Earth Art

Smithson & Christo

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.

Work: Running FenceDate: 1972-76

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.