Earthworks+and+Beyond


 * Beardsley, John. __Earthworks and Beyond__. 1st ed. New York: Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S., 1984. Print.**

p7-11 - INTRODUCTION
 * earthworks artists enter the landscape itself and "use its materials and work with its salient features"
 * art is **in** landscape
 * first earthworks artists = Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Walter De Maria, and Robert Morris
 * art is directly connected to its site, scultures form relationship with their setting, unclear boundary between art and setting
 * "These are not discrete objects, intended for isolated appraisal, but fully engaged elements of their retrospective environments, intended to provide an inimitable experience of a certain place for both the artist and the viewer" (7).
 * other art in the landscape, directly related to their setting = poetry gardens, artist-designed parks, architectural structures, and sculptures in concrete and steel
 * landscape art used to improve public spaces
 * Americans are torn between need to exploit the environment with man-made tools and unnatural sctructures, and the need to save the little bits of nature that are left, for its beauty and spiritual aspects
 * when earthworks began in late 1960s, it was extreme in rejecting civilization (Thorough-like) but some of this art has developed to address urban problems (ex. urban parks)

p13
 * Michael Heizer (b. 1944)
 * "Art had to be radical...It had to become American." -Heizer