Land Art

Land art or earth art is art that involves the artist going out into nature (usually in a remote area), and making his or her mark on it. The artists use items from the natural environment, such as rocks, sticks, soil and plants. Since the works frequently exist in the open and are left to change and erode under natural conditions, many of them were ephemeral in nature and the only record that remains is photographic, sometimes combined with maps, text etc. While some of the artists used mechanical earth-moving equipment, Richard Long simply walked up and down until he had made a mark in the earth. More recently, some Land artists have exhibited sculptures made from natural found objects inside galleries which are called installations.

The earliest examples of Land art can be seen in megaliths, and the Mound Builder cultures of North America. Later land art was inspired mostly by modern and minimal movements such as De Stijl, Cubism, Minimalism and the work of Constantin Brancusi and Joseph Beuys. Many of the artists associated with Land art had also been involved with Minimalism and Conceptual Art.

Robert Smithson was one of the founders of land art, and is most well known for the Spiral Jetty, 1970, located in the Great Salt Lake, Utah. This monumental earthwork was inspired in by the Great Serpent Mound, a Pre-Columbian Indian monument in southwestern Ohio. Other renowned Land artists include Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer and Dennis Oppenheim.

See the works in the Gallery!