SEP-Land Art Expo 2020
El Land Art y sus Procesos / Land Art and its Processes
Nature does not proceed in a straight line,
it is rather a sprawling development.
La naturaleza no actúa de manera lineal,
es mas bien un desarrollo descomedido.
ROBERT SMITHSON
[January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973]
was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts.
_After a break from the art world, Smithson reemerged in 1964 as a proponent of the minimalist movement.
_Smithson became affiliated with artists who were identified with the Minimalist or Primary Structures Movement, such as Nancy Holt [whom he married], Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt.
The source of my work is nature.
I use it with respect and freedom.
I use materials, ideas,movement and time to express
a whole view of my art in the world.
La naturaleza es la fuente de mi trabajo.
La utilizo con respeto y libertad.
Utilizo materiales, ideas, movimiento y tiempo
para expresar una vision unida de mi arte en el mundo.
RICHARD LONG
[2 June 1945]
is an English sculptor and one of the best known British land artists.
_Long is the only artist to have been short-listed four times for the Turner Prize. He lives and works in Bristol, the city in which he was born.
_Several of his works were based around walks that he has made, and as well as land based natural sculpture, he uses the mediums of photography, text and maps of the landscape he has walked over. Long has been taking these walks since the mid 60’s
El paisaje intervenido
Land Art es una de las más recientes corrientes artísticas que han contribuido al proceso evolutivo del arte contemporáneo hacia el arte de ideas.
EN EL LAND ART LOS ESPACIOS NATURALES
Y TAMBIÉN LOS PAISAJES ALTERADOS INDUSTRIALMENTE,
SE CONVIERTEN EN MATERIAL DE CONFIGURACIÓN ARTÍSTICA.
Estos efímeros documentos de la presencia humana en lugares no mancillados por el hombre, vacíos, silenciosos, “religiosos” son evidentemente un testimonio de protesta contra la artificiosidad del mundo de la gran ciudad, contra la estética del plástico y del metal en su pulida perfección, pero también contra “el utilitarismo del arte”. Además, los artistas ya no utilizan el paisaje como fondo decorativo de una producción escultural, sino que hacen de la vastedad de los espacios naturales el verdadero objeto artístico. Las mutaciones pueden tener lugar tanto en grandes dimensiones como también en detalles insignificantes; cada gesto mutativo es un factor de gran influencia en la relación entre hombre y entorno. El land art está estrechamente relacionado con el medio televisivo que hace posible la filmación del proceso artístico sobre el terreno y permite que sea reproducible infinidad de veces.
The presentation of the landscape
The vast majority of historians agree that Land Art emerges by the late sixties in the United States and Great Britain. However, not everyone agrees on the reasons that prompted a group of young artists to abandon art galleries and traditional art spaces to work in places far from the great metropolis and directly with natural elements and the landscape. For some, it was a response to “the technological formalism of minimal art”, a reaction to Pop art, or, still more radical, they thought of it as “part of a revolt against painting, sculpture, and the antiformalist trend… which included conceptual art”.
WHAT HAS REMAINED CLEAR FROM THE BEGINNING
IS ITS CLOSE RELATION WITH NATURE,
NOT ONLY IN ROMANTIC OR METAPHYSICAL TERMS,
BUT ALSO IN SYMBOLIC & ECOLOGICAL ONES.
Notwithstanding, changes in the course of forty years of this monumental expression of the plastic arts have been radical. The most important of these has been, precisely, the gradual distancing of natural scenarios to seek urban settings which led to an emphasis on the architectonic, which prompted John Beardsley, one of its most important historians, to recur to definitions such as: “public landscape and urban landscape”. The proposals comprising this project renew the bond with the naturalistic origin of this artistic expression, in decidedly symbolic terms, essentially and manifestly environmental, consonant with a contemporary aesthetical and post-historic trend allowing for greater expressive liberty, far from historicist classifications. The works are a reminder, a call to reflection and a tribute to nature by these renowned artists.
Juan Carlos López
March 2009
DHARA RIVERA
Born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, in 1952 Dhara Rivera holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico (1971) and another in Sculpture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (1980). After put-suing independent studies at the Whitney Museum American Art in New York (1981), Ms. Rivera obtained a Master’s Degree in Plastic Arts with a major in Sculpture from Hunter College, New York (1983). The artist’s track record includes individual and collective exhibitions shit e 1977 with awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for the Arts (2000) and Premio Casa Candina, along with participants Carlos Collazo and Adriana Mangual (First Biennial of Contemporary Puerto Rican Ceramics, 1988). She represented Puerto Rico in the Biennial at Havana, Cuba (2000) and at international art fairs such as ARC O in Spain (1977). Ms. Rivera’s most recent works explore the dichotomy between exterior and intimate spaces, between liberties and limits, and the ambiguities between reality and imagination. The artist playfully combines an array of elements which yield hybrids made up of a multiplicin of references.
RAFAEL TRELLES
Mr. Trelles holds a Bachelor’s degree in Plastic Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, pursued graduate studies at the Academia San Carlos, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, and was a disciple of the Catalan painter, Julio Llort. Always active within the artistic community in his multiple places of residence, the artist founded the group Delfin del Cielo in the Canary Islands, where he also created his series of paintings known as El tarot del universo. While in Mexico, he was founder and member of La iguana marina. In Puerto Rico, El affil is the testimony of his involvement in the artistic community. With individual and collective exhibitions in Puerto Rico, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Cuba, Spain, Italy, France, Slovenia, and Germany his works are part of the collections of Puerto Rico’s most important museums: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce, and Museo de Arte Contempordneo. An artist of multiple talents and interests, Mr. Trelles also engages in sculpture, installations, performances, stage design, costume design, art-in-the-streets and other experimental works. His work is nourished by dreams and fantastic elements, coupled with impressions related to magic realism and references to literature and mythology; never undermining a strong social and political awareness.
En concreto, grafica urbana is a project the artist has been working on since 2004 with proposals delivered in Puerto Rico (San Juan, Mayagilez, Ponce, and Vieques) and, last year, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In this work, a hand-cut plastic stencil or template containing a graphic design is placed over a grime-blackened concrete surface. Then, with the use of a high-pressure-hose, the design is unveiled. In 2004, the International Association of Art Critics, Puerto Rico Chapter, awarded the artist the prize for the best exhibition of the year on contemporary media for the second time; the first award in 1991 was for his work Visitas a “El velorio” (Homage to Francisco Oiler), Museum of the University of Puerto Rico. Other entities granting the artista acknowlegment and awards include: the literary review Sin Nombre, Fondo Nacional para el Financiamiento del Quehacer Cultural de Puerto Rico and the Asociacion Puertrtorriqueña de Artistas Plásticos, affiliated to UNESCO.
