Land art or Earth art has its roots in the US soil in the 70s and represents a form of art in which nature and the territory become the support and the work itself, the artist merges with the environment
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himLa Land art o Earth art has its roots in US soil in the 70s. The term was first coined by G. Schum by publishing a video on the works of Long, De Maria and Christo. These artists felt the strong need for a back to nature and to untie the chains of civilization and the oppressive city life of that decade. It is a creative experience within conceptual art that renounces the will to create a new form, that is, man-made, but takes reality itself as a form (see Mminimal Art).
The "land" artists consider the physical datum as one with art, where the naked object presented in its primordial form can be struck by external elements that change its action, but without replacing it or covering it as happens with painting or with the table. Their goal is to bring the work into full harmony with the surrounding environment going beyond the limits of mobile product, in this way the user will be able to create a more complete aesthetic experience.
The land artist has no boundaries, nor an established space in which to operate, his conscience demonstrates one great ecological attention to the vital nature with which it interacts. Contemporary man is increasingly convinced that artistic activity can involve all spheres of human action, therefore it is impossible to place physical limits on it and that is why the scale of action can range from a small object to an entire island in the Pacific Ocean, from immense desert expanses to rocky mountains.
Il land artist si fonde con l'ambiente establishing a relationship of internal analysis with it. Work on it using simple materials such as sand. leaves, plastics, rags, vegetables, neon, mud. In this, land art is ideologically similar to poor art which essentially consists in “reducing to a minimum, impoverishing signs, reducing them to their archetypes”. The main purpose of the land artist is create an impact, an experience with a space free from any conditioning. The usability of the land work is entrusted to video, photo it is therefore far from any form of collecting or utilitarian conception of art.
To understand the complexity of this artistic current, the exhibition must be visited THE SONG OF THE EARTH- Horizons of Land Art, an exhibition of over 50 works by great artists including Christo, De Maria, Fulton, Turrell at the Repetto Gallery of Acqui Terme, tel. 0144325318) from 26 September to 25 November.
Federica De Angelis
