The Los Angeles Times detailed a group of “LAND/ART” exhibitions in New Mexico that brings together two generations of land art works
One of the event’s advisors, artist Bill Gilbert, chairs the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico. He regularly takes his students to Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” in Utah and James Turrell’s “Roden Crater” in Arizona but finds that although his students are awed by what they call the work of the “grandfathers,” they are more interested in creating work that has a more “empathetic relationship to the land rather than making huge gestures.” As a result, a lot of the work exists only in maps, videos and photographs taken of transient events and objects. […]
“The man-made sun was created and nurtured here,” says Coolidge of New Mexico. “We’re looking at the relationship of that technology to the terrestrial transformation that goes on to defend against it. We’re staring at a high-tech mimicking of the natural order, the interaction of the ground and sky in physical, practical and spiritual terms.” By placing the exhibition at a dead end outside the center of town, Coolidge is forcing visitors to take a journey outside their comfort zone. When they turn to leave, Coolidge — like most of the other artists in the show — wants them to take away a new perception of the Earth and their place in it.
The Shifting Nature of Earth Artists (Los Angeles Times)
