Earth Art

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Earth Art

• Smithson Christo

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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.

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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

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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)

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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.

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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)

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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

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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.

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Work Running FenceDate 1972-76
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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.

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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.

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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.

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