reading responses for Thursday Oct 3rd
Thanks to Amy for some questions for you to respond to in advance of our meeting on Thursday. Please be SURE to relate your answers to particular aspects of the Boettger reading to show that you are familiar with the author’s position(s).
1. Many land sculptures are designed to change or heighten one experience with nature. Why do you think human intervention intensifies ones relationship with nature?
2. Interestingly, few of the land artist “directly connected their works or themes to political environmentalism”. Why do you think that is? What where their motivations?
1. The scales of complexity that exists within the natural world creates such a tremendously complicated weave of individually systems. Perhaps, human intervention has the potential to pull out or draw attention to these moments, giving greater meaning or context to the role it plays in the larger schema of things beyond human understanding.
2. As well as not directly connecting their works or themes to political environmentalism, few of the land artists “display[ed] an explicit relation to gender and sexuality in their subject matter.” Boettger suggests that perhaps the movement strived for an androgynous new genre with increased connection between land, user, and the cosmos. More of expressing “creative intellectual dominion over nature.”
Suzaan Boettger – Looking at, and Overlooking, Women Working in Land Art in the 1970s // 2008
1. This question reminds me of the test conducted where American citizens were asked to draw the graphics of the one dollar bill. Nobody was able to get an accurate depiction of the front or back of the dollar bill, however almost everyone remembered to draw George Washington’s face. As humans we tend to overlook certain elements in life and remember others. This relates back with Boettger’s theme on the overlooked female land artists of the 1970s and Judy Chicago’s attempt to bring forth the historical role of forgotten women, as well as explains a possible reason for humans to need intervention to ‘remember’ nature. Sometimes humans need our relationship with nature to be adjusted to realize aspects of nature we have taken for granted. Aycock did amazing work at adjusting an environment to create an interference or intervention with our natural processes, resulting in ‘uncomfortable spaces’ that force new thoughts and ideas to emerge.
2. It seems that artists, such as Agnes Denes, referred to the human relationship with “Mother Earth” as well as depicting an overall political statement about the world. “Wheatfield- A Confrontation ” was able to create a statement about world hunger, changing agriculture and waste management without forcing it directly onto the observers. Personally, I am more affected by an experience when I come to a realization on my own and not simply handed an answer. It seems the artists have a similar belief that their work should invoke strong emotions that have the ability to turn into a greater meaning politically, but allow individuals to reach that conclusion in isolation.
Suzaan Boettger – Looking at, and Overlooking, Women Working in Land Art in the 1970s // 2008
1. I have two thoughts on this. In some of the pieces, the human intervention gives a sense of scale. For example, in Double Negative, the two artificial valleys created seem huge for a human intervention, but in the context of the landscape, they can see quite small and insignificant. In this case, it emphasizes to me the grandeur of even larger canyons and geographical formations – I can imagine the human effort it would take to dig them out in a way that I can’t picture a valley being carved out by a river over a number of years. Second thought: By intervening in nature, the artist can create a “composition” of a landscape or natural environment. If someone can look at nature through the lens of art, perhaps they will be able to look at the mundane with a fresh pair of eyes. It reminds me of the “trick” played on artist critics – famous modernist works were mixed in with children’s drawings and other everyday art. If I remember correctly, most critics couldn’t differentiate between the great contemporary masters and child’s drawings, and even praised the children’s drawings for their excellent references to different styles/types of expression.
2. The land art seems to be primarily focused on the aesthetics of nature, and don’t remember seeing any examples where an appreciation for the actual living functioning ecosystems were underscored or embraced. Instead, the installations seem to focus on geometry, and more primitive concepts of “the man” and “the earth” as two separate but related entities. In fact, many of the exhibits appear to be quite damaging to the environment, like wrapping a huge piece of the coastline in fabric and effectively blocking access to sunlight to a multitude of organisms. The simple setting up of the contrasts between organized geometric structures and natural “chaotic” forms sets up a separation between nature and humans, whereas many environmentalists (though not all) would see humans as an integrated part of the environment.
1. Often, to draw attention, an artist creates contrast to amplify the subject of their focus. I think of humans interacting with nature, for the purpose of art and beauty, as an attempt to amplify nature by contrast it with structured, man-made and modified objects.
2. These women used their art to make a point about the beauty of landscape and nature. While political statements in art were very much alive during that time, I think these women looked to their art as a subject larger and more comprehensive than politics. To take a natural landscape and make an artistic announcement about nature reveals a subject that in my opinion is larger than any political statement.
1. Human intervention in nature through art helps us to identify with the piece and with nature through the connection we share as fellow humans. A moving piece reduces the separation between ourselves and nature, and the creative moves by the artist are the catalyst for that connectivity. Whereas nature on its own has a beauty and awesomeness we tend to forget, an artwork that can reframe that experience somehow transforms nature into a heightened intellectual/emotional experience, triggering in humans, I believe, a deep-seated memory of interacting with nature on a primal level (besides an intellectual one). Works that show a nature changed (Stuart, “Niagra Gorge Path Relocated”) or reconnect us to ancient activities (Pinto, “Triple Well Enclosure”) can have powerful unconscious affects on human psyches.
2. For the 70’s, not being politically environmental was probably hard for a lot of artists. But as artists, they most likely sought to transcend politics and activism with their art, with a desire to invoke more aesthetic, primal, or intellectual responses from the viewer/participant. While I believe there are political aspects, there is an overwhelming emphasis on something deeper, which also transcends gender. I’d argue most artists attempt to go beyond merely human or human-affected aspects of meaning, towards something more universal.
1.)Human intervention with nature has the potential to amplify our relationship with our environment perhaps because we have the ability (intellect?) to understand it. We are able to distill, simplify, breakdown, and rationalize complex aspects of nature that would otherwise be convoluted or not necessarily drawn out for us. An example of this could be physics and laws of nature. I think by simplifying the experience of nature through our interventions and understandings in land art such as Suzanne Harris’s Locus One Up, with the isolation of distinct environmental experiences (enclosure and expanse), we can intensify our relationship with nature.
2.) I think by not directly connecting the works to political environmentalism allows the artist to make a stronger statement with out being polarizing to the audience. When things start to be political, they are automatically disengaging for a lot of people. By not being overtly political, the audience can reach its own conclusion still likely within the realm of the artists intent and this conclusion is more powerful and meaningful because it was discovered. It was rationalized by the audience therefore the art can be more broadly accepted as compared to something with political environmentalism ties.
1. Why does human intervention intensify ones relationship with nature?
Humans can make insanely rare phenomena happen at whim, for you, right here. Yesterday, incredulous at the new Serpentine Gallery addition by Zaha, I was looking into what other sorts of things London’s Kensington Gardens purports to be beautiful. “Rock on Top of Another Rock” was sure to confirm–beauty as defined by notoriety, not content. I laughed when I saw it–it really was one, on another one. But it gave me an uneasy feeling I liked. Potential energy stored in an object that would have never stayed static long enough for one to experience in real life.
These things are simple, but give us a perspective or emotion we don’t often/ever get to have. For kids, almost everything is like this–the first bubble you see, the first time you put your hand in water. You don’t have time to think because you have nothing to compare it to, you just take in. Now, it happens less but seems to run through a lot of the Tuesday experiences–the first newborn hand you felt, the first time you were at the top of a thunderstorm, the first time you really heard yourself. Intensity comes when you feel something that you a) can’t normally feel (like looking through a sand dune or seeing the ghost of an old glacial extent, or b) won’t let yourself feel (like the beautiful poignancy of wheatfields on a multi-billion-dollar property or unease of heights or darkness)–spontaneous but safe transgression of personal boundaries.
2. Why no affiliation?
Like female artists during the feminist movement, land artists circa Silent Spring seem to have an ecological agenda by default. But saying someone should care about the land because of a piece won’t help their cause. If their piece succeeds, the viewer feels something extraordinary but doesn’t own their new opinion. If it fails and the viewer is unaffected, saying what left them unaffected is why they should care only helps the other guys. Instead their piece says “here, feel this and then go about your day.” The day might feel different, or not. It’s more subversive that way and lets people act autonomously.
The relationship between the artist and observer is a complicated one – an installation can have the potential to enhance one’s experience, however it is almost inevitable that it also shaping it towards some bias of the artist. I believe a successful installation should be as minimal as possible – such as the the dirt ‘womb’ of Aycock. In my opinion, the most powerful interventions give only enough structure to break one’s normal thought process, give them pause, maybe even fracture their normal construct and allow an individual experience to occur.
2. In removing political association with the installations, the art is approachable by a bigger audience. One is hopefully able to experience the piece without an automatic reaction based on other personal judgements or feelings. In a way, it purifies the piece to the essence of what is meant to be seen. This may result in a more powerful experience and personal reaction to the piece – which interestingly, may still have a result on one’s political stance, (depending on the installation). Sometimes, it seems impossible to separate these entities – even if the artist has purposefully avoided it.
2. Interestingly, few of the land artist “directly connected their works or themes to political environmentalism”. Why do you think that is? What where their motivations?
1) I think the desire to intensify the experience isn’t necessarily related to nature (although it happens to be in this case) but rather some sort of innate desire to ‘leave our mark’ in an otherwise unmarked field and therefore give that location a sense of connection to humanity. Graffiti is a good example of this. My experience of a blank concrete wall is intensified (for better or worse depending on the artistic ability and subject matter) by the graffiti on it. A field is just a field, but a field with a building like Aycock’s becomes something more.
2) I think a lot of art tries really hard to avoid being too literal. In some ways these art projects could be seen as a sort of political environmentalism because each draws attention to, beautifies, or adds punctuation to the environment it is placed in, to varying degrees. Maybe the political environmentalism connection isn’t literal but there are definitely undertones of outdoor appreciation and awe of nature.
1. Human intervention in a landscape transforms the relationship of the individual between him\her and the landscape from one that places the individual as a passive observer to one that of an individual participant. Typically, even with the language that humans use, homo-sapiens see themselves as something other than natural or somehow apart from nature. Our system is seen as man-made even if it is a derivative of natural elements. This dichotomy creates a boundary line that is discrete rather than gradual leading to engagement with nature as a binary condition, 1 or 0, natural or not. Interventions in the landscape offer an alternative paradigm to engagement with nature that allows for an individual to come closer to existing as nature rather than along with it.
2.I would like to argue that perhaps the result of “few of the land artists directly connect[ing] their works or themes to political environmentalism” may have less to do with intentional abstinence from politically environmental discourse and more to do with not being entrenched in the movement. Several of the artists mentioned at the beginning of the article, Abish, Adams, Denes, Feignebaum, Holt, were all born in the 1930’s some in the early and others in the late, but all with parts of their early lives impacted and formed by interactions with World War II. By the time Silent Spring was printed (1962), some of them may already have had their approaches to formulating world views determined. As they were entering their mid to late 20’s and early 30’s, the time the book was widely disseminated appreciated as valid, one could speculate that their artistic expressions were driven by the desire and necessity to have work shown rather than to take a stance that reflects their childhood upbringing rather than the movement du-jour. I propose that circumstance, more-so than ideology, was the deciding factor for the lack of direct connection of the artists’ work to political environmentalism.
(1) Human intervention, being all types of art, is aimed at creating a change or having an impact on the viewer(s). Land sculptures could have been designed primarily to heighten one’s personal experience with nature; something much larger (in some cases) than oneself. Land art is successful when it is used as a link to connect or disconnect us from our surroundings. It can also make us aware of nature and the elements that we are unfamiliar with; forcing us to deal with new ideas and feelings.
(2) The lack of explanations in contemporary art is something that I often struggle with. I find this art to be puzzling and often a challenge to appreciate. Some would argue though, that the work itself is more important than the motivations behind them. I however partially disagree with this. I appreciate art much more when I have an understanding of the intentions behind or motivations of the artist. It is possible that these artists chose not to directly connect their work to themes in an attempt to be more universally accepted and appreciated? Without a direct motivation, the viewer is then faced with a choice to either contemplate or ignore the piece. Or perhaps…this decision is the motivation?
1. The natural world is shaped by ongoing physical, chemical, and biological interactions. Therefore the scene one observes at one given point in time in nature is a result of many forces working together in history. Often the changes in the landscapes have occurred over centuries, which implies that the natural world is something to treasure, and that it is something unique derived by chance. In contrast human development often occurs rapidly, therefore interrupting a slower natural process. As some of the artists frame nature, such as in Views through a Sand Dune, others pinpoint time passing in nature, as in Niagra Gorge Path Relocated, they place emphasis on the natural. Others place emphasis on human intervention, such as in Wheatfield- A Confrontation, or Triple Well Enclosure. These sculptures isolate moments in nature, and bring awareness to the role people play as a force on nature.
2. The artists placed a distinct mark on the land with their sculptures. Perhaps these sculptures were alluding to the greater destruction human actions have on ecosystems that Rachel Carson covers in Silent Spring.
1- I think mind made things, some times frame the landscape by either capturing the “inward” or the out ward” landscape. An example of framing outward would be to make an object that intensifies an even more beautiful back ground around it. Some times man made things are to cover the unwanted imperfections for a defined beauty taste or to bring a desired comfort level.
2- I think this was a way for the land artists to get support for their work.