Land art is a type of art that involves the creation of art using physical landscapes, forcing people to view the art in context, and bringing the provenance of art out of the museum and into the real world. People have been creating works of art with landscapes for centuries, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the modern land art movement took off, when American artists began creating large-scale land works. Modern works of land art can now be found all over the world, sometimes alongside much older works created by people who lived thousands of years ago.
This type of art is also known as Earth art or Earthworks, and it comes in a variety of forms. The Spiral Jetty, for example, is a well-known piece of land art created in 1970 in the Great Salt Lake from a collection of stones, salt, and mud. Robert Smithson sculpted a large jetty in the shape of a spiral that protrudes into the lake’s waters. The Spiral Jetty is meant to be admired rather than used in a practical sense.
Land art often involves reshaping the landscape, as in the case of artworks created by carving into the landscape and moving components around. People can also create land art by adding items to the environment, ranging from imported stones to structures made with locally available materials. It is also possible to use plants to landscape installations. Land artwork is immovable in all cases, but not necessarily unchangeable.
In fact, one of the most significant differences between this type of art and most museum art is that land art is intended to evolve, change, and eventually decay. Some works of art are transient, lasting only a few hours or days, while others are intentionally subjected to erosion and wind to become distorted over time. In the artist’s opinion, part of the appeal of the Earthwork is its evolution.
Many artists meticulously photograph and videotape the creation process in order to preserve a record of their land artwork. Such records are especially important in the case of remote art installations because they allow people to see the art without having to travel. In other cases, the ephemeral nature of the art is part of the point, and no documentation will be created, forcing people to travel to see the art. Some artists believe that physical interaction with land installations is an important part of the viewing experience, and visitors are sometimes even invited to participate in some way.