Un/earth/ing Some More Info on Land Art

Since I had to speed through the earth art portion of our presentation, I thought I’d share some of the info I didn’t get to talk about as much.

• It has roots in Minimalism, conceptual art, and installation art (a hands-on approach)
• The movement was influenced by, among others, Stonehenge and Native American burial grounds
• The first American exhibit of earth art was at a museum at Cornell University
• “Site-specificity” (which I briefly touched on) was an important aspect of earth art—basically, it stresses the importance of building the artwork using materials from a specific area (think Smithson)
• Christo was born in Bulgaria, while de Guilbon was from France
• When Christo first moved to Paris, he had to paint portraits for a living; he likened the job to prostitution
• de Guilbon’s mom fought against the Nazis in WWII
• I didn’t say specifically how de Guilbon and Christo got together…she was actually pregnant with his child while engaged to another guy
• Christo and de Guilbon flew in separate planes so if one plane crashed, the other person could continue the couple’s work (kinda morbid)
• Quote by Christo: “I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain."
• In 1986, Smithson wrote an essay that was basically a reaction against Modernism, which Smithson said wasn’t involved enough with social issues
• Here’s the link to Partially Buried Woodshed history (http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/gallery-lost-art-robert-smithson)!  It’s really interesting, so y’all should check it out!