Land Art, Art Beyond The Gallery

Beginning in the 1960’s a group of artists based primarily in New York began to take up the land as the subject and the material for their art practice.  Drawing on minimalist and conceptual art they sought to transcend the limitations of classical painting and sculpture in a gallery setting.

They looked to the vast desolate desert spaces of America’s south-west to produce land art on a monumental scale.  The artists saw themselves as explorers, looking for a larger canvas to work on in order to produce an art form that would “end galleries”, or so they thought.  It seemed as if they wanted to subvert the art market.

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, Great Salt Lake 1970

The unofficial leader of this movement was Robert Smithson who was an eloquent writer and speaker with a dark, even satanic nature.  Walter De Maria was said to have been rather quiet and he, like Michael Heizer and many others wanted the viewer to enter the work and experience it.  The impact of the Vietnam War must not be underestimated in the development of this art movement, as there seems to be a measure of violence in the production of much land art.  There is a belief that the aftermath of the war is an anxiety that hangs over society to this very day, which is also evident in this art form.

Critic Waldemar Januszczak claims land art could not have happened anywhere else.  You needed big spaces he tells us.  Obviously he’s never been to Australia.   Some of the landscapes that appealed to the land artists seem uncannily similar to the Flinders Ranges.

The Apollo moon missions presented us with a new vision of the world as a sphere and the land artists saw this as an opportunity to shape this sphere, to draw on it at a massive scale.  The importance of flight can’t be underestimated too.  James Turrell often spent days flying at low levels looking for subject matter for his art.

James Turrell, Roden Crater, Arizona commenced 1978

The architecture of the great pyramids is also thought to have been an influence, so we are looking at a confluence of history, architecture and science which inspired land art.

Henry Moore once said that when he made his sculptures he was doing the things he did as a child, and children do have a special relationship with the physical nature of the land.  De Maria once said his favourite paint brush was the Caterpillar tractor.

It was the isolation and ruggedness of America’s south-west that appealed most these New York artists.  “It is interesting to build a sculpture that attempts to create an atmosphere of awe, awe as a state of mind equivalent to religious experience”, Michael Heizer.

Michael Heizer, Double Negative, appox. 460 m wide Nevada 1969-70

Some may regard Double Negative as an ugly gash on the landscape. Waldemar Januszczak argues land art was about adapting the art to the landscape.  Anyway, I would contend that Double Negative isn’t anywhere near as offensive as Mount Rushmore.  Of course, nature will eventually fill in these gashes, but both Smithson and Heizer were fascinated by the concept of entropy, that is; of systems breaking down.

A popular hangout for many (but not all) land artists was a bar called Max’s Kansas City in New York City where the owner loved artists to the extent that they were still welcome, even if they didn’t have any money and they could build up a tab or even swap art in exchange.  Max’s was extremely inclusive, welcoming people from Europe into constant conversations about art.  Carl Andre believes that such openness doesn’t exist today, perhaps because of TV (or the Internet).  He even speculates that drugs may have killed it.

Charles Ross, Star Axis, New Mexico commenced 1976

Of course, all major art movements benefit from a patron and in the case of the land artists it was Virginia Dwan.  She was a gallery owner with an interest in art as installation which had a relationship to the land and architecture, she was also an heir to the 3M dynasty so money was no object.  She was interested in ideas of discovery and would stump up large sums of money for land art projects.

Artist/curator Willoughby Sharp was another supporter of the land artists as they extended their practice outside the gallery environment and he set about promoting their projects by any means possible. He was very media savvy, as evident in his magazine Avalanche which had a European and American art focus.

Nancy Holt and her husband Robert Smithson both grew up in New Jersey and she explained that going back to that state to explore possibilities for future projects gave them a chance to re-experience places they had experienced when children.  “It also gave us a chance to unlearn sophisticated things we had learned in early adulthood and getting rid of a lot of useless concepts and getting back in touch with the land, the physical surrounds of our existence and perceiving it in a new way.”  But New Jersey had little to offer them, so they headed further west – a lot further west.

A breakthrough for these artists was the Earth Works 1969 show staged by Virginia Dwan at her gallery in New York which introduced the public and media to the whole concept of land art.  What followed were major projects funded by Dwan including Michael Heizer’s Double Negative and Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.

Walter De Maria, Lightning Field, New Mexico 1977

In 1977 Walter De Maria produced Lightning Field in New Mexico, 400 steel poles equidistant covering an area 1 km x 1 mile.  In this work the viewer is invited to enter and be part of it, the same applies to Double Negative.  Dwan explained that when you enter the giant cuts, you can see aeons of existence exposed in the rock layers.  She described the experience as lonely, yet feeling at one with nature.  There was an element of danger as well, the same applies to Lightning Field if there were any clouds about.

Artists who felt they had burned their bridges with the gallery system found there was another world to explore in land art.  Dwan admitted that what she admired most in these artists was their obsession.

In her piece Sun Tunnels, Nancy Holt said that when she explored the south-west deserts for the first time, she found it hard to sleep as it changed her life radically.  It gave her a different sense of space, time and light and the power of the sun. 

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels, Utah 1976

The holes drilled through the concrete pipes are in the configuration of the stars and constellations so that when the sun shines through it creates star light in the tunnels.  The tunnels are oriented towards the summer and winter solstice.

It is sad how the changing climate has impacted on Spiral Jetty, now that the Great Salt Lake in the vicinity of Smithson’s work has turned into a desert.

Dwan speculates that it may take another 50, maybe 100 years before the significance of the work of the land artists is fully appreciated. Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973 whilst surveying an area for a future project.

References;

Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art, Summitridge Pictures 2015

Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art, Made in the USA, BBC 2018

A Canine Conundrum

If you are a dog lover and you are wondering how to fill in your time during the current coronavirus pandemic, well I’m afraid viewing the 1999 documentary Puppy Love presented by art historian Waldemar Januszczak is not the answer.

A curious title given that for 50 minutes, Januszczak snarls his way through a canine critique and it’s not clear which he despises more, dogs or their owners.  He visits a dog show which he regards as incorrigibly eccentric and he considers breeding practices to be the canine equivalent of eugenics practised by the Nazis.  “We breed them until their heads look like misshapen Halloween pumpkins (often to the detriment of their health), we cut their bollocks off, we send them to a doggy psychiatrist and still most of them won’t do what we want them to do.  The message appears to be that we love dogs, but not for themselves, it’s for the prestige they can bestow upon their owners.

We witness dogs defecating. He is particularly annoyed at dog owners who treat his local park as a public toilet, and he scoops up some dog shit with a spoon and takes it to a laboratory for analysis.  We are presented with a list of nasty diseases it can cause and yes, dog shit can make your baby go blind.

He visits the proud owner of the world’s heaviest dog, a 130 kg British Mastiff.  We see the certificate the owner received from the Guinness Book of Records – with flies crawling across it.  We are told that averaged across the entire population, the British spend 50p per dog per day on dog food, 50p a day would keep a family of 3 alive in Angola.

He speaks with a clinical psychologist who has some unflattering opinions about dog owners, but you’ll have to watch the program to find out what they are.

He interviews a RSPCA inspector who admits to be driven to tears at home after witnessing instances of cruelty against dogs.  There was the famous case of the celebrated Kennel Club judge Jennifer Bosson, who was sentenced to 4 months jail and banned from keeping dogs for life after being convicted of cruelty.

He visits a Korean restaurant and eats dog meat (yuk!).  Needless to say, it is heavily spiced.  This staggers me somewhat because it’s my understanding that dog meat contains vast quantities of vitamin A.  When the Australian Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson lost all his supplies down a crevasse, he was left with nothing to eat but his huskies.  The vitamin A almost killed him.  And which part of the dog do the Koreans cook, you may be wondering?  All of it.

Dog show eccentricity?

We witness a castration (ouch!) and Januszczak describes the practice as pest control. 

To the strains of Elvis Presley singing ‘Old Shep’ we visit a dog cemetery and witness a funeral.  Januszczak talks to a grieving owner who said she couldn’t stand the thought of her pooch being buried at home. Which is fair enough, but the exercise is expensive.  For some reason, watching this segment took me way back in time to the demise of my beloved cat from childhood.  Shortly after I got married I found out that it had been “put down” by a vet after being savaged in a possum fight.  She was quite old by then and afterwards – well she was left with the vet.  To be disposed of, I guess.  This has always bothered me so I won’t be too sarcastic about the concept of pet cemeteries.

K-9 from Dr Who. The perfect substitute?

At the end of the program, there is some consolation for dog owners when we see footage of dogs being trained in rescue work in Korea.  Strangely, there is no mention in the program of the incessant barking which has always been my bone of contention (pun intended) with dogs.  Then again seeing-eye dogs don’t rate a mention, nor does the consolation dogs can provide to the elderly.

Gustave Courbet, Nude Woman With Dog, 1868

But if at the end of my days all I have is a dog, then I think I’d rather die alone.

Puppy Love is available on Vimeo On Demand

Mrs Hopper

“Isn’t it nice to have a wife who paints?”  A rhetorical question asked by Jo Hopper of her illustrious husband, Edward.  “It stinks”, was the reply.

According to critic Waldemar Januszczak in his TV series ‘Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art, Made In The USA’, Jo once said that talking to Eddie was like throwing a stone into a well, except you don’t hear the thud when it reaches the bottom.  Alas, it seems their 43 years long marriage was not a happy one, or was it? 

Josephine Nivison Hopper - Self portrait

Edward came across as a dour, reticent, towering figure who constantly belittled and denigrated his assertive, diminutive wife, who responded with verbal assaults of her own.  Sometimes those assaults became physical with cuffings, slappings and scratchings between them quite common.

An article by Stephen May in Artnews suggests that their hostility towards each other was based on resentments; Jo because her own artistic career (she studied under Robert Henri) was overshadowed by Edward’s, and Edward because he felt Jo was an inadequate wife.

Sometimes, in the wake of an argument, Edward would dash off a quick sketch when Jo was out of the room and leave it on the table for her to find when she returned.  At their 25th wedding anniversary, Jo suggests they deserve a medal for distinguished combat.  Edward’s boyhood home in Nyack, New York is now the Edward Hopper House Centre and contains an exhibition documenting their feisty marriage under the title “Edward Hopper’s Caricatures: At Home With Ed and Jo”.

Edward Hopper - The Sacrament of Sex (female version)

At the time she married Hopper, Josephine Nivison was 41, still a virgin (and possibly him too) and had an arts career going back 16 years.  She had exhibited alongside Mogdigliani, Picasso, Man Ray and Maurice Prendergast.  In 1924, the year they got married, she exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum together with Georgia O'Keeffe and John Singer Sargent and was singled out for praise.  Jo recommended Edward Hopper's work to the curators of that show, and when they bought one of his paintings after the exhibition had ended, it was only the second he had sold in 10 years. As a result of the exposure she had secured for him, Hopper was given a sell-out solo show by the gallery which would represent him for the rest of his life.

Jo Hopper - Gloucester Railroad Gate 1928 - Watercolour

Their marriage was described as hermitic, and as Edward’s painting flourished, Jo’s waned. She became so involved in her husband’s work that she came to see it as a collaboration, and she insisted on being the sole model for every woman he painted. Her previous training as an actress may have helped here.  Speaking to a curator once, she referred to her own paintings as 'poor little stillborn infants, too nice to have been such friendless little Cinderellas. I don't much like them, but how sad for them if even I forsake them!’

Jo Hopper - Self Portrait, 1956

She kept careful records of every painting Hopper produced and sold, she wrote practically all his correspondence, and she began writing her diaries just months before his first major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.  It is thought she perceived this as a ticket to posterity.

Jo died in 1968, a year after Edward, having bequeathed the entirety of Ed’s work and hers to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The gift of some three thousand pieces was without precedent in the history of museums at the time.  The Whitney decided to keep just 3 of Jo’s paintings and supposedly trashed the rest, keeping only a list. 

But not so.  To be found in New York City hospital lobbies, reception areas and waiting rooms are Jo Hopper’s paintings, entrusted to the Whitney but regifted to spaces where women wait or pass through.

An exhibition of both the Hoppers’ work was held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Massachusetts in 2017.

References;

The Paris Review

Artnews.com

The Guardian

Waldemar Januszczak - Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made In the USA

Art In Tough Economic Times

The Morrison Government’s recent decision to roll the Department of Communication and the Arts into a new super Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications has drawn widespread condemnation from the arts community.  For a start, there is no mention of the arts in this new super department.  There is no reference to its arts responsibilities at all.

The arts haven’t always been treated with such callous disregard during tough economic times.  We only have to look back to what happened during the great depression in the United States to find a more enlightened attitude.

The Works Progress Administration was established by Franklin D Roosevelt shortly after he was elected US President in 1932.  It was part of his New Deal which involved massive programs to provide employment for the millions who were out of work.  The WPA provided programs to struggling writers and artists. 

Artists were commissioned to paint murals in post offices, town halls and railroad stations across the country.  And whilst this may have produced a lot of idealized kitsch, it did keep a lot of artists alive.  One such artist was Jack Levine. “Prior to the depression, many American artists were traveling to the left bank in Paris and were enjoying this hedonistic lifestyle until the money ran out, then they all returned to the US.  Many artists became very political and I became politicized out of my own poverty.  I didn’t have a dime.  I became very bitter and nobody wanted my work, so I went on the New Deal for a while and it felt as if someone had thrown me a life saver.”

Another WPA artist was Vincent Campanella “artists were able to see themselves as part of the working class and they saw themselves as free to be what they wanted to be under the WPA, painters who were free to paint the common life.  They were free to share opinions, share thoughts, share peoples financial difficulties, freedom to dedicate yourself and say I am a painter who is a human being and my fellow human beings are my subjects.”

Campanella’s portrait of Thomas Hart Benton

Corporations also encouraged public art at this time.  New York’s Rockefeller Centre is full of it.  There is a sample of it on the Associated Press Building by Isamu Noguchi. 

Isamu Noguchi

The famous photographer Lewis Hine worked as chief photographer for the WPA’s National Research Project, which studied changes in industry and their effect on employment.  During the depression he produced images of “worker as hero” to use Robert Hughes’ terminology including images of construction workers on the Empire State Building.

Lewis Hine Construction workers on the Empire State Building

Contrast all this to the Morrison Government’s attitude to the arts. The government denies that the arts has been downgraded by this decision, but the outgoing Secretary of the Departments of Communications and the Arts, Mike Mrdak disagrees.  In an email sent to his staff on the day the new super department was announced, Mrdak (pictured below) made his feelings plain.  "We were not permitted any opportunity to provide advice on the machinery of government changes, nor were our views ever sought on any proposal to abolish the department or to changes to our structure and operations."

Many bureaucrats are concerned a departmental secretary managing the competing demands of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications may never prioritise a Cabinet submission from Arts.

Needless to say this move by the Morrison Government has been labelled philistine, and it ignores recent studies showing the link between involvement in the arts and good mental health.  But to me, the argument goes beyond this.  It ignores the many thousands involved in the manufacture of artist’s materials, and their retailers.  And then there are the thousands of galleries across the country and their staff they employ, the performing arts, theatres and writers.  It’s an entire creative industry potentially being trashed by a government fixated on mining and infrastructure.  A 2017 report from the Department of Communications and the Arts stated that the “creative industries” contributed 6.4% to the nations GDP.

But what else would you expect from a third rate advertising man who got kicked out of Tourism Australia.  So we made him Prime Minister instead.

REFERENCES

ABC News Online

“American Visions”, Robert Hughes, ABC TV

“Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art, Made In The USA” , Waldemar Januszczak

The Space Man - Olafur Eliasson

These days Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is described as an arts corporation rather than an artist.  Not that this is meant to be derogatory – far from it.  But he appears to have an imagination on an industrial scale, his studio now employs 100 people and he has branched out into the fields of architecture, engineering, product design and global politics.  He is also a passionate advocate for action on climate change. 

He is consumed by the concept of space, how we interpret it and interact with it.

“What makes a space productive, makes it tolerable, challenging, exciting, including, hospitable and so on?  I aim to challenge an existing space by introducing some qualities and amplifying those qualities into the space.  It is not like starting with a blank canvas as the space is already charged with meanings and intentionalities.

“It’s important to ask to what extent do we have an impact on our world, to participate or not participate?  Does it matter that we are here in the first place?”

Beauty 1993, Nozzles attached to a punctured hose spray a fine mist into light.

“When I make something that may be a work of art, I want it to be in the world, to be sincerely, responsibly and honestly in the world….to have an impact somehow.”

Eliasson describes his studio as a laboratory where he and his collaborators experiment a lot and try out ideas.  He says the studio needs to embrace doubt that something may not be working, that it may turn into nothing. 

One of his most significant early works was the Weather Project installed in the massive turbine hall of London’s Tate Modern in 2003.

Critic Waldemar Januszczak credits Eliasson with bringing the outdoors inside.  People were turning up at the Tate with beach towels so they could lie on the floor and see themselves being reflected on the foil covered ceiling. 

“When I work with a project, I ask how is the work being constituted, who determines whether it’s real or not?   And I want to hand that determination to the spectator.  Which means I need to include the spectator into the objecthood.  How do people allow themselves to get involved with their surroundings?”

New York City Waterfalls, 2008

He allows a project to evolve over time, he does not have a fixed picture of how a project would appear in its final form from the outset. 

“I do not claim sole authorship of the project, I rely on the audience, the context, the quality of the situation to claim authorship.  If I set out a Utopian vision and tell people what to expect I would limiting, I would be normative and I would be commodifying the project.

“I often talk about making a machine that produces a phenomena and it’s the relationship people develop with that phenomena that is interesting to me.  I like to show people how this machine works so they can coproduce the work with me.” 

By doing this, Eliasson hopes to make a world that is more open, more negotiable and inclusive rather than exclusive.  He aims to make art that is inclusive rather than exclusive.

Your Chance Encounter, 2009, a mist filled room with different coloured lights in different areas

“My interest goes in the way of participating in a dialogue and I see my work as a response to something I see in the world and I use my studio to amplify my response.

“The unique quality of the language that art speaks is that it doesn’t take the world for granted, it looks at the world as if the world is a model, that it’s a constructed world and there is not an objective truth out there. If you successfully start a dialogue with that world then you can change that reality, make it negotiable.”

Eliasson also appears to be a humanitarian.

“A work of art can embrace different people having different experiences at the same time.  Where else in society does this happen?  And where in society is this embraced as a good thing?  If you are different you are typically, in the world I live in, not welcome. Art can show that this is wrong and investigate this in a productive way and constitute a community that is based on differences – being part of a group and yet being able to work as an individual.”

Your Rainbow Panorama, 2011, ARoS Museum of Art, Denmark

“It’s about the balance between form and content which allows you to solve complex questions.  It‘s possible to get caught up with form and forget about content ie. what is this about, where does it go, how do people engage with it and why?  So the form needs to be secondary to the content.  It is necessary to go out and research (workshop) the content and then return to the studio.”

There is a retrospective of Eliasson’s work on show at Tate Modern until January 5, 2020. 

References; ‘Space Is Progress’,  JJ Films, 2009

Waldemar.TV – Eliasson In Real Life, Tate Modern

The Hard Hitting But Entertaining Critic

If you are looking for an art critic who can make art understandable and accessible, then English born Waldemar Januszczak could be your man.  He has an easy, conversational style of presentation that I have always enjoyed.  Often humorous and witty, he is credited with doing for the arts what David Attenborough has done for the natural world.

He began his career as an art critic with the Guardian in the 1980’s before switching to the Sunday Times in 1992.  In 1997 he founded a company called ZCZ Films which has produced over 30 films covering travel, the arts and even dogs.  In his program Puppy Love from 2000, Januszczak takes a swipe at dogs and particularly their owners who he can’t stand.  From the snippet I’ve seen on Youtube, it looks hilarious.

His 2009 series “Baroque! From St Peters to St Pauls” reinvigorated my passion for the arts after a disastrous return to the workforce.  It was dark and brooding in segments, but highly entertaining and informative.  His self-deprecation is something I appreciate yet at the same time his profound knowledge of and passion for art history is clear.

But he has an acerbic tongue, or should that be pen?  His hatred of the Turner Prize is legendary dating all the way back to 1984.  “The British art establishment, having already shown unforgivable ignorance and wickedness in its dealings with Turner's own Bequest to the nation, is now bandying his name about in the hope of giving some spurious historical credibility to a new prize cynically concocted to promote the interest of a small group of dealers, gallery directors and critics.”

One year on and things hadn’t improved, ‘The Turner Prize, like the rot of the Arts Council, the rise of business sponsorship with strings attached, the growing importance of the PR man in art, the mess at the V&A, and the emergence of the ignorant "art consultant" is the direct result of inadequate government support for the arts. Forced out into the business circus, art has had to start clowning around.’  Both quotes are from The Guardian.  Of the 2014 prize Januszczak described it as “yawn-forcingly, heart-crushingly, buttock-clenchingly bad” and urged people not to go.

Unfortunately, Januszczak’s invective has also been directed towards Australian art, in particular the exhibition “Australia” mounted at the Royal Academy in 2013.  The Times seemed impressed with it, describing the exhibition as long overdue.  But over at the Sunday Times, Januszczak disagreed and described it as light weight, provincial and dull.  Yet in his most recent TV series “Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art – Made In The USA” he seemed to be championing exactly that kind of art – at least in the snippet I uncovered on the Net.

John Olsen Sydney Sun

Januszczak describes McCubbin’s famous Pioneers triptych as “poverty porn” (work that one out), Fred Williams desert landscape as “thick cowpats of minimalism”, and most indigenous art as “tourist tat”.  He reserved his most fierce attack for John Olsen’s Sydney Sun describing as “a cascade of diarrhoea”.   Olsen responded by describing the comments as foolish and an attempt to put the colonials in their place.

Januszczak’s website ZCZ Films includes a shop that, strangely, contains very few of his most recent programs.  The ABC informed me they were frozen out of negotiations to screen his 2016 series The Renaissance Unchained by the BBC agreeing to an exclusive rights deal with Foxtel Arts. One assumes this also applies to his other recent films.  The Renaissance Unchained is still not available on the website.  This tends to make one feel very lonely in OZ, unless one can afford pay-tv.

Rogier Van Der Weyden

Like many artists early in their careers, I was somewhat intimidated by the masters of the past, and in my case they were the Heidelberg School artists of the late 19th century.  But never mind them, what about Rogier Van Der Weyden (about 1399-1464).

Rogier Van Der Weyden                                                                       Descent From The Cross

His "Descent From The Cross" (c.1435) measuring approximately 2.6 metres wide is considered one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance.  It is a triumph of draftsmanship, composition and emotion.  The clear, cool colours of the new oil paintings which were just appearing on the scene at this time are another highlight.  I'm not of a religious inclination at all, but I do acknowledge the contribution religion has made to art and architecture.

If you care to look, you will find on Youtube a 5 minute segment from the series "The Renaissance Unchained" hosted by Waldemar Januszczak featuring this painting.  It is a very moving account of a work of genius which was a commission from the Cross Bowman's Guild - hence the shape formed by Christ's body.

The Renaissance - A Fresh Perspective

My favourite art historian/critic Waldemar Januszczak is at it again.  Following on from his excellent series on the Rococo and Baroque, he now turns his attention to the Renaissance in his latest series The Renaissance Unchained.  Given the mountains of material that has trawled through this period of history, you have to wonder what fresh perspective could Januszczak offer.  

He challenges the accepted line put forward by the world's first art historian Giorgio Vasari that the Renaissance began in Italy and that Michelangelo was at its centre.  Januszczak argues that being the first to put pen to paper on these matters meant Vasari's views "could harden quickly into art historical certainties that were passed from generation to generation.  And these weighty certainties were not easy to challenge."   So Januszczak makes a case for the Renaissance having its origins in Flanders and Germany.

Given that the series Rococo was not screened on either the ABC or SBS, I assume the same will apply this time around too.  I am only discovering these series by checking out the BBC4 website - rather sad really.