; the members of Land Art vary in their approach to space and in the creation of their works. The feature that could unite them is that they have recourse to a number of documents to explain their creations, the latter being too remote or destroyed quickly, so that they are invisible to the public.
At first, it will be useful to study the evolution of art between 1960 and 1970 to understand the aesthetic and philosophical movement that prompted land artists to embrace this trend. Then, an overview of the major Land Art artists will be necessary, followed by an analysis of the original art works of Walter de Maria and Richard Long, both of them very different from each other. This new art concept, land art, is often identified with the "ecological art".
Since World War II, artists have been increasingly eager for commitment and action in their work. This young generation is eager to claim original modes of expression via paintings, to break free of traditional art which is rather provincial in nature. America now enjoys technological supremacy throughout the world. This statement is accompanied by an intellectual, moral and cultural development, allowing many artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko or Frank Stella, to give free rein to their art.
It is within this social and political context that the New York School is set up, mainly around abstract expressionism. The evolution of this new school seems inseparable from three major events in the history of contemporary art: the arrival of the surrealists headed by André Breton, the opening of the Peggy Guggenheim gallery in 1942, and support of the art critic Clement Greenberg.
Emphasis on artistic purity and liberation of the unconscious and improvisation are placed as fundamental in the minds of artists of the time. The New York artists borrow from the theory of automation to the surrealists. The art is then identified in this process of purification, "each art tending towards its own essence to coincide with its unique medium." Modernism is there, rejecting any previous stylistic, formal, technical method; the experiment should help span the entire artistic tradition, to achieve and define a pure art, perfect and free from any external constraints; the modernist movement clearly resolved many artistic disputes.
Tags: Modernism, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Peggy Guggenheim gallery, ecological art
[...] His intrusion into nature is not evil and easily. It only shifts artistically items found in situ to give the place a perfect wild nature, serene and orderly. His ideology of nature is evident in all these works, taking a philosophical and conceptual character. The artist is in total harmony with the landscape in which he conceives his art A registered conceptual art The difficulty seeing the impossibility for the viewer to go there brings the artist to use other means, other than concrete to document his art. [...]
[...] Example A five day walk, developed below, correctly defines this approach. Joined the reportage photography, representing a record attesting to the artistic action. The image or text is a document but they stand as evidence of the action of an art, like his memory. All this documentation is then presented in showrooms, to inform the visitor about the approach of the artist, which is performed upstream. It becomes work in turn. In this artistic work seen by the public can be described as conceptual art, as his approach uses words, language, photography, short, witnesses of his art and not the original art itself. [...]
[...] It is in this great upheaval that will be born the Land Art. From gift appearance, modernism ranks as rigorous art, therefore already traditional. His arbitrary and authoritarian message causes artists to rebel against this dogma of the ideal purity, which ultimately proves impossible. This so-called postmodern reaction, such as against-reform, develops in the course of 1960 and 1970. Artists reconsider their modes of expression and presentation of the works, we will see in the second part. This plastic attitude is coupled with a philosophical critique, but also political; the classical model in all its forms is rejected by the majority of artists. [...]
[...] The title he gives to his "documentary works "is directly related to the artistic work itself which was accomplished before, in order to clearly explain its creation to the public. In this work, he set a goal to go through each of the four concentric circles in an hour. This approach will then be accompanied by a short text describing the way. A five day walk is another recording mode of reality which the artist uses. Words play a special role at home. [...]
[...] This documentation is the only link between the work created and its representation. The work of Denis Oppenheim is not to add in situ material but rather to remove. Subtracting this organic matter, such as snow or earth, is usually with snowmobiles or special devices to break the ice, or with simple no men. Works like Negative Board (1968), simple trench in the snow and ice, One Hour Run (1968) boundery Split (1968), Time Pocket (1968) and Time Line (1968) represent delineations over large surfaces which become noticeable as the crow flies. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
