earth art smithson & christo. robert smithson gifted prolific writer, whose essays about great...
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Robert Smithson
• Gifted prolific writer, whose essays about Great Salt Lake creation made it one of the most famous and romantic of all earth works.
• Fascinated with entropy - the rate at which matter decays.
Smithson
• "Irregular beds of limestone dip gently eastward, massive deposits of black basalt are broken over the peninsula, giving the region a shattered appearance. ... Under shallow pinkish water is a network of mud cracks supporting the jig-saw puzzle that composes the salt flats. As I looked at the site it reverberated out to the horizons, only to suggest an immobile cyclone while flickering light made the entire landscape appear to quake. A dormant earthquake spread into the fluttering stillness, into a spinning sensation without movement. This site was a rotary that enclosed itself in an immense roundness. From that gyrating space emerged the possibility of the Spiral Jetty"
R. Smithson
Spiral Jetty 1970
• Curl of bulldozed rock, built on Great Salt Lake, Utah.
• Projects ¼ mile into the brine, and can only be seen as a whole from the air.
• Lake rose and drowned it, making the work impermanent - spiral form of gyre can be seen as expanding or contracting
• Spiral is oldest form of labyrinth - associations to archaic forms found in the ruins of eastern civilizations (the stupa of ancient Buddhist India)
Spiral Jetty 1970
• The work is inspired by the site itself, and a myth from the early settlers.
• The lake was thought to be connected to the Pacific (salt water) through underground waterway, the presence of which caused whirlpools at its center.
• The curl & extraordinary colours: pink, blue, and brown-black, offer aesthetic delight, but he was also interested in occurrence of decay & reclamation.
• The site contained industrial ruin - wreckage from oil prospectors, and its own natural corrosion.
Spiral Jetty 1970
• Curl of bulldozed rock, built on Great Salt Lake, Utah.
• Projects ¼ mile into the brine, and can only be seen as a whole from the air.
• Lake rose and drowned it, making the work impermanent - spiral form of gyre can be seen as expanding or contracting
• Spiral is oldest form of labyrinth - associations to archaic forms found in the ruins of eastern civilizations (the stupa of ancient Buddhist India)
Christo
• Bulgarian origin, learned the Marxist-Leninist treatment of subject matter typical of Communist block countries (Socialist Realism) in Sofia, at the Art academy (mid 50's).
• Fled the ardent Stalinism of Bulgaria to Prague first, and then Paris.
• In early years made a living painting portraits, & met his wife that way.
• In Paris he shed his Slavic name Javacheff, & began to wrap
• Started with smalll objects & took on greater & greater projects.•• Editions of small wrapped items (i.e. magazines, flowers, etc.) used to fund
early larger projects.
• His art is an event
Christo& Jeanne-Claude
• He's a populist; he believes people should have intense and memorable experiences outside the galleries & museums.
• His work is impermenent - momentarily intervenes between earth sky & water to refocus our impresesions.
• Scale Temporary nature gives them more energy and intensifies the responce
• All expenses for the temporary work of art were paid by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through the sale of studies, preparatory drawings and collages, scale models and original lithographs.
• Sites are restored to their original state, and materials are either donated or recycled.
Running Fence
• Completed in 1976• Running Fence is 5.5
meters high / 40 kilometers long
• On the private properties of fifty-nine ranchers, following rolling hills and dropping down to the Pacific Ocean.
Running Fence
The art project consisted of: 4 years of collaborative efforts, the ranchers' participation, eighteen public hearings, three sessions at the Superior Courts of California, the drafting of a four-hundred and a fifty page EnvironmentalImpact Report.
Running Fence• Made of 200,000 square meters of white nylon fabric, hung from a
steel cable strung between over 2,000 steel poles• All parts of Running Fence's structure were designed for complete
removal and no visible evidence of Running Fence remains. • The removal of Running Fence started fourteen days after its
completion and all materials were given to the ranchers.