land art

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Art

Lines in the Sand: Artist Jim Denevan Turns Beaches into Temporary Geometric Artworks

For well over a decade California artist Jim Denevan (previously) has made his mark in the sand, etching elaborate geometric artworks on beaches around the world using little more than a rake or found stick. The pieces last only a few hours, or begin disappearing even as he works, as the tides quickly erase each design leaving only a memory or a photograph. Great Big Story recently visited Denevan and shot this brief profile of the artist as he created a number of pieces.

Art

A Ring of Fire Blazes in the Middle of the Swiss Alps

All photos © Stefan Altenburger, 2017

Burning brightly amidst the snowcapped mountains of the Swiss Alps is Douglas Gordon and Morgane Tschiember’s fiery installation As close as you can for as long as it lasts. The temporary piece of blazing land art was produced for the biennial event Elevation 1049, a collection of 11 sculpture, performance, video and sound installations supported by the LUMA Foundation and situated within Gstaad, Switzerland.

The piece is a sculptural and performance-based tale of the lonely traveler, as well as a call and response between the two artists involved in the piece. Tschiember built the circular fire, and as a reaction to her landscape meditation, Gordon installed a sound piece. The howling work is meant to trigger primal fears of dangerous animals and the dark woods, drawing visitors closer to the warm fire.

As close as you can for as long as it lasts is on view as a part of Elevation 1049 through March 19, 2017. (via Designboom)

Art

A Skeleton of Found Roots and Tree Limbs Heralds the Beginning of Fall in Italy

In this 2012 installation, street artist Never2501 assembled a variety of found vegetation to form an eerie skeleton at the base of some steps in the idyllic gardens of the Museo Archeologico Paolo Giovio in Como, Italy. The piece was titled “In Cammino Per Trasformarsi Nell’istante Presente” (Moving to Transform into the Present) and could be interpreted as a harbinger of the seasons with the decaying root stumps and limbs pulled from a nearby forest, fit together without the aid of any additional materials. Or maybe it’s just an incredibly disturbing thing to stumble onto when walking through the woods? You can see more photos of the temporary piece here, and follow Never2501’s more recent work on Instagram.

Art

Bit Leaves: Square Flowers and Plants by Baku Maeda

Sapporo-based freelance illustrator and artist Baku Maeda tends to see the world a bit differently. His simple observations and humorous interventions like Leaf Beasts and Ribbonesia have gone viral the last few years. He recently shared this fun series of clipped square flowers on his Tumblr and Instagram which he refers to as Bit Leaves.

Art

Seven 30-Foot-Tall Dayglow Totems Placed in the Desert by Ugo Rondinone

All images Ugo Rondinone: Seven Magic Mountains, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. Photos by Gianfranco Gorgoni. Courtesy of Art Production Fund and Nevada Museum of Art.

Situated just south of Las Vegas in the middle of the desert stands seven stacks of brightly colored boulders— forms which appear to be in a line or cluster depending on how you view their arrangement. From one side the structures line up neatly in a row, while from the other they seem to be positioned in one giant mass. The cairn-like towers are Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone‘s “Seven Magic Mountains” and stand between 30 and 35 feet tall. Each contains between three and six human-sized masses which are all locally-sourced limestone painted an assortment of dayglow hues.

The stacked forms are intended to appear both stable and on the edge of collapse, similar to their duality of being both nature made and artificial. “Seven Magic Mountains is an artwork of thresholds and crossings, of seclusion and gathering, of balanced marvels and excessive colors, and the contrary air between the desert and the city lights,” states Rondinone. “Seven Magic Mountains elicits continuities and solidarities between the artificial and the natural, between human and nature.”

The site specific work was produced by Art Production Fund, New York and the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. The monumental piece of land art will be on view for two years beginning in May of 2016. (via Juxtapoz)

Art

Ash Dome: A Secret Tree Artwork in Wales Planted by David Nash in 1977

In 1977, sculptor David Nash cleared an area of land near his home in Wales where he trained a circle of 22 ash trees to grow in a vortex-like shape for an artwork titled Ash Dome. Almost 40 years later, the trees still grow today. The artist has long worked with wood and natural elements in his art practice, often incorporating live trees or even animals into pieces. The exact site of Ash Dome in the Snowdonia region of northwest Wales is a closely guarded secret, and film crews or photographers who are permitted to see it are reportedly taken on a circuitous route to guard its location. Nash shares in an interview with the International Sculpture Center:

When I first planted the ring of trees for Ash Dome, the Cold War was still a threat. There was serious economic gloom, very high unemployment in our country, and nuclear war was a real possibility. We were killing the planet, which we still are because of greed. In Britain, our governments were changing quickly, so we had very short-term political and economic policies. To make a gesture by planting something for the 21st century, which was what Ash Dome was about, was a long-term commitment, an act of faith. I did not know what I was letting myself in for.

Dr. James Fox recently visited the artwork for the BBC’s Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature featuring six different land artists in Britain. You can see an excerpt regarding Ash Dome below, as well as footage of Nash working on the piece further down. (thnx, Elsie!)