Super-Space for an Artificial Paradise: Land Art

Abstract

Appropriately, Lea Vergine’s paean to Land art was published in an architectural magazine in 1972, the era of the megastructure, making explicit the possible beneficial influence that this new artform might have for architectural and urban design. She is interested in the ecological aspects of Land art as it relates to natural structures and systems, and in addition to a survey of work of the leading American practitioners, Vergine introduces parallel initiatives in Europe.

Keywords:

• Land art
• Renato Bazzoni
• Walter De Maria
• Gillo Dorfles
• Michael Heizer
• Livio Marzot
• Eliseo Mattiacci
• Germano Olivotto
• Luca Patella
• Gianni Pisani
• Pierre Restany
• Gerry Schum
• Robert Smithson
• Ettore Sottsass

Notes

1 See “Urbanistica e pop art” [“Urban Planning and Pop Art”], L’Architettura, 189, XVII, no. 3 (1971).

2 Translator’s note: the work in question is likely to be part of Heizer’s 1968 “Nine Nevada Depressions” series.

3 Translator’s note: the original title of this 1972 article is “Geometrie dei campi. Per una lettura del paesaggio agrario”.

4 Translator’s note: Dorfles describes the ‘plein air’ work as ‘vissuto e ricreato’ (‘lived and revived’) as opposed to ‘malamente imitato e co-piazzato’ (‘poorly imitated and co-situated’) thus emphasising the idea of truly experiencing the artwork.

5 Translator’s note: the source text almost always uses the impersonal third person singular form when referring to ‘the artist’. Coupled with the fact that Vergine cites some woman artists in this article, it was therefore deemed appropriate to use the ungendered ‘they’ in the target text when referring to artists in general.

6 Translator’s note: This interpretation as the ‘spazialismo’ movement is justified for two reasons: the term has a single official meaning in Italian, and such works are aesthetically similar to Land art (with the key, ‘maniacal’, difference in scale) in the use of gashes, holes, etc. As with ‘arte programmata’, this term has been left in Italian to highlight its ties to Italian culture.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lea Vergine

Translated from Italian by Madeline Robinson

Originally published as “Superspazio per un Paradiso Artificiale: La Land-Art,” in L’Architettura - cronache e storia, 203, XVIII, No. 5 (1972): 334–337.