What Is Land Art

What is Land Art?
Niamh Milne
In this essay I plan to examine the question ‘What is Land Art’. I will research the key
developments of the movement. I will discuss methods, themes, and practices of artists. I
will discuss historic movements and artists who influenced Land Art. I will conclude my
essay with a definition of Land Art.
Land Art emerged in the United States in the late 1960s with a focus of ecology,
environment, and political activism. Isamu Noguchi was cited to have made one of the
earliest pieces of land art with his design of Contoured Playground in 1941. Noguchi never
claimed to have made Land Art and said it was purely sculpture.
‘Contoured Playground’ (Noguchi, 1941).

According to the Noguchi Museum this piece of work was made to be built into a
playground in Central Park, New York City. The proposal was a playground which would
contain no elements that could harm or injure anyone using it and they done this by using
biomorphic forms. Noguchi influenced environmental sculpture and contemporary land art.
Another development that influenced land art was Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape.
‘Time Landscape’ (Wikipedia, 2020)
Proposed in 1965, this 45 x 200 feet piece of land is full of native trees, flowers, and wild
grasses. This was an alternative approach to art, Sonfist worked with bringing back historical
nature to areas of New York City. This urban forest was a piece of sustainable art, and it
took over 10 years to complete. It acts as a living monument which inspired others and it
became pioneering work for artists to come. Moving on from Sonfist and Noguchi, most
artists who started making Land Art did so in a response to the political environment and a
rise in women’s liberation with a prevalence in ecology and preservation of environments.
The biggest development was the exhibition called ‘Earth Works’, which was organised by
Robert Smithson at the Dwan Gallery in New York. This gained the attention of Willoughby
Sharp who then curated an exhibition at the Cornell University in New York called ‘Earth
Art’. This exhibition let people see work that was otherwise hard to see because of
locations. It helped bring Land Art to the public eye and show people art could be done with
the earths tools and not take part in the commercialisation of art.
Nancy Holt was an American artist most known for her fantastic Land Art. Holt’s work would
often show perception of time and space. Starting off as a photographer and a video artist it
was with this base, she begun to make her Land Art as devices for tracking the sun and the
stars. Her most famous work is ‘Sun Tunnels’. A collection of four concrete tunnels that are
18 feet long and 9 feet in diameter.
‘Sun Tunnels’ (Holt, 1973-76)
"In my Land art dealing with astronomical phenomena, I am putting 'centers of the universe'
wherever I go," Nancy Holt said. Her Sun Tunnels in the desert of Utah were meant, she
said, "to make people conscious of the cyclical time of the universe." (The Art Story, 2009)
They have been arranged to precise points, so each tunnel reacts to the sun uniquely. Two
react to the summer solstice, for sunset and sunrise and the other two react to the winter
solstice sunset and sunrise. The tunnels have cut outs to project the constellations of Draco,
Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn with the sunlight that illuminates on the inside of the
tunnels. These cut outs differ in size in relation to the number of stars represented. As these
have been made out of concrete, these tunnels are not supposed to disintegrate like other
Land Art works which means that people will get to enjoy them for several years to come.
Land Art had many influences and many of the artists who made Earth art were associated
with minimal art and conceptual art.
“Land art was inspired by minimal art and conceptual art but also by modern movements
such as De Stijl, Cubism, minimalism and the work of Constantin Brâncuși and Joseph
Beuys.” (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019)
As well as being interested in ecology a lot of artists would have been inspired by historical
works such as, Stonehenge, Nazca Lines, Machu Picchu, and Native American Burial
Grounds. You can see in artists work the similarities between these older works and their
works. Take Andrew Rogers work, by viewing one you can see what inspires his work.
‘Predicting the Past’ (Rogers, 2009)

On first view of this piece called ‘Predicting the Past’ it reminds you of Stonehenge with the
tall basalt pointing to the sky and the arch way of rock.
“The favored materials for Earthworks were those that could be extracted directly from
nature, such as stones, water, gravel, and soil. Influenced by prehistoric artworks such as
Stonehenge, Earth artists left their structures exposed to the elements.” (The Art Story,
2009)
But you can also feel that it is honouring a civilization up on that hill this piece sits on, and
that could have been inspired by Machu Picchu.
‘Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu’ (Ko Hon Chiu, 2011)
The Inca people had made Machu Picchu 2,400 meters above sea level between the
Peruvian Andes and the Amazon Basin. Also called ‘La Ciudadela’ which means the Citadel,
shows off the refined architecture of the Inca people.
“The approximately 200 structures making up this outstanding religious, ceremonial,
astronomical and agricultural centre are set on a steep ridge, crisscrossed by stone
terraces.” (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2011)
The understanding of astronomy and agriculture the Inca had was very sophisticated and
would go on to inspire Land Artists to use these ideas in their own work. Another influence
that you can see in Andrew Rogers work is geoglyphs like the ones seen in Nazca, Southern
Peru.
‘Sacred, Slovakia’ (Rogers, 2008)
‘Condor’ (Delso, 2015)

Rogers’ work 'Sacred' was made on the side of a mountain below Spiss Castle which is a
heritage listed site. The symbol came from a coin found at the castle, which is 2,500 years
old. The Nazca lines are made up of 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures, and 70
zoomorphic designs, including Condor pictured above. The original purpose of these lines is
still undiscovered, but some archaeologists and scholars believe them to be of religious
significance and to bring water to the region.
In conclusion Land Art is a movement which got people to be more aware of the negative
impacts that they were making on the natural environment. It got people looking into
ecology, being more aware of their surroundings and feeling the urge to get out of the
urban city landscapes. Land Art can be more accessible to see than an exclusive gallery or
private collection but at the same time can be not easily accessible due to where they are
made, especially in the middle of no where or if they are geoglyphs for example which you
need to view by air to see. Land Art can be quite conceptual in its ideas, to bring the stars to
earth and other works can be simple with just the use of shapes. But fundamentally Land
Art is art that has been made directly into the landscape and uses natural materials found in
the earth.
Biography
Noguchi, I. (1941). Contoured Playground. [Metal] Available at:
https://www.noguchi.org/artworks/collection/view/contoured-playground/ [Accessed 27
Apr. 2022].
Wikipedia. (2020). Time Landscape. [online] Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Landscape.
The Art Story (2009). Earth Art Movement Overview. [online] The Art Story. Available at:
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/earth-art/.
Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Land art. [online] Wikipedia. Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_art.
Holt, N. (1973-76). Sun Tunnels. [Concrete, Steel, Earth] Available at:
https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/sun-tunnels [Accessed 3 May 2022].
Rogers, A. (2009). Predicting the Past. [Basalt] Available at:
https://hyperallergic.com/325742/the-contemporary-geoglyphs-of-a-globe-spanning-art-
project/ [Accessed 3 May 2022].
Ko Hon Chiu, V. (2011). Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (Peru). Available at:
whc.unesco.org/en/documents/132424 [Accessed 3 May 2022].
UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2011). Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu. [online]
Unesco.org. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/274/.
Rogers, A. (2008). Sacred, Slovakia. [Travertine Marble] Available at:
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sacred-slovakia-andrew-rogers/9AGZB-whFqbVGg
[Accessed 3 May 2022].
Delso, D. (2015). Aerial view of the ‘Condor’. [Photograph] Available at:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%ADneas_de_Nazca,_Nazca,_Per
%C3%BA,_2015-07-29,_DD_55.JPG [Accessed 3 May 2022].

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What is Land Art?

‘Contoured Playground’ (Noguchi, 1941).

‘Predicting the Past’ (Rogers, 2009)

‘Condor’ (Delso, 2015)

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