{"id":71697,"date":"2018-11-07T17:16:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T15:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grapheine.com\/graphic-design-en\/land-art-quand-la-nature-se-met-a-loeuvre"},"modified":"2024-04-19T10:28:41","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T08:28:41","slug":"land-art-when-nature-puts-itself-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.grapheine.com\/en\/graphic-design-en\/land-art-when-nature-puts-itself-to-work","title":{"rendered":"Plant art & land art: when nature puts itself to work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"land-art\"
\nSnow arch , Andy Goldworthy, 1984<\/span><\/p>\n

Ha! flowers, butterflies, the fresh air of nature... This is a totally bucolic post about a few land art artists<\/strong> who work in harmony with the beautiful green to delight our eyes in the most ecological way possible.<\/p>\n

Land Art, the origins<\/h2>\n

Land Art<\/strong><\/a> - or Earthwork -<\/strong> was born in the late 1960s in the United States as a response to the increasing commercialisation of art. A number of artists, including Robert Smithson<\/a>, who laid the foundations in his essay The Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects<\/i>, decided to question the relationship between art and money, and to break away from the framework<\/strong> restricting the work<\/strong> to the gallery<\/strong>. Art should no longer have a monetary value, nor be reserved for an elite in a closed space. These artists are returning to nature to express themselves without limits, creating using natural materials that are often found on site.<\/p>\n

In comparison, today's street art <\/strong>is more or less in the same vein. And when you see that a shredded Banksy painting<\/a> is worth more than its intact version, you think that we have a long way to go. The advantage of Land Art is that it is destined to disappear<\/strong>, which makes it a happening in the more or less long term. Unlike Banksy's happening, which increased the value of his work despite the artist's wishes, here there is no sense in grabbing yellowed leaves or buying a cut-out mountain block. Nature is an integral part of the setting and the meaning of the work. It is no longer simply represented, but becomes a work in its own right.<\/p>\n

These inseparable works are integrated into a natural environment to invite passers-by to observe art in nature<\/strong>, but also the overall work of Nature itself. As the artist Nancy Holt, to whom we owe including Sun Tunnels, choosing these sites as places where people can experiment and see<\/strong>, that's the job.<\/em> The Land Artist creates in and with Nature, for humans.<\/p>\n

Manufactured or hand-made<\/h3>\n

These works are sometimes monumental<\/strong>, made using machines that cut and move tonnes of stone, as in Michael Heizer's Double Negative<\/a> and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (left)... or by adding manufactured materials to the landscape, as in The Lightning Field (by Walter de Maria, right) with poles to invite lightning, Surrounded Islands (by Christo, below, in pink), or Sun Tunnels (lower).<\/p>\n