Hi guys welcome to my first ever video vlog.

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So first I want to introduce myself. I’m Francesca Narne, an aspiring student nurse from TSU, hope you
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So this video will be a short one that explains what is Earth art?

So let it start

1. What is Land Art or also known as Earth Art?

Land Art is created by combining art and nature in a complex way. Land art is also known as
Earth Art or Earthworks. This art is designed directly in the physical landscapes with the help of
natural substances and organic media like leaves, stones, soil, rocks, water, logs, etc. Mechanical
earth moving equipment is also used by a few artists. Artists show their reaction against
industrialization and urbanization. Before the origin of modern land art, it has been already
created by artists for the last centuries. But this land art movement became popular somewhere
between 1960 and 1970 in America and was soon adopted by artists all over the world. The
main part of this art is reforming and redesigning the landscape. As it is created by moving
things around, adding some available materials, and imported substances to the landscape so it
becomes impossible to move it from one place to another. It is only developed to make some
beautiful change in the environment for some time as in the end it just degenerates. Some land
artworks are very short-lived; just stay for a few hours or days, while others are just designed in
open and left uncovered so that they can be deformed by erosion or wind over time.
This kind of art cannot be moved without destroying it, and the climate and weather can change
it. There are many reasons why an artist would create an earthwork of art, such as: to address
environmental issues affecting the earth today, to show things that could be powered by nature
or be interactive with natural phenomena (like lighting or earthquakes), or to show how people
can co-exist with nature, or maybe use it as a means to help restore ecosystems in an aesthetic
way. To this day, there are many artists creating Land Art.

2. One well-known artist of the Earth Art

Three artists that have heavily influenced Land Art are, Robert Smithson, Maya Lin, and Andy
Goldsworthy. But we will more talk about, Robert Smithson he is an American artist from New
Jersey that incorporated photography in various pieces of land art. He is most known for his land
art titled, “Spiral Jetty.” Spiral Jetty is a huge piece of land art located at Razol Point in Great Salt
Lake Utah. Smithson used a combination of mud, salt crystals, and rocks water coil to create this
piece. His large-scale sculptures, called Earthworks, engaged directly with nature and were
created by moving and constructing with vast amounts of soil and rocks. Smithson preferred to
work with ruined or exhausted sites in nature. A main element which makes Spiral Jetty so
important and interesting is that the entire piece of art can submerge and resubmerged. In
addition, Spiral Jetty allows the person viewing it to walk out on the lake. By walking out onto
Spiral Jetty, the person gains a beautiful view from the lake's level.
3. Earth art video
4. Images of example of Earth art
5. Option or thoughts about the Earth Art
For me, land art is so interesting to know because land art combines artistic vision with nature
together to create a piece of art with greater meaning. As one quote says ‘’The Earth without an
Art is just an Eh’’. Art is nothing without the surrounding nature, Robert Smithson is known for
creating “Spiral Jetty.” Proved that nature can be used to create art, these artists of this art
movement were against the marketing of the artworks as done at museums and galleries only
because art can be everywhere. That’s why; they developed huge immovable artworks in the
open areas away from cities. One interesting example is Spiral Jetty, which allows the person
viewing it to walk out on the lake. By walking out onto Spiral Jetty, the person gains a beautiful
view from the lake's level. I was amazed and I want to look at Smithson’s Spiral Jetty if I’m given
a chance because I am truly fascinated by how he created it and how beautiful the outcome of
this piece of art. I am intrigued by the concept that this piece of land art can be submerged
entirely itself with the surrounding water and re-emerge unharmed.

Thank you for watching, till the next time babyeee..

a) What the art movement is about; defining characteristics or description of the art movement chosen

What is Land Art or also known as Earth Art

Land art is any work of art that blends with its environment, generally resulting in large-scale pieces that
are integrated directly with nature and most often made up of site-specific elements. While
contemporary works of art were transportable and sold for profit, artists of the Land art movement
reject commercialization and instead created large-scale installations in rural areas that often speak to
the power, expanse, and beauty of nature. In the ’60s and ’70s, this forced audiences to travel to remote
areas in order to view these works of art, which reinforced an interest in rural living over urban areas.

2. Did you know the History of Land art or also known as Earth Art

When Land art emerged in the 1960s and ‘70s, it was a time of rebellion, liberation, and general disdain
for mainstream society. The feminist movement was on the rise, environmental concerns were gaining
more attention, and there was a growing defiance against the commercialization of society and the
traditional fine art that dominated the art world. In the midst of turmoil, artists looked to nature to
reflect a simpler, less commercial existence and inspire a shift away from consumerism. This shift came
to be known as Land art, also known as Earthworks or Earth art.

b) Well-known artists of the art movement chosen

3. One well known artist for Earth art is Robert Smithson

Who is Robert Smithson? He is AMERICAN SCULPTOR AND WRITER and his Movements and Styles are
Earth Art, Post-Minimalism, Conceptual Art

Summary About Robert Smithson

Although Robert Smithson died at the age of only 35, his short career has inspired more young artists
than most among the generation that emerged in the 1960s. A formidable writer and critic as well as an
artist, his interests ranged from Catholicism to mineralogy to science fiction. His earliest pieces were
paintings and collages, but he soon came to focus on sculpture; he responded to
the Minimalism and Conceptualism of the early 1960s and he started to expand his work out of galleries
and into the landscape. In 1970, he produced the Earthwork, or Land art, for which he is best
known, Spiral Jetty, a remarkable coil of rock composed in the colored waters of the shore of the Great
Salt Lake in Utah. His large-scale sculptures, called Earthworks, engaged directly with nature and were
created by moving and constructing with vast amounts of soil and rocks. Smithson preferred to work
with ruined or exhausted sites in nature. In 1973, he died in an aircraft accident when he was surveying
the site for another Earthwork in Texas.

c) Sample videos/clips of the art movement chosen

d) Examples/photos of the art movement chosen. The relevance/significance/meanings of the examples

presented must be EXPLAINED further by the vlogger-student.

A Line Made By Walking (1967)

Artist: Richard Long

Made while Richard Long was a student in London, A Line Made By Walking documents a work he
created as he walked back and forth across the same path in Wiltshire. Here, Long emphasizes the
experiential factor of nature through the act of walking and the temporal factor involved in artistic
practice, while also having an impact on the land. The subject matter is the interaction of the journey,
marking the ground, and making a simple adjustment to the landscape. With its simple, geometric shape
and minimal intervention on the site, the work is also reminiscent of - and perhaps influential to - later
Minimalist works such as Richard Serra's To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Plates Inverted (1970).
Like most Earthworks, the piece is site specific and ephemeral. The photographs document the work's
temporary existence, but do not solely constitute the work itself. While the photographs simply mark
the performance of the work, the documentation process was sometimes important to artists working in
Earth art, as it was often the only way to evidence the creation of the work. The work was
groundbreaking in its utter simplicity and ephemerality as it would have been invisible within hours or
days as nature would have taken its course, thus also making the piece useless as a commodity object.

Artwork Images

Double Negative (1969-70)

Artist: Michael Heizer

In 1969, with financial assistance from Virginia Dwan, Michael Heizer began this massive work that cut
240,000 tons of rhyolite and sandstone from cliffs to create two trenches on the eastern edges of the
Mormon Mesa, northwest of Overton, Nevada. As few could visit the site after the work's completion,
Heizer documented the production of the work in photographs and exhibited them at the Dwan Gallery
in New York. With Double Negative, Heizer enacts a heroic gesture by removing earth from its site,
forcing a contemplation of the manmade processes that constitute the artwork and the natural, physical
elements that exist outside of it. He places Double Negative directly in the context of art history and
architecture, touching upon megalithic ancient monuments as well as modern feats of engineering in
the industrial age. Although the work required a great deal of labor, it consists of negative space; it is
basically a 1,500-foot-long canyon into which a viewer would enter to be surrounded on three sides by
50-foot walls of earth. Its site-specificity and remoteness are typical of Earth art, as few viewers would
be able to visit it. Its presence in the open air of the desert also means that it is subject to the
environment and will eventually disintegrate. Connecting the work to Minimalism is its simplicity of
design, the importance of the kinesthetic response of the viewer to its meaning, and its monumental
size that was meant to overwhelm the spectator, which, much like Ronald Bladen's X (1967-68), makes
them feel their smallness within the immensity of nature (and the work of art).
One artist I chose to discuss land art is Robert Smithson who is known for creating “Spiral Jetty.” This
piece of land art is important as it has the ability to submerge itself with the surrounding water and re
emerge unharmed.

Spiral Jetty (1970)

Artist: Robert Smithson

Realized in April 1970, Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is one of the most recognizable works from the
Earth art movement. Smithson constructed a 1,500-foot-long and fifteen-foot-wide spiral made of
stones, algae, and other organic materials (6,000 tons in all) in the northeastern part of Utah's Great Salt
Lake. The Ace Gallery of Vancouver and Dwan financed an earth-moving company to create the spiral
out of basalt rock and earth from the surrounding area. In 1972, when the water level rose, the work
became submerged. Thirty years later, as the lake's water levels changed, Spiral Jetty became visible
again, revealing the basalt rock crusted over with white salt. The work was inspired by the Pre-
Columbian structure Serpent Mound, which Smithson had seen on a site visit in Ohio. Spiral Jetty and
Smithson's body of work as a whole were typical of Earth art in their protest against the
commodification of the art market since it was impossible to buy or sell the work. The physical
mutability and even invisibility of the work resulting from natural processes, such as water currents and
erosion, were essential to its meaning. As a work of art that was not only remote, but also at times
impossible to view because of the forces of nature, Spiral Jetty is one of the best examples of Earth art
and also underscores the movement's roots in Conceptualism.

Richard Long, “A Line Made By Walking” (1967)

Black and white image of a line in the grass leading to a grouping of trees

Richard Long, “A Line Made By Walking,” 1967. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

One of the first examples of Land art, A Line Made By Walking, was created by artist Richard Long in
1967 by walking the same path over and over again in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. Due to the ephemeral,
fleeting quality of the work, it was unable to be commercialized and was applauded for having redefined
the definition of what art could be.

Michael Heizer, “Double Negative” (1969)

Black and white image of a deep, rectangular hole in the rocky earth.

Michael Heizer, “Double Negative,” 1969. Photo via Flickr.

Combining elements of both of minimalism and conceptual art, artist Michael Heizer created the site-
specific piece Double Negative in Moapa Valley, Utah in 1969. Using dynamite, Heizer created a 30-by-
50-foot-wide gap in the earth, which drew attention to the negative space between the two sides of the
gorge. By working with what isn’t there—even though this destruction was man-made—this piece
underscored human impact on the environment.

Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty” (1970)

Image of the spiral jetty jutting out into the water from the land.

Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty,” 1970. Photo by Eve Andree Laramee via Wikimedia Commons.

One of the most notable pieces of Land art is undoubtedly Spiral Jetty, which was created by sculptor
Robert Smithson in April of 1970, and is considered to be his greatest work. Using natural materials
including black basalt rocks, salt crystals, and earth, Smithson documented the construction of the
1,500-foot-long spiral in an eponymous film. Nestled off the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, the
piece is a testament to the fleeting beauty of nature and the importance of preservation, as Spiral Jetty
was created to eventually be washed away by the earth’s natural erosion.

e) Your thoughts and/or opinions about the art movement

For me, land art is so interesting to know because land art combines artistic vision with nature
together to create a piece of art with a greater meaning. As one quote says ‘’The Earth without an Art is
just an Eh’’. Art is nothing without the surrounding nature, Robert Smithson who is known for creating
“Spiral Jetty.” Proved that nature can be used to create an art, these artists of this art movement were
against the marketing of the artworks as done at museums and galleries for other artworks. That’s why;
they developed huge immovable artworks in the open areas away from cities. One interesting example
is Spiral Jetty, this allows the person viewing it to walk out on the lake. By walking out onto Spiral Jetty,
the person gains a beautiful view from the lake's level. I was amazed and I want to look at Smithson’s
Spiral Jetty if I’m given a chance because I am truly fascinated by how he created it and the outcome of
this piece of art. I am intrigued by the concept that this piece of land art can be submerged entirely and
itself with the surrounding water and re-emerge unharmed.