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Borne of the cacophonous social landscape of America in the late 1960s, Land Art  is just one expression of a larger trend in which artists were questioning the tradition and formalism that had governed the art world until that point. Land Art provided a way for artists to shed the restrictions of traditional tools and forms, turning instead to soil, vegetation, rocks, gravel, water, twigs, or the land itself. By creating art out of what was naturally available, artists produced work inexplicably tied to its location, calling to mind human relationships with the natural world. Land Art is often constructed on a large scale and in remote locations, making traditional exhibition—and thus, the commodification that was so reviled by the artists of the 60s—impossible.

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Land Art since its inception has always been deeply informed by prehistoric architecture projects such as the pyramids or Stonehenge. Many Land Artists became intrigued with the idea of “site,” or where the art installation is made. “Sites” were often selected that were far from civilization and required some degree of effort to access. The influence of ancient building projects can be seen through the massive scale of many of the Land Artists’ works. Many of these installations also reflect the civic and public orientation of prehistoric structures.

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Unsurprisingly, Land Art was heavily influenced by the other movements that were present in the artistic landscape at the time. One such movement was Minimalism, which arose as a reaction to the business and self-expression of Abstract Expressionism and prioritized simplicity. Many of the most famous Land Art pieces contain clear nods to this movement, often focusing on scale over detail and emphasizing uncomplicated harmony with the natural world. Land Art also contains elements of Arte Povera, a movement that arose in 1960s Italy and investigated the exclusivity of the art world by using simple and ordinary materials. Land art often features materials taken directly from the natural world in their simplest forms.

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The Most Famous Land Artist: Robert Smithson

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The Most Famous Land Artist: Robert Smithson

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Robert Smithson (1938-73) is most famous for his massive land sculpture, Spiral Jetty (1970). His early artistic career was influenced abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, his focus turned increasingly towards the emerging practice of Land Art. He described his outdoor sculptures made of mud, rock, and other natural materials as Earthworks. While he created some small-scale pieces for exhibition in galleries and museums, his most famous works, such as Spiral Jetty, were large-scale outdoor constructions. Spiral Jetty exemplifies many of the common aims of the Land Art movement. For example, the jetty itself is submerged, visible, or completely exposed depending on the water levels of the adjacent body of water, the Great Salt Lake. Many Land Artists were interested in subverting the notion that art needed to be preserved in a museum, and as the Spiral Jetty is slowly washed away by the saltwater and desert wind, Smithson’s contribution to this exploration will continue to come to fruition.

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The Power Couple of Land Art: Christo & Jean-Claude

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The Power Couple of Land Art: Christo & Jean-Claude

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Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) were a married couple and artistic partnership that created large-scale Land Art installations that often involved massive displays of fabrics and plastics. Perhaps one of their most famous projects was Surrounded Islands (1983; Biscayne Bay, Florida), in which they surrounded several islands near Miami in pink polypropylene. In preparation for each project, they would create a corporation and finance it with proceeds from preliminary sketches. For Surrounded Islands, they paid to have 40 tons of garbage removed from the installation site prior to the project. By putting nature and the manufactured in close proximity, especially in spaces that were accessible to those generally uninterested in consuming art, Christo and Jeanne-Claude challenged viewers to reconsider their assumptions about space, the environment, and human impact.

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A Land Artist That You've Never Heard of: Tanya Preminger

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A Land Artist That You've Never Heard of: Tanya Preminger

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Tanya Preminger has stated that “[her] purpose is to express the immaterial essence of things in physical stuff: to make tangible the universal essence of creation”. In 2014, she did just that by constructing a hand made out of granite stones, outstretched into a Russian lake. This piece follows the tradition of Land Art by relying on natural materials for its construction, making it inherently ephemeral, and follows the tradition of the movement with its clear intention to inspire audiences to think more deeply about the natural world and their relationship to it. The hand invites viewers to consider the anthropomorphism of landscapes--an “immaterial essence”--by making the idea physical. The hand can even be interpreted as being outstretched for help, perhaps as a critique on humanity’s environmental impact.

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Harmony with the Environment: Maya Ying Lin

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Harmony with the Environment: Maya Ying Lin

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Maya Lin’s work frequently focuses on humanity’s impact on the environment, drawing attention to issues like global warming, animal extinction, and water shortages. However, the art itself is designed to have a minimal environmental impact, and is often constructed in harmony with natural landscapes using recycled materials. She aims “to discuss the inextricable relationship between nature and the built environment”. In 1995, she completed construction on The Wave Field, the first of three similar pieces that she would go on to create. The piece, located on a 10,000 square foot patch of earth, marries the natural landscape with an undulating wave pattern found in both the ocean and physics.

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Capturing the Ephemeral: Andy Goldsworthy

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Capturing the Ephemeral: Andy Goldsworthy

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British Land Artist Andy Goldsworthy (1956-) is known for his land sculptures made of site-specific mud, leaves, ice, rock, and other natural materials. He describes his process as a “collaboration with nature” in which he creates ephemeral, fleeting sculptures that he photographs quickly before they fall apart or dissolve. Some of his works are more permanent, particularly those made of stone. Of these, one of the most famous is Storm King Wall, a meandering hand-constructed stone wall that wanders a staggering 2,278 feet through a forest in upstate New York. The wall was built based on the remnants of an old farm wall and represents Goldsworthy’s insistence on only using materials found at the project site. To avoid the need for mortar, stones were painstakingly selected to carefully fit together like puzzle pieces. Storm King Wall, though permanent in a sense, exemplifies the Land Art insistence on an artistic practice bound to the land.