Earth / Land Art
Land Art was inspired by Minimal Art and
Concept art but also by modern and minimal
Land Art, Earthworks or Earth Art is an art movements such as De Stijl, Cubism,
movement which emerged in America in the Minimalism.
late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape
and the work of art are inextricably linked. The favoured materials for Land Art were
Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, those that could be extracted directly from
rather the landscape is the very means of their nature, such as stones, water, gravel, and
creation. soil. Influenced by prehistoric artworks such
as Stonehenge, Land artists left their
structures exposed to the elements.
Perhaps the best-known artist who worked in
this genre was the American Robert Smithson The resulting ephemerality and eventual
whose 1968 essay "The Sedimentation of the disintegration of the works put them
Mind: Earth Projects" provided a critical outside of the mainstream where works of
framework for the movement as a reaction to art were typically protected in controlled
the disengagement of Modernism from social environments.
issues .
Earth artists often utilized materials that
Land Art is to be understood as a protest were available at the site on which their
against the artificiality, plastic aesthetics and works were constructed and placed,
ruthless commercialisation of art at the end of honoring the specificity of the site.
the 1960s in America.
Locations were commonly chosen for
Advocates of Land Art rejected the museum as particular reasons. Robert Smithson, for
the setting of artistic activity and developed example, picked damaged sites for his
monumental landscape projects which were works in order to suggest renewal and
beyond the reach of the commercial art rebirth.
market. They therefore created works that could
not be sold, thus refusing the benefits of the art This idea of site-specificity was something
market. introduced to the art world by Land art,
again placing the artists at the vanguard
Ironically, not only were their monumental because their pieces often required wide,
landscape projects extremely expensive to open spaces, meaning that many of their
complete (often requiring land-purchase as works were not available to the average
well as the use of earth-moving equipment), viewer and thus questioned the very
thus necessitating financial support from the purpose of art as something to be viewed.
very system that the artists despised.
The rejection of traditional gallery and
These works were typically situated in remote museum spaces defined Land art practice.
places accessible only by the super-rich, and By creating their works outside of these
properly viewable only from the air. All of institutions, Land artists rejected the
which made this type of large-scale back-to- commodity status these venues gave to art,
nature art rather elitist, especially since art again challenging traditional definitions of
galleries and museums proved more than art as something to be bought and sold for
adept at exploiting the commercial profit.
opportunities offered through photographs
and video.
, ROBERT SMITHSON 1938-1973 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVHgFXdJLA
https://youtu.be/vrbNsHs7ptE
American
Smithson arranged over six thousand tons of
black basalt rocks and earth from the site, as
well as algae so as to form a 1500 feet long
spiral-shape that winds counterclockwise off the
shore into the water.
In 1970, the idea to make art with and on the
land was unprecedented (unknown). Art was for
indoor spaces, galleries, museums, corporate
offices and upscale homes where it could be
controlled, differentiated from the outside
Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970 world, and sold as a commodity.
Mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water
coil - Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah Art couldn't possibly exist in the soil, or in a lake,
especially not in the middle-of-nowhere Utah,
Coiling out into the Great Salt Lake in Utah, far away from the commercial and academic
Robert Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty' was a restrictions of Manhattan, the heart of US
ground-breaking work of Land Art in 1970. modernism. Smithson's thinking was out-of-
Made with rocks and earth from the desert this-world, the art world, that is.
and changed by the shifting water, the
artwork offers a profound perspective on our
SITE-SPECIFIC
existence in the cosmos. It is a large spiral
that can actually be walked on by visitors and
even seen above by helicopter or plane.
His concepts of Site and Nonsite
- the former being a location outside the
gallery, the latter being a body of objects and
documentation inside the gallery - were
important contributions to the ideas
surrounding Land art in the 1960s and 70s.
• This work marries site and material
• Creating a dialogue between the artist
and natural world
• He physically transformed the landscape
to create the artwork
• Its location on the shores of the Great
Salt Lake and its relationship to the
natural elements—water, land, sky—
shape the viewer's experience of the
artwork.
• The changing conditions of the lake,
such as water levels, salinity, and
weather patterns, influence the
appearance and perception of the
jetty,creating a dynamic interaction
between the artwork and its
environment.
Land Art was inspired by Minimal Art and
Concept art but also by modern and minimal
Land Art, Earthworks or Earth Art is an art movements such as De Stijl, Cubism,
movement which emerged in America in the Minimalism.
late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape
and the work of art are inextricably linked. The favoured materials for Land Art were
Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, those that could be extracted directly from
rather the landscape is the very means of their nature, such as stones, water, gravel, and
creation. soil. Influenced by prehistoric artworks such
as Stonehenge, Land artists left their
structures exposed to the elements.
Perhaps the best-known artist who worked in
this genre was the American Robert Smithson The resulting ephemerality and eventual
whose 1968 essay "The Sedimentation of the disintegration of the works put them
Mind: Earth Projects" provided a critical outside of the mainstream where works of
framework for the movement as a reaction to art were typically protected in controlled
the disengagement of Modernism from social environments.
issues .
Earth artists often utilized materials that
Land Art is to be understood as a protest were available at the site on which their
against the artificiality, plastic aesthetics and works were constructed and placed,
ruthless commercialisation of art at the end of honoring the specificity of the site.
the 1960s in America.
Locations were commonly chosen for
Advocates of Land Art rejected the museum as particular reasons. Robert Smithson, for
the setting of artistic activity and developed example, picked damaged sites for his
monumental landscape projects which were works in order to suggest renewal and
beyond the reach of the commercial art rebirth.
market. They therefore created works that could
not be sold, thus refusing the benefits of the art This idea of site-specificity was something
market. introduced to the art world by Land art,
again placing the artists at the vanguard
Ironically, not only were their monumental because their pieces often required wide,
landscape projects extremely expensive to open spaces, meaning that many of their
complete (often requiring land-purchase as works were not available to the average
well as the use of earth-moving equipment), viewer and thus questioned the very
thus necessitating financial support from the purpose of art as something to be viewed.
very system that the artists despised.
The rejection of traditional gallery and
These works were typically situated in remote museum spaces defined Land art practice.
places accessible only by the super-rich, and By creating their works outside of these
properly viewable only from the air. All of institutions, Land artists rejected the
which made this type of large-scale back-to- commodity status these venues gave to art,
nature art rather elitist, especially since art again challenging traditional definitions of
galleries and museums proved more than art as something to be bought and sold for
adept at exploiting the commercial profit.
opportunities offered through photographs
and video.
, ROBERT SMITHSON 1938-1973 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVHgFXdJLA
https://youtu.be/vrbNsHs7ptE
American
Smithson arranged over six thousand tons of
black basalt rocks and earth from the site, as
well as algae so as to form a 1500 feet long
spiral-shape that winds counterclockwise off the
shore into the water.
In 1970, the idea to make art with and on the
land was unprecedented (unknown). Art was for
indoor spaces, galleries, museums, corporate
offices and upscale homes where it could be
controlled, differentiated from the outside
Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970 world, and sold as a commodity.
Mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water
coil - Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah Art couldn't possibly exist in the soil, or in a lake,
especially not in the middle-of-nowhere Utah,
Coiling out into the Great Salt Lake in Utah, far away from the commercial and academic
Robert Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty' was a restrictions of Manhattan, the heart of US
ground-breaking work of Land Art in 1970. modernism. Smithson's thinking was out-of-
Made with rocks and earth from the desert this-world, the art world, that is.
and changed by the shifting water, the
artwork offers a profound perspective on our
SITE-SPECIFIC
existence in the cosmos. It is a large spiral
that can actually be walked on by visitors and
even seen above by helicopter or plane.
His concepts of Site and Nonsite
- the former being a location outside the
gallery, the latter being a body of objects and
documentation inside the gallery - were
important contributions to the ideas
surrounding Land art in the 1960s and 70s.
• This work marries site and material
• Creating a dialogue between the artist
and natural world
• He physically transformed the landscape
to create the artwork
• Its location on the shores of the Great
Salt Lake and its relationship to the
natural elements—water, land, sky—
shape the viewer's experience of the
artwork.
• The changing conditions of the lake,
such as water levels, salinity, and
weather patterns, influence the
appearance and perception of the
jetty,creating a dynamic interaction
between the artwork and its
environment.
