When we think of a work of art, our brain automatically positions it inside a museum or gallery. In reality, some works of art mix and interact with the landscape and the surrounding environment. This is the case of Land Art, an art form that adapts to the landscape and the territory by modifying it. To celebrate it, Volagratis.com suggest 8 works of Land Art scattered around the world.
Nikola-Lenivets Park, Russia
Il Nikola-Lenivets Art Park, in the Kaluga region and within the Ugra National Park, is a real open-air museum: a place where sculptures and structures of all kinds, rigorously made with natural materials from Nikolay Polissky and by the artists who participated in the Archstoyanie festival, they rise among trees and meadows. Founded in 1992, the park houses over 100 works of art, some of which are more than 5 meters high, and along the way it is not difficult to meet animals of all kinds that inhabit the area, such as foxes. An opportunity to combine the beauties created by nature and those created by man.
Campo del Sole, Umbria
A Campo del Sole, in Tuoro sul Trasimeno (Perugia), the protagonist is the stone. In a large lawn overlooking the lake, 27 columns sculpted by Pietro Cascella - in collaboration with Mauro Berrettini, Cordelia von Den Steinen and other international artists - rise towards the sky over 4 meters and embracing in a spiral a central table designed and created to represent the sun. To create the gray sandstone works, sculpted starting in 1985, the sculptors were inspired by Stonehenge, but with a different message: dialogue, encounter and the total absence of walls and barriers.
Arte Sella, Trentino-Alto Adige
In the heart of Val Sugana, this artistic path of over three kilometers and composed of over 30 works seems to have been born almost by chance from the earth. Sella Art, the international event born in 1986, over the years has enriched the landscape with intertwined branches to give life to new shapes, sections of trunks cut and aligned like puzzles, shrubs positioned to recreate a gigantic beehive: one of the most successful forms of Land Art in the our country. The entire exhibition space can be discovered in less than an hour, all while immersed in the Alps of the province of Trento.
BoscoArteStenico, Trentino-Alto Adige
BoscoArteStenico, in the province of Trento, it is a fairy place. Among meadows and woods appear human figures carved in wood, animals carved in trunks and giant pencils. Many of these works of art were made with natural materials and recovered from fallen trees and branches, such as those of the areas affected by the Vaia storm in October 2018, which will be the real protagonists of the new 2019 installations positioned along the paths. This year's theme, in fact, will be “Up!”, An invitation to “get up” after the bad weather that hit the area last year. The path is also perfect for the little ones and for people with disabilities: here art is within everyone's reach.
SMACH, Trentino-Alto Adige
Born in 2012, that of SMACH, in the municipality of Piccolino, in the province of Bolzano, is one of the youngest Land Art projects in the peninsula. For each edition, it proposes different artists and works that interact perfectly with the natural context in which the exhibition takes place. This year SMACH proposes as a theme the word "Heimat", in Italian "homeland", a concept that unites not only a territory, but also the values shared by the same people or, on the contrary, the conflicting feelings that arise when they are lost their roots.
Spiral Jetty, Stati Uniti
The Spiral Jetty cannot be missing among the 8 works of land art created in Great Salt Lake, in 1970 from Robert smithson. The large spiral pier, which came to life thanks to the union of perfectly aligned stones and rocks, is one of the most important works of land art in the United States. It can be seen from three different points of view:
- From above, from where you can admire its shape
- From a distance, where it appears more isolated
- From the center, where the visitor himself can feel part of the creation.
To complete his work of art, the artist has also made a documentary called Spiral Jetty, to be considered as an integral part of the installation.
Desert Breath, Egypt
Located in the Egyptian desert, Desert breath was born from the idea of three artists: the sculptor Danae Statou, the industrial designer Alexandra Stratou and the architect Stella Constantinides. The 1997 work is a double spiral covering more than ten hectares. It is made up of over 80 cones of different sizes made with sand and rock to represent the strength of the elements and of the desert itself. An installation that symbolizes the transience of life and the power of nature.
Double Negative, Stati Uniti
Double Negative is one of the oldest forms of Land Art on the planet and dates back to 1969. Created by Michael Heizer nn the Nevada desert, "Double Negative" is a trench 9 meters wide, 15 meters deep and over 450 meters long. The work is carried out by removing sand and stones from the ground, as if it were a large canyon carved by the force of a river. Although located in another state, the work has formally belonged to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, since 1984.
Surrounded Islands, Stati Uniti
Among the 8 works of Land Art we find Surrounded Islands it was one of the most iconic expressions in the world of Land Art, but today it is no longer visible. Made in 1983 by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the installation involved the use of over 600 thousand square meters of pink propylene positioned and spread around the 11 islands of Biscayne Bay, near Miami. The purpose of the work was to raise awareness of the fragility of the city of Miami and represent its reality, divided between water and land.
Synergy, New Zealand
Martin Hill, artist and photographer specialized in Land Art, he has created dozens of sculptures and installations all over the world focusing on the theme of the circle of life. The half circumferences, made with natural elements, such as stones, branches, leaves or ice, are immersed in the water leaving the reflection to finish them and make them a complete circle. Synergy, created in 2010 in Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, survived a few hours due to its extreme delicacy and fragility. Despite this, it still remains today among the most spectacular examples of environmental art.
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