After three decades of construction, Alberto Burri’s monumental land art installation “Grande Cretto” has finally opened to the public, The Art Newspaper reports.
One of Vincent van Gogh’s olive tree paintings has literally sprung to life, reproduced as a large, growing field in Minnesota. Last month the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) unveiled a 1.5-acre work of crop art by Stan Herd, a Kansas-based artist who has planted many earthworks around the world, including a recreation of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of gliders. Commissioned by Mia to celebrate the museum’s centennial, this most recent piece replicates van Gogh’s “Olive Trees,” one of 15 known paintings of the trees the artist produced in the fall of 1889. That specific work actually hangs in the museum, but Herd’s has sprouted on a site belonging to media firm Thomson Reuters, near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.
They displaced thousands of pounds of earth, broke down mountains, rejected art galleries and dealers, and carefully constructed mythologies around their art and lives. The land artists of the late 1960s and early ’70s have long been romanticized as cowboys who used their bare hands and raw physical force to create monumental art in extreme environments; they’ve been portrayed in popular culture as rule-breakers of the artistic status quo of their day.
A Documentary Mines the Stories of Three Pioneers of Land Art
In March, the art world rallied to call for the protection of Nevada’s Basin and Range area, a landscape of rich archaeological resources and the site of Michael Heizer’s sprawling land art piece, “City” (1972–present). The region has faced numerous environmental threats, including a plan to develop a nuclear waste rail line, but last night the White House announced that President Barack Obama will sign a proclamation designating it a national monument, effectively protecting the 704,000-acre area. As the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, the new monument is the second designated in the state within the last eight months (following the Tule Springs designation in December). The Basin and Range National Monument joins a list of over 100 such sites across the US.
Obama Declares Tract of Nevada Desert, and Michael Heizer’s “City,” a National Monument
WENDOVER, UTAH — Land use has got to be one of the least sexy topics of conversation. It’s not exactly pick-up line or first date material for most people — “So I was reading about the new noncommercial zoning restrictions being considered by the community board last night …” And yet, land use, and the control of apportioning it, is central to many heated conversations and histories in this country, particularly at the present moment — from the preservation of manufacturing jobs to improving the availability of affordable housing and pretty much any conversation about gentrification.
In 1972, the Land Art pioneer Michael Heizer began buying up tracts of land near Nevada’s Garden and Coal valleys. Set against the backdrop of the Worthington Mountains, the desert basin is home to the White River Narrows Archeological District, a historically registered site that contains ancient rock art, early Native American trails, and the remains of 19th century settlements. Greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits, and antelope frolic among its native White River catseye.
(via Frick Garden and Watts Towers Listed Among Most Endangered US Art Landscapes)
The Frick Collection’s Russell Page–designed garden, planned for destruction as part of the Manhattan museum’s expansion project, is one of 11 land-based art pieces announced as under threat this week by the Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). The organization’s annual compendium, Landslide 2014: Art and the Landscape, lists the Frick’s 70th Street Garden along with other works in the United States that TCLF says are at risk of disappearing, because of development, poor maintenance, or natural decay.
Making Gestures: Land Art’s Moment in the UK
Nancy Holt at Pentre Ifan dolmen, Pembroke National Park, Wales (1969). Photographed by Robert…
Photography at Great Heights
Michael Gabel, “10,068″ (Mt. Baldy, CA)
During a particularly arduous training climb on…