| Land art, also referred to as Earth art or Environmental art, first appeared in the 1960s and 70s. The emerging movement had the most trackable activity occurring within the UK, US and parts of Northern Europe. The movement initially focused on the rejection of the rampant commercialization of the art making process and its products. Land artist sought ways to create outside of urban centers. They embraced the use of materials found in nature such as rocks and grasses and soils and vegetation as well as, elusive natural phenomena and processes. Photo documentation became a primary method for the chronicling and dissemination of works produced in remote non-urban settings. Along with the resistance to commercialization the movement also converged with the rise of the environmental movement and coincided with the popularity of the rejection of urban living which came to be know as the Back to the Land movement and the romanticization of all things rural. Included in these inclinations were spiritual yearnings concerning the planet Earth as home to humanity. Land art was part of the wider conceptual art movement within the same era.
In this course we will discuss the land art works of Robert Smithson and his iconic work, Spiral Jetty of 1970, built out into the Great Salt Lake in the USA. Some of the other artists such as the Brit, Richard Long, made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape such as simply walking to make a mark in the earth. We will look at artists such as Nancy Holt, Michael Heizer, Andy Goldsworthy, Dennis Oppenheim, Nils Udo, Hamish Fulton, Anna Mendieta and more.
The course will also have students realize outdoor interventions and design proposals for outdoor projects. |
