The Land Art is a stream of contemporary art that uses the framework and street materials (wood, earth, stones, sand, wind, rocks, fire, water etc..). This expression English is also translated as “the art of landscape construction” or “land art.” Generally, the works are outside, exposed to the elements and subject to natural erosion; so, some disappeared, leaving them only the photographic memory. The first works were carried out in the landscapes desert of the American West in the late sixties . The most impressive works made with heavy equipment such as excavators, called earthworks.
The art generated from a place that sometimes looks like a cross between sculpture and architecture , in others a hybrid of sculpture and landscape architecture where playing an increasingly important role in contemporary public space. In fact, it can be considered as a new artistic behavior, away from the traditional ways, like others that emerged in the sixties and seventies in response to the marketing of traditional art object ( paintings , sculptures ). Other new art forms of the same type would be in body art , the happening or Arte Povera .
Its purpose is to produce plastic emotions in the viewer faces. The fundamental principle is to alter the Land Art, with an artistic sense, to produce maximum emotion. It is intended to reflect the relationship between man and the earth, the environment and the world, while expressing pain due to environmental deterioration of climate that exists today. The main thing is the interaction of human – artist with the environment.
This art intervenes in the landscape, modifying it. Whether from a contrasting or mimetic posture, in which an extractive operation or summative, built with elements that are within the same environment is performed ( earth , water , light , etc..)
The landscape is a fundamental part of the work, which often indicates that do. The artist talks with the environment first and then work on it keep this conversation. Thus the transformation that enables this artistic experience recovering ancestral values, communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings arise.
The Land Art establishes a dialogue, often architectural character but always under the artistic imperative nature. Exhibits in front of the viewer a world that requires it to your understanding that pervades much more intense than that used for the simple view of a landscape.
To get the man to take over the territory, modifying and reinterpreting it as its sensitivity, it is necessary that the artist understands the place where it will work, interpenetrating with him. In Land-Art, a man leaves his mark in Nature, structuring a new landscape on its sensitivity and ability to interpret it.
The resulting work is much more ephemeral than that resulting from conventional art. Hence the picture or stated in drawings , sketches or audiovisual recordings. When this is displayed to the public in exhibitions and galleries, the viewer must “re-build” mentally what happened, according to art historian Antje von Graevenitz .
The Land Art as we know it today, starting from the 60’s was when this phenomenon began to take shape over time and several artists who support this notion have arisen. The first to be released in this area were Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, who used materials from nature for the development of his artistic works. At first Michael Heizer call to his art as “Negative Sculputure” in this sculpture the author wanted to emphasize their appreciation as much air face while you walked on it, noting the greatness of his work.
On the other hand, we have Smithson who died in a plane crash while on his way to see one of his works of art. He also believed in the immensity of things, to be cherished as a detail that changes the focus of the rest. Despite his short career, Smithson develop musical achievement, including the use of thousands and millions of small materials that were major figures in the land. In addition to being a sculptor, also narrated his works in films to share their ideology, which tried to reflect their protest against the industrial world and forgetfulness to the rest of the wonderful nature.
Exponents and forms of land-art
Exponent in relationship between landscape and art:
Using materials from nature
Earth ( Robert Smithson , Michael Heizer ). An example would be the works of Michael Heizer Double Negative ( 1969 ), with 240,000 tons of sandstone excavated and displaced in the Virgin River , Mormond Mesa , Nevada , or displaced / replaced Mass the same year, in Silver Springs , Nevada.
Timber, logs, etc.. ( Nils Udo , Gary Rieveschl , Andy Goldsworthy )
Stones, piles, mounds ( Richard Long , Andy Goldsworthy, Carl Vetter , Alan Sonfist ). Could be cited as an example the work of Richard Long A Circle in Iceland, in 1974 , now destroyed.
Artifice and as contrast or highlight nature
Fabrics. It’s prototypical work of Christo & Jeanne-Claude , with examples like surrounded Islands ( 1980 – 1983 ) in Biscayne Bay (Biscayne Bay), Greater Miami , Florida or Packaging Reichstag, Berlin , 1995 .
Lightning arresters, such as installing Walter de Maria titled Lightning Field, 1974 – 1977 , 400 sticks of steel , of varying heights, stuck in Quemado , New Mexico .
Appliances, machines, mobile in which natural forces such as fire, water or air (involved Susumu Sh ).
Marea Negra. Mobile and Multimedia Source with live fish. (Toni Milian. 1990)
Rediscovery and staging of the cosmic order and natural forces
Guidelines solstices and equinoxes (Robert Morris, Nancy Holt )
The wind through the wind force ( Douglas Hollis )
The fire , the light and reflections (Susumu Shingu)
The water : streams, banking remains a river or the sea ( Eberhard Eckerle , Dominique Arel )
Weather expressed as art:
Decomposition, the life cycle ( Jochen Duckwitz , Andrew Leicester )
The recycling ( Gary Rieveschl )
“Fertilization” Ephemeral art destroyed by the superstition of the walkers (Toni Milian. 1984. Guatiza, Lanzarote)
The walk as art:
The movement (Richard Long, Hamish Fulton ). Typical is the work of Richard Long A Line Made by Walking ( 1967 ).
Land art artists
Predecessors had, as the work of Isamu Noguchi (Playgrounds, Playmountains, 1940 ), Herbert Bayer (Earth Mound of 1966 in Aspen , Colorado ) and Dani Karavan (b. 1930 , artist environments as its Peace Memorial in the desert Negev , 1963 – 1968 ).
Artists Land art fully considered are:
Christo (b. 1935 ) & Jeanne-Claude (b. 1935), with its typical packaging.
Michael Heizer (b. 1944 )
Robert Morris (b. 1931 )
Nicolás García Uriburu (b. 1937 )
Dennis Oppenheim (b. 1938 ) and Snow Projects (projects-snow).
Robert Smithson (1938 – 1973 ), who developed the concept site sculpture (sculpture of place), that is, the sculpture as part of a particular place and not as an object that can be carried from one place to another.
Doffo Juan, Argentina
Kardo Kosta, Argentinian, lives and works in Switzerland and Barcelona, conducted Land Art work in 2011 Argentina, Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Mendoza
Walter De Maria (b. 1935), who performs works of symbolic and mythological roots.
Alice Adams (b. 1930)
Centers regarding Land Art
There are centers of art, sculpture parks working in research and dissemination of this art in some Western countries. In Spain there are some projects like [Centro_de_Arte_y_Naturaleza_Fundaci% C3% B3n_Beulas | CDAN, Centre for Art and Nature] of Beulas Foundation ( Huesca ), the NMAC Foundation ( Montemedio , Cádiz ) and SIERRA art center whose main reference the Land art. Land Art Biel-Bienne Switzerland-Creator project Kardo Kosta
The artist James Turrell acquired in 1977 a volcanic crater 400,000 years. The crater is located in the San Francisco volcanic field, near the “Painted Desert” in Arizona and the Grand Canyon. In 1979, Turrell began building his monumental work, making the crater a naked eye observatory and a scanning spot of light, the stars and celestial motions. Turrell that art looking this surrounded by nature so that natural light define the spaces. “Roden Crater” is the result of the sponsorship of the foundation Skytone Foundation in cooperation with the Lannan Foundation and Dia Center for the Arts.