Art 6

Environmental Art and the Significance of Place

'Recently I have been working in the country, where, carving in the open air, I find sculpture more natural than in a London studio, but it needs bigger dimensions. A large piece of stone or wood placed almost anywhere at random in a field, orchard, or garden, immediately looks right and inspiring' (Moore 1937).

Moore's comments about sculpture 'looking right' in an outdoor setting are, according to Biggs, only explicable in terms of a prior 'recognition' on the part of some British artists in the 1930s of the landscape itself as having inherent sculptural qualities (Biggs 1984: 20). A combination of the surroundings and the work could help to create a new kind of experience of form. Yet the consideration of place by Moore, perhaps the most innovative sculptor of his generation, seems hardly profound. In the case of Moore's works the sculptural form is evidently site dominant and virtually any setting would, apparently, do. Alternatively, outdoor art works may be dominated by their landscape settings and appear trivial in comparison. Much contemporary environmental art has a far more sophisticated concern with the landscape setting of the work which is crucial to its creation, perception and reception. Crawford (1993: 194-5) usefully defines two radically different relational dynamics between environmental art works and their settings. First there may be an aesthetic symbiosis in which an attempt is made to create a harmonious relationship between the piece and its setting. The work draws attention to and enhances its setting and vice versa. Second there may be a dialectical relationship in which interaction between the work and its setting brings into being a synthetic third object, the product of this interaction. In our view the most successful and powerful works of contemporary environmental art fall into this last category.

Over and over again environmental artists stress the importance of place. This is not a process of placing a sculpture in the landscape or depicting a picturesque view but a matter of interaction in which both the art work and the landscape are more than the sum of their parts. Art is no longer mimetic but becomes part of the land. The landscape is not something to be copied but is a primary source for the genesis of the work. The place and the setting moulds the work which is rooted in place. Static, set in place, its meaning and identity is not transferable to another location: the place is the work and the work is the place. This is a reaction against disengaged paintings or sculptures that can be moved from place to place but rarely belong anywhere. The distancing so much emphasized in traditional art and aesthetics (we see the world through a frame) is blown away when one is surrounded by the art object, part of the same place. Smithson notes that for him 'perception is prior to conception when it comes to site selection or definition. One does not impose, but rather exposes the site' (Smithson cited in Tieberghien 1995: 94). We will consider three specific examples.

Smithson was interested in creating a piece of art in the Great Salk Late in Utah. The general choice of the location was influenced by by colour, areas of the lake in which micro bacteria give it the colour of tomato soup, but the specific location and the idea of building a spiral jetty were profoundly influenced by the specific local topography:

'I selected my site. Irregular beds of limestone dip gently eastward, massive deposits of black basalt are broken over the peninsula, giving the region a shattered appearance. It is one of the few places on the lake where the water comes right up to the mainland. Under shallow pinkish water is a network of mud cracks supporting the jigsaw puzzle that composes the mud flats. As I looked at the site, it reverberated out to the horizons only to suggest an immobile cyclone while flickering light made the entire landscape appear to quake...This site was a rotary that enclosed itself in an immense roundness. From that gyrating space emerged the possibility of the spiral jetty' (Smithson 1972: 223).

John Maine describes the Chiswell earthwork on the Isle of Portland, a place with many quarries and complex exposed geological strata, on the south Dorset coast of England in the following way:

'The proposal takes the form of a landscape work, rising in terraces from the coast path. The curved walls will create wave-like patterns, and support undulating platforms of earth...The higher walls will be made of stone found in the upper strata of the quarries (e.g. 'Slat'), and lower walls will be constructed from a sequence of different types, in the descending order of stone layers found naturally...Each type of stone will suggest a different method of wall construction' (Maine cited in Morland 1988: 62)

Keir Smith discusses one of his wooden sculptures, Seven Stones Before the Old Man in the Grizedale forest in the north-west of England:

'The sculpture overlooks the Grizedale valley. The highest local Peak, the Old Man of Coniston, is seen in the distance. The work is in two parts, a palisade of larch logs cut to the shape of the mountain, and, in front of this, a row of seven 'rocks', carved from wood. One rock, the largest, contains a deep reservoir filled with metal powder. This Quarry Stone refers to the metal workings in Coppermines Valley which leads to the summit of the Old Man. The remaining rocks have implement shapes cut into their top surfaces...These shapes are ghosts of potential within the metal ore. They were suggested by Bronze-Age flat moulds from the British Museum' (Smith 1984 in Davies and Knipe (eds.)).

These three examples provide a clear indication of the significance of place and landscape to the artists involved. Place and landscape have a profound influence on the form of the earthwork or sculpture and why it takes that particular form only becomes explicable in relation to the place. What is clear from these accounts is the manner in which the artworks relate to the subjective experience of place of the artist. This is a contemporary and personal impression which may come about in various ways. Smithson found his site by driving around areas of the Great Salt Lake with a suitable water colour, his initial point of fascination. Maine had worked as a sculptor for over 20 years in the portland quarries. The idea for Smith's sculpture in Grizedale came about following a period of residency in which he lived in the place. It has little, or only a tangential relationship to the past. Some of the forms used by environmental artists may be influenced by knowledges of prehistoric monuments but they clearly do not have the same meanings and a common understanding is not usually being promoted. Long makes this clear in relation to his own work: 'Stonehenge and all the circles in Britain...came about from a completely different culture...They were about social, religious art. I make my work as an individual' (Long 1986: 7). Goldsworthy, one of the most successful and influential of contemporary British environmental artists, comments: 'my art is a way of learning in which instincts guide best. It is also very physical- I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. It is a collaboration, a meeting-point between my own and earth's nature...Looking, touching, material, place, making, the form and resulting work are integral...Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I am a hunter, I take the opportunities each day offers- if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be leaves, a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up material by feeling that there is something to discover' (Goldsworthy 1990: 161-2). Through frequently working in common places with common materials Goldsworthy effectively demonstrates through his art the extraordinary richness of landscape and locality.