Studied by 9 people“This is not the Milky Way” Hans Haacke, 1960
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“A7 61” Hans Haacke, 1961
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“Wave” Hans Haacke, 1964
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“Condensation Cube” Hans Haacke, 1963
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Haacke’s interest in closed physical systems, biological growth and random movements manifested itself in works such as “Condensation Cube” which was essentially a moisture-filled Plexiglas container whose appearance altered constantly in relation to its environment. This piece is a glass cube that contains a small amount of water. Based on the location of the piece, the water will evaporate and then create condensation on the walls of the cube. The look of the artwork is very dependent on the external factors around it (Site Specific). This includes the climate of the area the museum is located in, the room, and the amount of people in the room that create the condensation, which ultimately creates the meaningfulness of the work. Haacke is challenging the Fine Art Idea - That art is autonomous and unrelating to everything around it - by having the external factors literally alter the work.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ?
“Gallery-Goers: Birthplace and Residence Profile” Hans Haacke, 1969
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In this installation, Haacke invited viewers to mark their birthplaces and places of residence on a map. Questioning the statistical demography of the Gallery’s avant-garde attendees, the exhibition anticipated the meticulous sociological character of much of his practice to come, grounding New York art - the center of the art world - in local, social, and economic fabrics. This survey exhibition provided a chance to reflect on the artist’s presience, especially given the flourishing of art activism over the last 5-10 years. The installation gives a “model of how to live ethically and empathetically in the world today” and is a beacon of light amidst the “extreme political and economic uncertainty” of the present.
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“Besucher-Profile (Visitor Profile) Documenta” Hans Haacke, 1972
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This was a complete set of questionnaires with 20 questions delivered by Carl Andre, Hans Haacke, Nancy Holt, Laurie James, Brenda Miller and Mary Obering. The visitors of the John Weber Gallery were requested to complete a questionnaire, 10 of which inquired about their demographic background and the other 10 relating to the visitors’ opinions on sociopolitical issues. They were either multiple choice questions or had to be answered by writing in a figure or a word. The questionnaires were provided, with pencils, in two file trays on either end of the long table situated in the gallery. The completed forms were to be dropped into a wooden box with a slit in the top. Throughout the exhibition intermediate results of the survey were posted on the nearby wall.
858 questionnaires were completed during the 13 days of the exhibition. Since the total number of visitors is unknown, the ratio of participation cannot be ascertained. It is open to speculation whether nonparticipating visitors differed essentially in their demographic backgrounds and opinions. The results of the survey are only a representation of the 858 who have completed the questionnaire. For these however, it is a full representation and profile not based on samplings. It cannot claim to give a picture of all of the visitors of the Gallery, of the public of other galleries, or the art public at large.
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“News” Hans Haacke, 1970
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This type-writer machine is an art installation as commentary on the vast amount of information - and disinformation - being generated during the Vietnam war. The news shifted public opinion, and as it gathered beneath the printer so did it accumulate in the public consciousness, often becoming almost too much to digest.
Haacke had not intended for his teletype machine to be an artifact - it was modern technology when he first installed it, in 1969. As the machine chatters away at the museum, it is both a source of irritation to some of the staffers collecting tickets and a legitimate source of news - it is connected to multiple news services, from the NYT to FOX. Visitors are encouraged to wade into the billowing paper and discover the latest stories as they roll in. To read even a few of them is to realize that life has always gone on no matter what “the news” has to say about it.
FEEDBACK: Positive - Haacke invites the viewers to read the news stories as the come in, as a way of showing them how the world moves on no matter what the news makes the public feel. He is suggesting this by having the viewer (who is in a museum most likely on their own time) read stories of tragedies or even the latest holiday recipes - to show the influence that news has on us when it finds us.
“MoMA Poll” Hans Haacke, 1970
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Haacke created a poll in the MOMA questioning the viewers about their political opinions regarding Governor Nelson Rockefeller's support of the Vietnam War. This piece required the viewers to write their answers to the posted question on a card and drop it into the correlating side. The look and outcome of the artwork was heavily dependent on the viewer and their culture/beliefs. This also challenged the Fine Art Idea, but showing the importance of human interaction with art by allowing their culture to impact the look of the work.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This project was actively impacting the social-political standpoint of the museum and its funders.
“Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings; A Real Time Social System as of May 1, 1971” Hans Haacke, 1971
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The Shapolsky group was a collective of corporations. Haacke gathered 146 photos, descriptions, owners, and other details about the properties all owned by Shapolsky - a group that was considered one of the biggest slumlords and profiteers of Manhattan. The museum cancelled Haacke's exhibit just two weeks before showing because the board of trustees did not consider this piece "art." However, it was later revealed the trustees cancelled the show because of his piece being involved in attacking the corporations - which would ultimately rely on if the viewer actually saw it that way.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This piece was calling attention to the amount of retail a single corporation is able to control, as well as the financial fraudulent activities the corporation was involved in.
“Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum Board of Trustees” Hans Haacke, 1971
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This work included extensive research regarding the Guggenheim board members' investments in mining companies in third-world countries with right-wing dictatorships. It was later revealed in 1973 that a US-backed coup in Chile was led by General Augusto Pinochet which resulted in the murder of the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. The president had nationalized the properties of the Kennecott Copper Corporation, on whose board sat three of the Guggenheim museums trustees.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - These documents of extensive background research revealed the international activities that the board members were involved in. This included the backing of Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile.
“Where are the Detained-Disappeared” Arpilleristas, 2000
“Communal Kitchen” Arpilleristas, 2010
“No More Torture” Arpilleristas, 1970s
CONTEXT: During the 1970s, Chileans were facing human rights violations after Pinochet had taken over as dictator. Groups of women would gather in secret to create Arpilleras - a brightly colored, patchwork picture made by Aprilleristas. These Arpilleras were made with the intent to be smuggled out of the country to bring awareness to their situation. The patchwork pictures would often include fabric from lost/missing loved ones to show the brutality citizens faced during the dictatorship. In this piece, a female figure is shown holding a sign, protesting the CNI (Chilean FBI) using torture methods. The viewer could lift a cloth to reveal a naked doll being restrained while a figure connects live wires to her genitals.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This work was heavily calling attention to the torture and abuse the citizens of Chile were facing during the dictatorship.
“O’Higgin’s Workshop” Arpilleristas, Unknown
“Prison-Unknown” Arpilleristas, 1970s
“Here They Torture” Arpilleristas, 1970s
“untitled” Arpilleristas, 1970s
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During the 1970s, Chileans were facing human rights violations after Pinochet had taken over as dictator. Groups of women would gather in secret to create Arpilleras - a brightly colored, patchwork picture made by Aprilleristas. These Arpilleras were made with the intent to be smuggled out of the country to bring awareness to their situation. The patchwork pictures would often include fabric from lost/missing loved ones to show the brutality citizens faced during the dictatorship. In this piece, Chile captives are being held and possibly tortured in CNI (Chile FBI) tents.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This piece is actively calling attention to the political unrest happening in the Chilean government, and the torture the Citizens are experiencing.
“Coca-Cola Bottles Project: Insertions into Ideological Circuits” Cildo Meireles, 1970
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This project (and series) arose out of the need to create a system for the circulation and exchange of information that did not depend on any kind of centralized control. During this time, Brazil was undergoing the most oppressive period of its twenty-one year government by military dictatorship. Meireles stamped texts from a journalist (who had recently died in police custody) onto glass Coca-Cola bottles and then entered them back into circulation. The message could only be read when the bottles were full of liquid, as the messages were stamped in white. He chose Coca-Cola bottles because they were a form of Capitalist Corporation, which was not controlled or regulated by the government. These bottles caused the viewer to become a part of the outreach.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - These bottles were actively bringing awareness to society about the political unrest due to the dictatorship in Brazil.
“Cedulla/Currency Project: Insertions into Ideological Circuits” Cildo Meireles, 1970
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Similar to his Coca-Cola project, this project arose from the mass oppression being experienced in Brazil. Meireles stamped dollar bills with messages and opinions about the political conflicts happening. He then sent the money back into circulation in hopes citizens would find and read them. This forced the viewer to become a part of the outreach. Differently from his Coca-Cola bottle project, Meireles chose to stamp dollar bills because they were more commonly used on a day-to-day basis, and most likely would have a wider reach than soda bottles.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This project was projecting political issues into the public eye, ultimately bringing attention and trying to change the issue.
“We Believe in the Power of Creative Imagination” Hans Haacke, 1980
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“Creating Consent” Hans Haacke, 1981
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“Creating Consent” strives to reveal the sponsorship strategies that lead to misappropriation of information and instrumentalization. This installation consists of a Mobil brand oil barrel on which a television antenna is placed. It bears the inscriptions: “We spent $102 million last year in advertising. We just want to be heard. Rawleigh Warner Jr. Chairman.” Hans Haacke refuses any formal signature by choosing to divert manufactured materials which will be the support of his critical remarks. In this case, he highlights the programs on the PBS channel in exchange for advertising space. During the first exhibition of the work, the artist accompanied it with a text quoting Herb Schmerz, Vice-President of the “business committe” of the Metropolitan Museum and one of the directors of Mobil: “I am in effect, the manager of a permanent political campaign… We are constantly out there, trying to win more votes for our positions. This requires a visible and articulate presence, not only in the economic market, but also in the market of politics and ideas.”
FEEDBACK: Positive - Haacke brings attention to the capitalist ways in which Mobil oil tries to promote its product even though they are an already-successful company whose business is so powerful it has been a part to drive our world into a 6th Grade Ma
“Homage to Broodhaers” Hans Haacke, 1982
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“Isolation Box” Hans Haacke, 1983
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This installation was an eight-foot high unpainted wooden cube, with narrow slits near the top, small ventilation holes.
In large stenciled letters on one of the sides, the words: “ISOLATION BOX AS USED BY U.S. TROOPS AT POINT SALINES PRISON CAMP IN GRENADA.”
The crucial element in Haacke’s box is the imaginary human being inside. The sculpture becomes a radical work of art addressing the entire misadventure in Grenada. David Shribman reported in the New York Times, November 17th, 1983, that the U.S. troops that had invaded Grenada detained prisoners in box-like isolation chambers at the Point Salines airport. The wood boxes measured approximately eight by eight feet, had four small windows so high that one could see neither in nor out, and had a number of ventilation holes with a radius of half an inch. The prisoners were forced to enter these boxes by crawling through a hatch that extended from the floor to about knee-level. Inside one box, a prisoner had written: “It’s hot in here.”
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“Metromobilitan” Hans Haacke, 1984
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With the title combining the "Metropolitan Museum of Art" and "Mobil" oil company names, this piece visually does that as well. Haacke is highlighting the ethical position of a multinational oil corporation that is desperate to clean its name of it's economical and environmental activities by supporting cultural events, and the art institutions that depend on it for funding.
The banners in the front display the MET and Exon's ideals, and are meant to shadow the photograph of three kids being buried during the apartheid. When Germany colonized South Africa, they had more rights than Africans that led to a genocide.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive -
“To the Population” Hans Haacke, 2000
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The title of this work refers to the historic inscription "Dem Deutschen Volke" ("To the German People") that was affixed to the Reichstag building in 1916. Haacke wanted to distinguish the difference in meaning between "volk" (people) and "bevolkerung" (population). This is referring to the Nazi's ideal of wanting to create a better Germany. This also connects to the Nazi slogan: "blood and soil" in which the soil was the dirt brought in and the blood was the hands of the parliament people who brought it.
The soil transformed the interior courtyard of the German capitol building and is dedicated to the population. Around 500 sectors each brought in two bags of dirt to contribute. The plants grow from seeds that have landed by chance on the work or that were contained in the soil when extracted.
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“Wrapped Reichstag” Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 1971
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After a struggle spanning the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the wrapping of the Reichstag was completed on June 24th, 1995 by a work force of 90 professional climbers and 120 installation workers. The Reichstag remained wrapped for 14 days and all materials were recycled.
100,000 square meters (1,076,390 square feet) of thick woven polypropylene fabric with an aluminium surface and 15.6 kilometers (9.7 miles) of blue polypropylene rope, diameter 3.2 cm (1.26 inches), were used for the wrapping of the Reichstag. The façades, the towers and the roof were covered by 70 tailor-made fabric panels, twice as much fabric as the surface of the building.The work of art was entirely financed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, as have all of their projects, through the sale of preparatory studies, drawings, collages, scale models as well as early works and original lithographs. The artists did not accept sponsorship of any kind.
The Wrapped Reichstag represents not only 24 years of efforts in the lives of the artists, but also years of team work by its leading members Michael S. Cullen, Wolfgang and Sylvia Volz, and Roland Specker. The Reichstag stands up in an open, strangely metaphysical area. The building has experienced its own continuous changes and perturbations: built in 1894, burned in 1933, almost destroyed in 1945, it was restored in the 60s, but the Reichstag always remained the symbol of the Democracy.
FEEDBACK: ?
“The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration” Will Steffen, 2015
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The “Great Acceleration” graphs, originally published in 2004, show socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2010. In the graphs, where the data permit, the activity of wealthy (OECD) countries, those countries with emerging economies, and the rest of the world have now been differentiated. The dominant feature of the socio-economic trends is that the economic activity of the human enterprise continues to grow at a rapid rate. However, the differentiated graphs clearly show that strong equity issues are masked by considering global aggregates only. Most of the population growth since 1950 has been in the non-OECD world, but the world’s economy (GDP), and hence consumption, is still strongly dominated by the OECD world. The Earth System indicators, in general, continued their long-term, post-industrial rise, although a few, such as atmospheric methane concentration and stratospheric ozone loss, showed a slowing or apparent stabilization over the past decade. The post-1950 acceleration in the Earth System indicators remains clear. Only beyond the mid-20th century is there clear evidence for fundamental shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth System that are beyond the range of candidates for a start date for the Anthropocene, the beginning of the Great Acceleration is by far the most convincing from an Earth System science perspective.
FEEDBACK: Positive -
“Cliffs of the Upper Colorado River, Wyoming Territory” Thomas Moran, 1882
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Thomas Moran knew from his first sight of the Green River (also called the Upper Colorado), that he had found an ideal theme for the East Coast art market. The town of Green River was a rowdy settlement tucked into a valley between sandstone bluffs. It has popped up overnight as the Union Pacific Railroad stretched across the continent. By 1882, the West was largely settled, but banks and laundry houses did not offer a romantic scene, so Moran painted the valley as he imagined it looked when Indians rode there. Such vividly colored western scenes proved to be a bonanza for the Union Pacific’s chief rival, the Northern Pacific Railroad. Jay Cooke, the Philadelphia financier who owned the Northern Pacific, kept Moran on retainer for several years, generating nostalgic images that helped to draw thousands of greenhorns out to the farthest stops on his railroad.
“Time Landscape” Alan Sonfist, 1970s
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This is a landscape artwork by American artist, Alan Sonfist. It consists of plants that were native to the New York City area in pre-colonial times. Those planted were replanted here until 1978, on a rectangular plot of 25’ x 40’ situated in lower Manhattan at the northeast corner of La Guardia Place and West Houston Street. Sonfist elaborates later on in a lecture on his lifelong commitment to creating ancient landscapes such as Time Landscape.
“Public monuments traditionally have celebrated events in human history - acts of heroism important to the human community. Increasingly, as we come to understand our dependencies on nature, the concept of community expands to include non-human elements. Civic monuments, then, should honor and celebrate the life and acts of the total community, the human ecosystem, including natural phenomena such as rivers, springs, and natural outcroppings needs to be remembered. Climate change has been an evolving crisis in our society, and my art exposes the gravity of the issues. Each of my artworks echoes an understanding of the fragility of our environment.”
FEEDBACK: Positive -
“Pool of Virgin Earth” Alan Sonfist, 1975
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In the range of Sonfist’s work, he recreates the inventiveness and intricacy of his subject, the natural world itself. Beginning as a teenager in the 1960s, Sonfist has explored issues of ecological deterioration, preservation, and what would later be understood as “Climate Change” through projects that draw on the materials and methods of the naturalist, historian, and urban planner. An increasing rejection of commercialization and growing ecological awareness in the early 1960s provide the historical context for many of the themes in his work and connect him to artistic movements such as Conceptual Art, Land or Environmental Art, and Site-Specific works. But Sonfist’s distinctive interest in urban ecosystems - a result of his upbringing in New York City’s South Bronx - is one of the features that distinguishes him from other artists who use natural elements and processes as their artistic medium. Rather than excluding human history from his pieces, Sonfist is deeply attentive to the many specific histories of a given site, often juxtaposing them to powerful effect.
In this project, Sonfist created a sealed clay pool filled with virgin earth. However, this was no ordinary site - it is sitting on top of toxic soul in Lewiston, New York. The wind blew the seeds naturally from the surrounding environment into the divot and the pool developed into a small oasis of the natural habitat. Eventually, the park system used this method to cover the entire site.
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“New York Earth Room” Walter de Maria, 1977
CONTEXT: This piece was one of the many pieces that aimed at exploring the links between art and the natural environment. Soil is living but dirt is dead, which was the dilemma NYC was facing with bad soil - leading to less crops and more reliance on imported goods which raised the prices of food.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This work was not trying to change the problem NYC was facing in soil degradation, and instead was coming up with ways to sustain capitalism.
“Survival Series” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
CONTEXT: Made under the assumption that Capitalism would collapse and is showing different methods of farming/harvesting/water purification that could sustain life. This was showing solutions to the growing food problem (overconsumption/supply-demand issues) in urban settings by showing urbanization was not the issue.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - These works were trying to solve an acute situation without changing or bringing attention to the bigger issue.
“Hog Pasture” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1970
-Survival Piece 1
“Notations on the Ecosystem of the Western Salt Works (Brine Shrimp)” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
-Survival Piece 2
“Portable Fish Farm” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
Survival Piece 3
“Portable Orchard” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
Survival Piece 5
“Portable Farm” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
Survival Piece 6
“Crab Farm” Helen & Newton Harrison, 1971
Survival Piece 7
“Wheatfield - A Confrontation” Agnes Denes, 1982
CONTEXT: In response to the growing conflict relating to the rapidly depleting United States food source in urbanized areas. The artist bought plots of land with soil damaged from urbanization, and grew wheat on them. This artwork was then harvested and shown in 28 different places. Viewers were allowed to take wheat seeds and plant them where they desired.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This artwork was a negative feedback loop because it was suggesting sustainable urban planning, that further suggested things were fine as they were.
“7000 Oaks” Joseph Bueys, 1982
CONTEXT:
This project began in 1982 at Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. His plan called for the planting of 7,000 trees - each paired with a columnar basalt stone approximately four feet high and positioned above ground - throughout the greater city of Kassel. With major support from Dia Art Foundation, the project was carried forward under the auspices of the Free International University and took five years to complete; the last tree was planted at the opening of Documenta 8 in 1987. Beuys intended for the Kassel project to be the first stage in an ongoing scheme of tree planting that would extend throughout the world as part of a global mission to spark environmental change. Locally, the action was a gesture towards urban renewal.
In 1988 Dia installed five basalt stone columns paired with five trees outside 548 West 22nd Street, expanding the project to New York City. In 1996, Dia extended the installation by planting twenty-five new trees, each paired with a basalt stone, along West 22nd Street between 10th and 11th avenues. At this time, Dia also added seven stones next to preexisting trees, bringing the project’s total to thirty-seven pairings. Coinciding with the renovation of Dia Chelsea in 2020-21, one more pair was added, bringing the total to thirty-eight.
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“Revival Field” Mel Chin, 1990
CONTEXT: This site was created with the intent of sculpting the site's ecology. The site is located at Pig's Eye Landfill, which was a state-funded site in St. Paul Minnesota. It was a replicated field test using special hyperaccumulator plants ( plants can suck up so much metal that the plant itself was 20-40% metal when ashed) to extract heavy metals from the contaminated soil.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - The plants were successful in extracting heavy metals from contaminated soil, but it was not shedding light on or changing the bigger problem -> the polluters.
“Rhine Water Purification Plant” Hans Haacke, 1972
CONTEXT: This piece displays the Krefeld Sewage Plant's murky discharge that was slowly deteriorating the water quality in the Rhine River; even after it had been "officially" cleaned. The work included a shallow glass cube filled with "purified" Rhine River water that was sent through secondary filtration. Off to the side sits jugs of contaminated water.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This was showing that there was no need to change the issue at hand by offering a solution to clean the water instead of stopping the pollution at the source. It is ultimately sustaining capitalism by indicating that the culprit has no responsibility to change.
“Krefeld Sewage Triptych” Hans Haacke, 1972
CONTEXT:
This work was installed in the same room as the “Rhine Water Purification Plant” which was an acrylic container with purified water and goldfish. This triptych incorporated the names or major contributors to local river pollution and formed a “real-time social system” demonstrating the reasons for the degraded ecosystem and alerting the public to such abuses. Natural processes inspired Haacke to see art as a social system that cannot exist behind museum walls autonomously from life.
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“Umbrella Project” Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 1991
CONTEXT: Placed on a hillside in California, this large display of umbrellas was funded by large oil companies as a marketing scheme to show their celebration of nature. However, to be able to view this artwork, you had to be driving in a car on the highway - which was encouraging sustainable development.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This work was only viewable via a car on the highway, which was sustaining capitalism by using the gas/oil these companies sold to see the art.
“Greenpeace’s Response to 1992 Earth Summit” ?, 1992
CONTEXT:
The United Nations sold out the southern hemisphere for resource exploitation. The meeting was for sustainable capitalism not sustainable Earth. This posed a social justice argument, not just an ecological argument. The Northern Hemisphere sold out the Southern Hemisphere.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - Greenpeace's response to the 92 Earth Summit was a positive feedback loop because it argued that sustainable development does not mean sustainable life - it is capitalism Greenwashing.
“The Lightning Field” Walter De Maria, 1977
CONTEXT:
This is a work of Land Art situated in a remote area of the high desert of Western New Mexico. It is comprised of 400 polished stainless-steel poles installed in a grid array measuring one mile by one kilometer. The poles - two inches in diameter and averaging 20 feet, 7.5 inches in height - are spaced 220 feet apart and have solid, pointed tips that define a horizontal plane. A sculpture to be walked in as well as viewed, the installation is intended to be experienced over an extended period of time. A full experience of The Lighting Field does not depend upon the occurrence of lightning, and visitors are encouraged to spend as much time as possible in the field, especially during sunset and sunrise. In order to provide this opportunity, the museum offers overnight visits during the months of May through October.
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“Las Vegas Piece” Walter de Maria, 1968
CONTEXT:
Made in 1969, Walter created a large, simple etching on the earth, made with four shallow cuts into the earth from the six-foot blade of a bulldozer. Two were one mile long, two were half a mile long. These cuts came together to form a square, with the half mile lines extending from it. To even view this project, visitors have to drive about 2-3 hours into the valley with very minimal surrounding landmarks - or life. The sculpture is located about 20 minutes off the road and is barely visible and often missed.
“Spiral Jetty at the Getty Salt Lake in Utah” Robert Smithson, 1970
CONTEXT:
Spiral Jetty is an earthwork sculpture that was constructed in April 1970. Smithson documented the construction of this project in a 32-minute color film also titled “Spiral Jetty.” Built on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah entirely of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks. It forms a 1,500 foot-long and 15 foot-wide counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. Depending on the water level of the Great Salt Lake, the sculpture is sometimes visible and sometimes submerged. Smithson chose the Rozel Point site based on the blood-red color of the water and its connection with the primordial sea. The red hue of the water is due to the presence of salt-tolerant bacteria and algae that thrive in the extreme 27 salinity of the lake’s north arm, which was isolated from freshwater sources by the building of a causeway in 1959. He was attracted to the stark anti-pastoral beauty and industrial remnants from nearby Golden Spike National Historic Site, as well as an old pier and a few unused oil rigs.
The film that documented the construction of this earth-work combines Smithson’s interests in geology, paleontology, astronomy, mythology and cinema - which he stated that he had an interest in documenting the earth’s history. In conjunction with filmed sequences of the jetty, Smithson incorporates footage of dinosaurs in a natural history museum and the ripped pages from a history text. During this scene, Smithson refers to the institution's history. Both the physical installation and the documentary film are described as Smithson’s attempt to “leave the viewer with a sense that the monumental artwork is connected is connected to a vast mental landscape of meanings and associations.”
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“Double Negative” Michael Heizer, 1969
CONTEXT:
This work consists of two trenches cut into the eastern edge of the Mormon Mesa, Nevada. The trenches line up across a large gap formed by the natural shape of the mesa edge. This was a reference to the excavation/mining industry leaving their sites (usually large holes or high walls) after they have finished extracting. However, Heizer was challenging this argument by showing that just like abandoned mining sites, the earth has similar sites that occur due to erosion.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This piece was opposing the argument that abandoned mining sites are unnatural by showing that nature creates them too through erosion. This is ultimately not changing the problem - mining companies.
“Circular Surface Planar: Displacement Drawing” Michael Heizer, 1970
CONTEXT:
The concept of wilderness is "land untouched by man," due to the area's extensice primitive and roadless qualities. In the 70s, there was a ban on usage of motorized vehicles in wildlife/wilderness areas. It wasn't until 1971 that deserts became a part of that ban. In response, Heizer used his motorcycle to create art and experience nature through off-road vehicles in Jean Dry Lake, Nevada.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This was a misguided negative feedback loop, and suggested that we are fine the way we are; motorized vehicles in nature.
“Walking a Line in Peru” Richard Long, 1971
CONTEXT:
Richard Long used public wilderness land as an opportunity to return to nature's primitive presence and spirit beyond urban industrialization. He walked the same path, every day, for a year.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ???
“Line of Lake Stones” Richard Long, 1984
CONTEXT:
Richard Long collected stones from trails in Turin, Italy. Stones look "out of place" because of the man-made elements around it that in our culture, seem "normal." His earthworks are a representation of the cultured sense of nature he had.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This work was misguided, as the artist had a culturally driven sense of nature. The artist removed material from the "wilderness" which was similar to what excavation companies do.
“Circle in Alaska” Richard Long, 1977
CONTEXT:
Long's earthworks were often an attempt to show the relevance of remote parts of the world. Long romanticized the "wilderness" that actually has been touched by mankind - the indigenous. The indigenous were being disregarded because the nature of the word "wilderness" dismisses the involvement of how we treated those who are initially inhabiting the land, despite their effect on their surrounding environment.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This artwork is highlighting the concept of "wilderness" but ignoring the oppression that the people who once lived in that "wilderness" faced.
“Arctic Circle” Rasheed Araeen, 1983
CONTEXT:
This piece was created in response to Richard Long's "Circle in Alaska" (1977). It makes commentary on the rates of alcoholism amongst natives. This work was a deconstructive way of exposing dark matter that has been normalized.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This piece was actively calling out the negligence of society to forget about the oppression indigenous people faced.
“sHell No!” Seattle Demonstration, 2015
CONTEXT:
On May 16th, 2015, hundreds of activists decked out in neoprene wetsuits and life jackets took to the waters of Elliot Bay. In kayaks, canoes, paddleboards and other vessels, they sent the message that Royal Dutch Shell should cancel its plan to drill in the Arctic Ocean. The activists participating in “sHell No!” were demonstrating just blocks away from where Shell’s Polar Pioneer drilling rig was docked at the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5. The brightly colored boats lined the grass as paddlers loaded gear while lights on the towering rig twinkled in the background.
Once out on the water, kayakers gathered in formation and hoisted signs and banners that read: “Climate Justice”, “Oil-Free Future”, “sHell No! Seattle Draws the Line”, and “We can’t burn all the oil on the planet and still live on it”. Many had posters or red scarfs that had the Shell logo with crossed kayak paddles underneath - resembling the skull-and-crossbones image that usually symbolizes death or danger.
At the center of the paddle protest was the “People’s Platform” that was a 4,000 square-foot barge powered by renewable energy. The platform was used as a stage for speakers, a band and a tall screen that showed images of people expressing their opposition to Shell’s plans.
FEEDBACK: Positive -
“Pine Barrens NJ Nonsite” Robert Smithson, 1968
CONTEXT:
Like many of his non-sites, Smithson focuses on these earth works in the post-industrial landscape, entropy, and paradox. This installation contained both a map and a container that housed the earth or industrial materials that he brought back from the site he had visited. He thought of the non-sites as “an absence of site” referring to the geographical place where he gathered these materials. Smithson wanted to confound the viewer’s perception by constructing a dialectic that referred simultaneously to the indoor gallery space where the work is exhibited and the outdoor site from where he collected the material.
This specific non-site was the first of
“Franklin NJ Nonsite” Robert Smithson, 1968
CONTEXT:
This was the third work of this type that Smithson created. It touches upon an unlikely range of themes including time-travel, geology, the American highway system, big business, a hobby pursued by rock hounds, and growing up in New Jersey. Smithson’s sculptures and photographs have frequently been discussed in terms of his interest in futuristic science fiction novels, whether applicable or not. This Nonsite, originating in a short day trip to Franklin, New Jersey, instead thrusts gallerygoers backwards, to an earlier period when railroad tracks ran directly to the once thriving quarry which Smithson journeyed with colleagues. After transporting tons of zinc and iron ore from there (to be used for industrial purposes), trains to this site ceased operations after World War II; the tracks were only removed in 1966. If you go to Franklin today, the two-lane, undivided road that brings you there looks much like the way it did on June 14th, 1968, when Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Michael Heizer drove to the Franklin Mineral Museum.
Smithson went to Franklin for a number of reasons. Chief among them was the access to the abundance of broken rock. He also was pleased that he would be finding minerals that, when placed under ultraviolet light, glowed either red (calcite) or green (willemite). Even though what he assembled would never be exhibited in a way that would reveal their true natures - a mercury vapor type lamp would be needed to achieve that - he was aware that he was approximating a palette associated with Impressionism. 25 black and white prints framed together as one unit occasionally accompany the bins and the other photograph. These images feature piles of rocks and a cave entrance. And, below the segmented “map” of Franklin, Smithson included an explanatory text. He itemized the dimensions of each container and mentioned that more than 140 minerals could be found at the former quarry.
FEEDBACK:
“Line of Wreckage Nonsite” Robert Smithson, 1968
CONTEXT:
“Mono Lake Nonsite” Robert Smithson, 1968
CONTEXT:
Mono Lake is an artwork that looks at the ways artists have addressed and represented the landscape. Many of the selected works are made with earthen materials such clay and tar, sticks and soil'; others focus on the natural resources that constitute our environment. The exhibition explores how in the late 1960s artists began siting their sculptures, installations, and performances outdoors, engaging with the natural world in contrast to the space of the gallery. These works of land art varied from minimal and ephemeral gestures in the landscapes to large movements of the earth.
Mono Lake Nonsite (Cinders Near Black Point) comprises two parts: a steel container holding cinders collected from near Black Point, Mono Lake and a map photostat. Mono Lake is an ancient saline lake located in Mono County, California. In his 1968 essay, A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites, Smithson opens his text by stating “By drawing a diagram, a ground plan of a house, a street plan to the location of a site, or a topographic map, one draws a ‘logical two dimensional picture’. A ‘logical picture’ differs from a natural or realistic picture in that it rarely looks like the thing it stands for. It is a two dimensional analogy or metaphor - A to Z.” He continues to describe that a nonsite is “an indoor earthwork […] a three dimensional logical picture that is abstract yet it represents an actual site”.
FEEDBACK:
“Cayuga Salt Mines Nonsite” Robert Smithson, 1989
CONTEXT:
Smithson began a conceptual series that bridged outdoors (perception) and indoors (abstraction). In this piece he wanted to show his love for both geological and technological corrosion. However, to create this work, he actively extracted from a mining site and transported the untransformed material to an external site to be displayed and marketed to others... just like oil companies do.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This work suggests that Smithson was a part of the mining industry himself. It did not bring attention to or change the problem at hand - the bigger mining corporations that left behind unwanted material that polluted the environment around it.
“Glue Pour” Robert Smithson, 1969
CONTEXT:
This piece was a type of process art. As the glue was poured down the slope, it began to seep into the earth around it. Some believe this was a reference to the "yellow water" that is created by rainwater runoff from tailing mounds. Others believe it is a reference to oil spills. This work was celebrated as a type of displacement.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This work was just displaying the problem, not holding the culprit responsible or fixing it.
“Miami Islet Proposals” Richard Smithson, 1970
CONTEXT:
In the beginning, Smithson was searching for small islets to create an artistic scene on. He found a volcanically created islet off of the coast of Miami, and began drawing plans for his first proposal, "Broken Glass Island." This island would embody its name - an island covered in broken glass. The idea was to return the glass into its original state; sand. The public was very opposed to this idea, thus causing Smithson to change his proposal to "Concrete Island." This art would also embody its name - an island with concrete ruins where wildlife and nature is allowed to reclaim it. By the end, the proposals made it seem less about nature itself and more about how we view nature.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - The concept of the art lost its meaning. The proposals began to seem less about nature itself and more about how we culturally view nature.
“Island of Broken Glass” Robert Smithson, 1969
CONTEXT:
In the winter of 1970, Smithson had all of the approvals in place to create a massive art work by covering a small, rocky island near Nanaimo with 90 tonnes of broken glass. At the time, Smithson was one of the era’s most influential and innovative artists. Known for working with earth and glass, Smithson was in the process of making his art much bigger and moving it from indoor galleries to outdoor landscapes. Douglas Christmas, an influential local art dealer who knew and worked with Smithson, ran the Douglas Gallery which had been renamed “The Ace” after his gallery in Los Angeles. Christmas said that the provincial government had already given them permission to use Miami Islet, a treeless patch of pumice in Stuart Channel, a few kilometres south of Nanaimo. Smithson wanted to change the public outlook on the “ugly islet” by taking tonnes of broken glass with a greenish tinge and transporting it onto the island. He planned to have a crane place the glass on the island and then use a crowbar to work with it. Over time, the broken glass would return to its natural state after being eroded into tiny pieces - sand.
Then, the story was published to the public. Everything had changed in the following week. By Tuesday, the provincial government sent a telegram to Smithson deciding to reject Glass Island. Both Smithson and Christmas had checked to make sire that the Miami Islet didn’t support any wildlife. However, a photo taken by the Vancouver Sun showed a Farrow standing on the islet, proving that wildlife did indeed use the island. The project was then shut down and was never planned to resurface.
FEEDBACK:
“Spill/Fluvial Discharge Drawing” Robert Smithson, 1969
CONTEXT:
In early December 1969, while still in negotiations with the government of British Columbia over securing the Miami Islet site for his Island of Broken Glass proposal, when Smithson visited the Anaconda Copper Mine at Britannia Beach (just north of the city of Vancouver, B.C.). What came out of that visit was a series of drawings that included Spill: Fluvial Discharge (Britannia Beach Project). While pursued o many fronts, there was a persistent focus on the depletion of the earth’s resources, including an unsettling awareness of the entropic reality of the mining industry’s ever-accelerating extraction of the earth’s nonrenewable resources.
Along with spending less time in museum spaces, Smithson also moved away from the extraction of naturally-occurring solid material, which he had performed in his series of Non-Sites in the late 60s, to a subsequent series of gravitational pours in 1969-70. Like most of Smithson’s chosen sites, the nearby Anaconda Copper Mine was going through its own entropic state. The artist planned to construct a cinema within the underground mine. The cinema screen was to be carved out of rock and painted white, and boulders would become theater seats. Although Smithson never followed through with his cinema proposal, it nonetheless plated a deciding factor in his series of beach drawings. The Spill: Fluvial Discharge and Rock Drop project drawings would have replayed the white paint on the cinema screen and the theater seats of rock as no longer contained material but as an entropic process. The same two drawings explicitly associate a spill as both a fluvial discharge of manufactured white paint and falling boulders. The drawing was a reference to the rock surface on the Miami Islet that was splattered white with bird droppings.
FEEDBACK:
“Concrete Habitat on Miami Islet Drawing” Robert Smithson, 1970
CONTEXT:
“Spiral Hill/Broken Circle” Robert Smithson, 1971
CONTEXT:
In a sand quarry in the Northeastern Netherlands, Smithson carved into the shoreline, flooding the resulting dikes to form an interlocking canal and jetty. At the sculpture’s center lies a single glacial boulder, while the hillside above features a winding spiral path - a manifestation of Smithson’s fascination with spirals and their elusive promise of final destination. The work iterates the irreversible impact of industry - the land can never go back to what it was before - yet its hypnotizing beauty calls for a re-evaluation of the relationship between nature and construction.
It is located in a former sand mine cut into the side of a terminal moraine, located just outside of Emmen in the province of Drenthe, The Netherlands. The geological and industrial history of the Drenthe region drew Smithson to Emmen. He was fascinated by the constructed landscape of The Netherlands. Smithson was both interested in landscapes that suggested prehistory committed to working with landscapes scarred by industry. The *140 foot diameter Broken Circle earthwork consists of a jetty and canal; it was constructed of white and yellow sand on the bank of a quarry lake 10-to-15 feet deep. The interior canal is *12 feet wide. Spiral Hill is approximately 75 feet in diameter at the base and is constructed from earth, black topsoil, and white sand.
FEEDBACK:
“Sun Tunnel” Nancy Holt, 1973
CONTEXT:
Located in the Great Basin Desert in northwestern Utah, Sun Tunnels looms along the horizon, visible from over a mile away. The four concrete tubical structures are arranged in a cross formation, positioned precisely to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes are configured in the concrete to cast projections of constellations along the tunnels’ interior; Draco, Perseus, Columbia, and Capricorn materialize out of sunlight, their patterns illuminated upon the viewer inside. With Sun Tunnels, Nancy Holt brings the cosmos down to the earth and into the realm of human experience.
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FEEDBACK:
“Roden Crater” James Turrell, 2024
CONTEXT:
Roden Crater, located in the Painted Desert region of Northern Arizona, is an unprecedented large-scale artwork created within a volcanic cinder cone by light and space artist James Turrell. Representing the culmination of the artist’s lifelong research in the field of human visual and psychological perception, Roden Crater is a controlled environment for the experiencing and landscape art that began in the 1960s, requiring a journey to visit the work in the remote desert with truly dark night skies. While minimally invasive to the external natural landscape, internally the red and black cinder has been transformed into special engineered spaces where the cycles of geologic and celestial time can be directly experienced. It will constitute a truly culminating phenomenon in world art.
Turrel;’s immersive work with how we see light in varying contexts, both natural and created, led him to conceive an artwork so remote from man-made distractions, and at a high altitude so naturally conducive to unlimited sightlines of the vast sky, that it could provide a singular experience. After an extensive search, he found his ideal conditions at Roden Crater. Since acquiring the dormant cinder cone in 1977, Turrell has fashioned Roden Crater into a site containing tunnels and apertures that open onto pristine skies, capturing light directly from the sun in daylight hours, and the planets and stars at night. Indeed it is more akin to the communally developed sites of ancient Incas, than to the conceptions of any individual one can think of in modern times.
Roden Crater is a gateway to the contemplation of light, time and landscape. It is the magnum opus of James Turrell’s career, a work that, besides being a monument to land art, functions as a naked eye observatory of earthly and celestial events that are both predictable and continually in flux. Constructed to last for centuries to come, Roden Crater links the physical and the ephemeral, the objective with the subjective, in a transformative sensory experience.
FEEDBACK:
“Soil Erg” Claire Pentecost, 2012
CONTEXT: Considered the material of soil as a commodity, proposing a soil-based currency system. The dirt was packed into an ingot shape. This art highlights the importance that soil has on our environment. Soil is alive and hosts millions of organisms, while dirt is dead; the minerals and organisms have been extracted.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive -
“Agras Volcano; Mineral Rights” Lara Amarcegui, 2019
CONTEXT:
This piece refers to the state of affairs relating to extraction of raw materials in the earth. The artist bought mineral rights from many different sites so it would be off the market and inaccessible to companies who wanted to extract from it. Once the lot was purchased, it will remain untouched.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - The artist is actively impacting the ability for mining corporations to use and is amplifying the issue.
“Rocks & Minerals of the Pyranees Mountain Range” Lara Almarcegui, 2021
CONTEXT:
This piece is a list of the materials that can be found in the Pyranees mountains. This is referring to the general conflicts coming from the extraction industry - killing soil, earth depletion, pollution.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive -
“Soil Not to Be Exhausted” Cooking Sections, 2019
CONTEXT:
Soil in rural areas of Ukraine are continually stripped away and sold in international markets. These artists investigated the process of production, preparation and consumption of food around the world and offer alternative scenarios as concepts for their works. The artifacts of soil management of different epochs, the ongoing public conversation on ecological issues of Ukraine Starts. A cross-disciplinary approach of Cooking Sections involves a legislative imaginary and engages the Ukrainian lawyers to create a draft that instates the right of the soil not to be exhausted.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This project is actively working with others to help prevent soil exhaustion in Ukraine.
“Bat” Joseph Bueys, 1950s
CONTEXT:
Beuys suggested there were invisible energies in certain materials - such as fat or honey. Because of our modern way of life, these energies are now invisible to us; we can no longer see these energies because we are disconnected from the earth. He suggested that these energies can be felt, and if you can feel them too you might change. His artwork was an access point for us to feel these energies. Otherwise known as: animism.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ???
“Hare Woman” Joseph Bueys, 1950s
CONTEXT:
Beuys is known for his highly symbolic work that represents his belief of a "greater human existence." Hares are a prominent presence in his work, representing movement and action, which transforms the rigid concept of art. The Hare is also considered to be a symbol of incarnation. This drawing pictures a woman with hare-like features, suggesting the symbolization of incarnation.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ???
“Untitled (From the Life of Bees)” Joseph Beuys, 1950s
CONTEXT:
This is a drawing of an insect transforming into a female human; referencing evolution.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ???
"Fat Corner” Joseph Beuys, 1964
CONTEXT:
Beuys was a pilot during World War II, and survived no less than five fatal crashes during his service. On one occasion, Beuys' aircraft was shot down over a frozen wasteland of the Crimea, where he was discovered unconscious and wounded by a nomadic Tartar tribe who saved his life by covering his body in fat and felt to regenerate his body heat. These elements, fat and felt, reoccurred in his artwork often showed important symbols of healing and regeneration. Beuys created the "Fat Corner" (Fettecke) by placing five kilograms of butter in a corner of his art room. ***However, his story was fictional - Beuys was indeed a pilot in WWII and was shot down, but he was recovered by German forces, not a tribe - The story was created to showcase his re-birth.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This artwork showed how art had become a business, without actually directly calling out the problem.
“From the Life of Bees” Joseph Beuys, 1960
“How to Explain a Picture to a Dead Hare” Joseph Bueys, 1965
“Freckled Frog” Joseph Bueys, 1958
“From the Life of Bees” Joseph Bueys, 1956
CONTEXT:
Bees were among the many animals that Beuys gave symbolic meaning in his work. He believed bees were a symbol of socialism due to the way in which they live and work together; he was also fascinated by the production of honey. Honey was considered to have an invisible energy that we could no longer see because we have become disconnected from the earth.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative
“Artist Suit” Joseph Beuys, 1960s
CONTEXT:
This work is a two-piece suit comprising a jacket and a pair of trousers made from coarse grey felt. This suit was made by Beuys in 1970, when he was primarily working and living in Dusseldorf, Germany. He commonly wore felt clothing throughout his career, and later stated that "felt was pressed together usually from hare or rabbit's hair" which is an animal that Beuys often incorporates in his work. The work suggests that the suit has an everyday, practical function rather than a creative one. He wanted to show that "everything is in a state of change"; an idea that he linked with the concept of social sculpture.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This was showing how art had become a business without actually bringing attention to the problem.
“In Defense of Nature” Joseph Bueys, 1983
CONTEXT:
In the early 60s, Beuys turned his attention from performance into sculptural elements with nontraditional items and materials. This piece, "The Defense of Nature" exemplifies the way his life came to merge with his artwork. Beuys opened a winery where he looped his artistic values and capitalism into one - art=capitalism. When you purchase the wine, you are taking part in the christian values Beuys had - you are receiving the "blood" of Beuys.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Negative - This project had a negative feedback loop. Even though Beuys was speaking against the impact that capitalism had on art, he was still allowing its presence in his project.
“Creativity=Capital” Joseph Bueys, 1983
“100 Days at the Office - Documenta 5” Joseph Bueys, ?
CONTEXT:
In 1972, Beuys was present for the 100-day run of the Documenta 5 exhibition in Germany. He was advocating for his Organization for Direct Democracy by Referendum, which called for individuals to have greater involvement in government. At some point, Beuys got into an argument with a local art student(later discovered to be one of Beuys' students), who challenged the famous artist to a boxing match. On October 8th, the match was held in a boxing ring that had been set up prior. The two opponents fought bare-chested, wearing boxing gloves. The art student wore a head guard and a gum shield; Bueys only wore his mitts. Beuys ultimately won the three-round match by scoring the most points.
FEEDBACK LOOP: A weak positive - The project brought attention to the organization, but began to loose its intent when the fighting began.
“I Like America and America Likes Me” Joseph Bueys, 1974
CONTEXT:
In 1974, German artist Joseph Beuys flew into New York City's JFK International Airport and was immediately taken by ambulence to a room in West Broadway's Rene Block Gallery. He was not in pain or ill. He was carried by a stretcher, which was covered in his signature layer of felt, and shared an empty room with a coyote - a wild beast, often considered to represent America's untamed spirit - for three consecutive days. It was a performance - in the beginning, the coyote was erratic and tore apart the blanket but soon grew tolerant simply by Beuys' desire to heal.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ????
“Honey Pump at the Workplace” Joseph Bueys, 1977
CONTEXT:
Also known as Documenta 6, Honey Pump in the Workplace was intended to be the powerhouse for education and action. With this piece Beuys created a motivational catalyst that communicates his fascinations with life, energy, and change, reflecting the American identity and stemming into the "American Dream." When this piece was created, it blended his actions, sculptures, and drawings enlarging his and everyone's social conversation and was intended to give everyone a sense of society as a beehive; a heart organ working in the bloodstream of society as described by Beuys. For 100 days, honey flowed through the hose pipes strung up in different rooms where people held discussions in search of new ideas for the social organism - such as real-world problems... human rights, urban decay, etc.
FEEDBACK LOOP: ???
“In Defense of Nature: Winery” Joseph Bueys, 1970
“Action Third Way” Joseph Bueys, 1978
“Operation Grassello” Joseph Bueys, 1979
CONTEXT:
This print comes from a photographical documentary of Beuys buying a truckload of crates of Grassello (fertilizer). He bought this so that big corporations couldn't, and primed his studio/home walls in it, leaving the extra in his storage. He ultimately wanted to prevent the fertilizer from being used in agriculture, which was a culprit of water pollution. This project was driven from "the defense of nature" project,
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - Beuys was actively keeping the fertilizer off of the market, challenging the capitalist economy.
“Lift Archiv - Do We Really Need a New Anti-Imperialism?” Schleuser.net, 2005
CONTEXT:
This piece was an installation in the entrance hall of … It refers to the site of its installation, and in ever new attempts using the means of art, it poses questions about the composition of public space. Unlike most of the works financed from the Kunst-am-Bau budget, the Liftarchiv, in which one could ride up and down as in an elevator, served as a site for changing exhibitions, installations and video presentations.
“Illegally Crossing Borders from Austria to Italy” Christian Muller, 1993
“Donkey Cart Altar” David Avalos, 1985
CONTEXT:
A two wheel cart has the painted image of a man with his hands raised in the air and a border patrol agent frisking him on its backboard. Stairs in the foreground of the piece have text that reads “1985” San Diego".” On the back of the cart is a Xerox of a photograph and information which identifies it as a “portrait of Francisco Sanchez, shot to death by the border patrol on December 8th, 1980.” This piece was used as a political statement when he placed it in front of the San Diego Courthouse, serving to express the belief that immigrant laborers, working to free their families were being treated as criminals. Later, Judge Thompson ordered the work to be removed as a “security risk” while many viewed this as removing Avalos’ right to free speech. The work was moved into the basement and can still be viewed.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This piece evokes commentary on the treatment of immigrant laborers. It protests against border-patrol brutality and the exploitation and abuse of Mexican laborers.
“The Arte-Reemblosso (Art Rebate)” David Avalos/Louis Hock/Liz Sisco, 1993
CONTEXT:
A documented photograph series in which targets a nationwide controversy over the distribution of $10 bills to Mexican immigrants to illustrate that community’s participation in US commerce. These workers were taxed, but got nothing in return.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This work actually made the news and there were mixed views on the project. However, Avalos/Sisco/Hock were successful in bringing attention to these misrepresented laborers. These artists insist that the immigrants contribute to the economy through their work and the sales taxes they pay.
“Welcome to America’s Finest Tourist Plantation” David Avalos/Louis Hock/Liz Sisco, 1998
CONTEXT:
This project was a play on San Diegos “Welcome to America’s Finest Tourist Destination” slogan. It was plastered on nearly one-half of the city’s buses during the month of January. However, San Diego reportedly relies heavily on illegal immigrants for its support workers, including many in the tourist trade. The artists’ design roughly approximates an advertising panel, in that it combines photographic images with a simple slogan, albeit a cryptic one. The message implies that San Diego’s comfort is dependent on a hidden slave population. The photographs make the same point with a cropped image of a handcuffed man and a lawman flanked by similarly cropped images of a man scraping food from a plate, and a chambermaid bringing fresh towels to a hotel room on the right.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This project was presented during the time of January - Super Bowl month in which tourists flocked to the area at the time of the event. This further proved the entire concept of the project - San Diego relies on a secret slave population of immigrants to create a tourist-friendly destination, and yet the workers were mistreated, underpaid, and seen as criminals.
“Can You See Us Now?” subRosa, 2004
CONTEXT:
In this exhibit was a room with various interactive aspects for guests and viewers. It works to make visible the intersections of women’s material and affective labor in cultures of production in North Adams, MA, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. subRosa discovered that many aspects of the labor conditions and daily lives of women in North Adams resonated intimately with those of women in the Maquilladoras (On the United States-Mexico border). In the museum installation, an oversized map pins on large aerial photographs of North Adams and Ciudad Juarez denoted “Points of Visibility” - usually places of refuge or exploitation - in the two cities. A “forensic floor” concealed a dozen spaces beneath its weathered wooden surface. Visitors became active investigators as they discovered the objects, texts, and clues beneath the loose floorboards and made connections between the histories and present-day lived experiences of women working in both cities.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - Viewers were literally invited to actively explore and demonstrate their own participation and complicity in globalized labor conditions for working-class women.
“Marquette of the Lamassu at Trafalgar Square, London, England” Michael Rakowitz, 2018
CONTEXT:
In this project, artist Michael Rakowitz recreates one of the stone statues - known as a lamassu - resembling a winged bull with human features, which guarded the gates of the ancient city of Ninevah. In 2015, ISIS militants filmed themselves drilling into the face of the 700 BCE sculpture during an extensive spree of destruction that also included burning books, looting the Mosul Museum and other institutions, and targeting Iraq’s most precious and ancient cultural artifacts. In this project, Rakowitz presents its ghost in the form of a replica constructed from more than 10,000 empty date syrup cans - which is a sharp contrast from the pale stone of the lost original. The sculpture stands with its back facing the National Gallery, and gazing south-east towards its spiritual home in the Middle East.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - This project aims to recreate lost artifacts as “ghosts” that come back to haunt viewers as a reminder of the destruction of a valuable artifact that meant a lot to many.
“Enemy Kitchen Truck” Michael Rakowitz, 2003
“Enemy Kitchen” Michael Rakowitz, 2003
CONTEXT:
This project involved teaching different public audiences how to create different Baghdadi recipes while discussing the general topic of Iraq. The participants usually were middle and high school students, but some adults also joined in. He aims to show that Iraqi culture is virtually invisible in the United States, beyond the daily news, and this project seizes the possibility of cultural visibility to produce an alternative discourse.The staff included Michael Rakowitz, Iraqi refugees, and American veterans of the Iraq war.
While cooking and eating, the students engaged each other on the topic of the war and drew parallels with their own lives, at times making comparisons with bullies in relation to how they perceive the conflict.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - The project provided a space where the opinions, myths, and facts that are perpetuated in a country during wartime that could be communicated and discussed.
“Return at the Davidson’s and Company Store” Michael Rakowitz, 2000s
CONTEXT:
In 1946, Rakowitz’s grandfather was exiled from Iraq with his family. Like many Iraqi Jews, they were forced to leave behind a legacy spanning close to half a millennium. After settling in Long Island, New York, his import and export company, Davidsons & Co. found a new home in New York.
In 2004, Rakowitz re-opened his grandfather’s business. The company initially functioned somewhat symbolically as a drop box store. Then in 2005 it took the form of a full-fledged packaging center and sorting facility. members of the Iraqi diaspora community and interested citizens where invited to send objects and goods of their choice, to be shipped free of charge to recipients in Iraq, an exceptional offer at a time when the shipping and trade infrastructure in the country had completely collapsed on account of the war.
FEEDBACK LOOP: Positive - Michael wanted to explore the possibility of importing something that was clearly labeled as Product of Iraq. He wanted to show how stereotypes and misinformation caused people to view anything labeled with “Iraq” to be heavily searched, monitored, and even seized.
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