https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1 en-us 2022-06-09 17:42:30 UTC 2026-01-14 18:48:12 UTC hello@padlet.com oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588005 A famous example of land art in action is Smithson’s Sprial Jetty created out of rocks, mud, and salt crystals in the Salt Lake (“Smithson”). As discussed in class during an art project, this work is very site specific. Smithson chose this site because of the colors in the water caused by damage that appealed to his interest in sci-fi. Robert Smithson wanted to use this site because of specific and unique qualities it had, not just any canvas would do. By creating art in nature and creating that art out of nature, there is no doubt that this is pure land art. Robert Smithson’s work gives good guidelines to what it is to create land art. Inspired by entropy his works are simple yet complex and active at the same time (“Smithson”). He does not define himself by straight lines or curves only. The simplicty of his works inspire complex thoughts and takeaways. As I admire his Spiral Jetty I think of taking up space. Smithson took up a large amount of space in a public area for a simple swirl. Some might not like it, and he must have known that. However, he thought it was worth expressing himself. Although there are many different interpretations of his art, that is one we can learn from.
More of his play on entropy, simplicity, and dynamics can be seen in his unique piece in a quarry in Italy called Asphalt Rundown.]]> 2022-06-09 17:44:28 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588005 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588214 Land art is a unique form of art that is related to sculpture, but not sculpture alone. Rather than sculpting a material that is man made and showcasing it in a museum for anyone to see, land art utilizes nature itself to create sensory experiences for viewers who are able to come and see it. At times this means using naturally occuring objects to create a sculpture in nature.  Other times it means manipulating what is already found in a landscape without adding anything, and sometimes bringing in materials to create art in an outdoor environment. In any case, land art uses nature itself to convey feelings and ideas (Khan Academy). 
Unprotected from the elements as museum art is, land art is subject to decay and change overtime. Land art is specific to the site it is created in, playing off of the landscape or raw materials of that spot. That being said, land art can be transported to be viewed in a museum setting, as seen with some of Robert Smithson’s work (“Earth Art”).
Though it can be commissioned, land art is not bought or sold the same way traditional art is, and is less accessible than traditional art (“Earth Art”). As much as I would like to, it is not likely that I will be going to visit Christo and Jean-Clause’s massive land are in the UAE. The only way I will experience this art is through drawings, pictures, and videos. Unless I can make it to the site where it has been built, my chances of seeing land art are pretty low. However, land art can be considered to be more accessible to create than other kinds of art. Though not all people are able to get their hands on paint and canvas, anyone can go outside and shape mud, stack rocks, or create a drawing in the sand. Come to find out, many more of us are land artsits than we probably knew!]]> 2022-06-09 17:44:44 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588214 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588512 This dynamic duo boldly made their name in the land art world. One of their iconic works is called Running Fence, a large fence made of white fabric and metal poles that stretches through two counties in Northern California and goes over 24 miles. Taking years to construct and deconstructed after 14 days, many permits and environmental reports went into the construction of this art (“Christo”). Rather than constructing art out of the materials that were already in this landscape, Christo and Jean-Claude used ready made materials to form art that was designed to be in nature, and meant to be experienced. A cross over between minimalism, modernism and land art, this piece certainly pushes the bounds of what people consider art. This piece plays on the community aspect of art, and is a rejection of consumerism that is found in art in the 20th century. Expensive to produce and not sold to high bidders, this art comes at a stark contrast to years of tradition before it. Through photographs showing the effect of the wind on the fence and the vastness of the fence’s size, Christo and Jean-Claude drive home the idea that you can experience land art without being there in reality, and that even within land art there are boundaries that can be pushed and expectations that do not need to be met. One can see how works like this paved the way for later artists to use materials in land art that are not naturally found in their site, and to use material that does not decay as does the earthy material used in more classic land art. If you are ever driving to California, you can see how this influence is present in a work in the desert along the highway Seven Magic Mountains. ]]> 2022-06-09 17:45:07 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588512 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588700 With a experience in architecture after designing a Vietnam War memorial, Maya Ying Lin has made unique and beautiful pieces for people to enjoy. Pictured here is her work The Wave Field which is a part of the University of Michigan campus. Maya created this after studying the scientific properies of waves, making it both scientifically accurate and fun to look at. Though well mended grass does not decay as do materials in other landscapes, the experience of the viewer does change based on weather and time of day. Shadows, wind, moisture, and lighting all change the experience of both the person admiring from a distance, and the person using this land art as a place to study, take a nap, or sommersault (“Maya Lin”).
This piece is very site specific, as it represents her learning and studies in the place where she learned and studied, and a place where thousand of students go for higher learning. It is created by natural materials manipulated into a kind of sculpture, and is not something that would usually be displayed in an indoor museum. Focus is placed on structure, texture, and use of space. Her layout is very geometrically even and exact. Maya Ling Yin not only challenges people’s concept of art, but their concept of beautiy and interest in landscaping (“Maya Lin”). Beauty and creativity in landscaping does not come from flowers and trees only, but also from the shapes we choose to make with the materials that we have been given and the things that we have seen and observed in the world. ]]> 2022-06-09 17:45:21 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216588700 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216589202 Those who have spent time hiking may be familiar with cairns - the small stacks of stones found on trails. These little towers mark trails that are not well defined or are easy to get lost on. Though they may not have been intended to be art, this is some of the first exposure I have had to land art. Essentially a sculpture made of natural materials in a natural environment, cairns fit the bill for unintended land art.  A cairn can be as easy to make as stacking two or three stones, or a complex and precariously tall tower made of many stones. On a recent trip home while driving along Pacific Coast Highway in Southern California, I got to see the rows and rows of cairns that people have been building on the edge of Thornhill beach. While different from the setting that hikers are used to seeing cairns in, this beautiful scene is unmistakably land art. ]]> 2022-06-09 17:45:55 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216589202 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216589308 Michael Heizer is an influential artist of the land art movement who used land removal to form art. Creating site specific art on a very large scale his works challenged the limits of art (“Michael Heizer”). While we usually think of art as adding something or shaping something that is out of place, art can be removing, chipping away, or etching into something that is already there. In this way Micheal Heizer was onto something that many had left in the age of hieroglyphs and stone tablet carving.
With a different approach to art than Micheal Heizer, Richard Long created art that stand out despite its small scale minimalism. Rather than extracting material or building up stone and dirt, Long created his A Line Made by Walking by doing just that - walking. On a field near his home he walked in a straight line, his feet pressing down the grass. His photograph of the line after showcases a very minimalistic but beautiful piece of earth art that certainly shows how art can be different from what we originally expect it to be. His work also raises the question of what the real art is in - the finished result or the process (Tate.org). In this way he joins the concepts that Jackson Pollock showcases in his art. The movement and the process is important, not just what you look at in the end. To me this is also encouraging to aspiring artists around the world, or those who just might enjoy to spend time in creativity. If the process of writing a poem or making a sculpture, the experience you have while creating it, is important, what is stopping you from creating? Land art teaches us that we do not need to be expert artists or even be able to draw a circular looking circle to create something that is worth creating. 

]]> 2022-06-09 17:46:03 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216589308 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216590129 One thing is abundantly clear about land art - there needs to be some incorporation of land in order for it to qualify in this category. Many artists use natural materials and keep their art as a part of the landscape it was created from, while others move their pieces into indoor spaces while preserving the natural materials they used to make their work.  Many land artists also started out as painters before they began creating environmental art.
All land art experiences decay, as it is made of materials that decay over time, and often exposed to natural elements that do a lot of decaying (“Earth Art”.) Land art cannot be preserved the way that other kinds of art are, which is the way that land artists want it to be. 
A final important common element in land art is site specificity. Land art is made purposely on a specific site chosen by the artist for the materials at the site, the landscape, symbolism found there, etc. Artists would not create the same piece of art at different sites the same way they could create the same painting on different canvases.]]> 2022-06-09 17:47:00 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216590129 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216736900 For thousands of years, mankind has shaped stone and natural materials into art, the great pyramids and Egypt and stone head sculptures on Easter Island, for example. Drawing from these ancient works of art and newer art and social movements, Land Art emerged as a style of its own in the 1960s (Khan Academy).
Land art borrows aspects of minimalism. A focus on structure, use of space, and material comes from minimalism. This art was to be experienced, not just viewed. Pieces of conceptualism that influenced land art were the rejection of societal commercialism and display of art. By forming art out of the land itself, it would not be viewed in a museum or listed for sale. Artists could focus on the experience that a viewer would have in that environment, not just what they would feel looking at an exhibit. An element that is aparent in every piece of land art is decay. This became a major concept behind many pieces of land art - natural materials decay naturally. In a rejection of this expectation of art, artists used the idea of decay to symbolize different ideas in their art.
It is not a coincidence that this movement came around the time of environmentalism. With society starting to focus more on the impact of humans on the natural world around them, artists chose to use our most beautiful and fragile resource as their exhibit and materials for sculpture (“Earth Art”).

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/earth-art/]]> 2022-06-09 21:12:06 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216736900 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216927993 https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/post-war-american-art/minimalism-and-earthworks/v/the-case-for-land-art
https://christojeanneclaude.net/artworks/running-fence/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Line_Made_by_Walking
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/earth-art/
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/lin-maya/
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/richard-long-1525
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/smithson-robert/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Heizer]]> 2022-06-10 01:48:48 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216927993 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216955382 2022-06-10 02:14:28 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216955382 oliviasimmons17 https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216982528 2022-06-10 02:39:36 UTC https://padlet.com/oliviasimmons17/9glws5nxhcimahl1/wish/2216982528