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Annette Message is an accomplished artist from France with a practice that spans over the course of nearly four decades, whose main interest lies in ‘outsider’ art (amateur/children’s art). Her work includes the mediums of photography, sculpture, drawing, installation and even needlework. She chooses to use modest materials in her pieces, such as clothing, bandages, stuffed toys and so on, to create forms and shapes that suggest the complexity of human life and the shadowy ‘other’ in us all.

Her piece “Les Depouilles (Skins)” in 1997 showcased a series of children’s clothing and toys that she had taken apart, removed the stuffing and pinned up on the gallery wall. When commenting about the work Messager explained that she wanted to explore the similarities between what she saw as the final result on the wall and the shapes found in a Rorschach print.

Richard Long, sculptor and land artist is responsible for works such as ‘A Line Made by Walking’. He uses photography to capture the work he has done on a landscape. ‘A Line Made by Walking’ was created while he was travelling St. Martin’s. Long walked forwards and backwards on the field until the turf was flattened.

http://www.richardlong.org

Through her photography, April Hickox explores the themes of human intervention in a natural landscape, outlining issues of site and place. Growing up on Toronto Island, and living there for most of her life, she saw this car-free alternative community of 750 people grow and change as metro Toronto began impacting the landscape on both a long term and short term basis.

http://www.aprilhickox.com/index.html

The Lightning Field is a long term installation made by Walter de Maria in the desserts of western New Mexico in 1977. The installation is made up of 400 polished stainless steel poles each standing 20 ft and 7 inches (6.27 meters) tall, and about 2 inches (5.1 cm) in diameter. The poles are positioned in a grid-like manner, each 220 ft (67 m) apart from the other.

Although this installation attracts lightning, experiencing this work of Land Art does not depend on its occurrence. The Lightning Field is intended to be experienced over an extended period of time. For this reason, Walter de Maria offers the opportunity to rent an overnight cabin which can accommodate up to 6 guests during the months May – October.

If you’re interested in experiencing this amazing work, here is a link to the Visitor Information page on the Dia Art Foundation website (they commissioned this piece):
http://www.diaart.org/sites/page/56/1301

and it’s cheaper for students 😉

Panoramic video of The Lightning Field because its difficult to find a video because copyright

This work was developed in response to the 1990 “Oka Crisis,” or Kanien’kehaka resistance, when the Canadian army violently suppressed a small Mohawk Nation trying to defend its ceremonial and burial grounds from becoming a golf course. It was first used in 1991 in a meadow in Banff National Park where people’s voices, spoken through the megaphone, would echo back nine times. In 1992, Belmore toured the work across Canada to a number of sites where Indigenous land claims were being asserted and justice was being demanded.

Here is a short video that features some of her work, Speaking to Their Mother can be seen at 2:13: 

http://www.jmbgallery.ca/eventsKWE.html

The Canary Project is comprised of “art and media that deepend public understanding of the anthropocene.”

An installation by Jon Santos titled “Sublimation of Ice”  consists of “Photographs of ocean landscapes alternate with mountain glaciers in a video loop that meditates on the transformation and redistribution of water – an issue at the core of climate change. The video is paired with a staged melting event in which 300-pound blocks of ice slowly turn to water.”

http://canary-project.org/2010/08/sublimation-of-ice-2/

“…“100 Ages,” in which he placed gold rings on branches of 100 trees all over the city, de Haan suggests the impossible – a tree continuing to grow around and through a human intervention, decades before — but also makes a crystal clear point about history, knowing and forgetting. What do we really know of the past, or for that matter the future? Belief is all we’ve ever had.”

more on his website

The Gates, Central Park, New York City
1979-05

• The installation of The Gates in New York’s Central Park was completed in February 2005. The 7,503 gates with their free-hanging saffron colored fabric panels seemed like a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees.

See the plans and more information on the The Gates