Art’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art traces the history and landscape of some of the 20th century’s most captivating art.
“Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art” debuted to a crowded theater in downtown’s LA’s Ace Hotel this Tuesday. The documentary is the culmination of art historian and filmmaker James Crump’s obsession with land or earth art, a loosely associated network of artists and artwork who created on a monumental scale.
Emerging from the New York City gallery scene of the late 60’s, artists fled the Big Apple in hopes of finding greener pastures. These artists found their canvas in geography and land of America’s southwest. Crump’s fascination was born from his time in New Mexico.
“I lived in New Mexico for over a decade and in the 90’s, I made my first trip to Walter DeMaria’s “The Lightning Field.” And really since that time, the story’s been gestating… it has to do with obsession and passion and just living with these stories, these characters for a long time.”
Building from the earth itself, artists created work that spanned the deserts and mesas of the southwest. Digging holes, moving stones, smashing mountains, nothing was beyond their grasp. And in their search for this greater art, these artists were also seeking the Thoreau-like liberty of isolation.
“[DeMaria] declared that isolation was the essence of land art. And so isolation for a lot of these artists was an intentional part of the work itself. Meaning, the road trip to drive is part of it… Back then you had an analog map and you might get lost and you might drive off the edge of a mesa, it was really challenging. The isolation aspect, the road-trip element, the experience of getting to this place and going for hours without seeing another car in a remarkably beautiful but seriously remote place,” said Crump.
The larger-than-life creations dwarf humans with the sheer scale. Prominent works like Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” thrust 1500 feet into the Great Salt Lake. Nancy Holt’s “Sun Tunnels” consists of four massive concrete tubes tuned to the movements of the stars in the expanse of the Utah’s Great Basin Desert. Charles Ross’s “Star Axis” is an earth temple crawling skyward in perfect celestial alignment.
But more impressive than the work’s sheer size, land art disrupts humans’ idea of their role in the world. This egocentric view crumbles before the grandeur of the desert.
“One of the most remarkable things about visiting [the art] is you are placed into a space where you are forced by scale to reconsider yourself within the cosmos, in relationship to the cosmos because you are really feeling and experiencing your own body in this context of a very large, very daunting open space of the American southwest. For me personally, it reinscribes how insignificant as individuals we are in overall cosmic scheme, in terms of geologic time,” said Crump.
Much of the film was not an ode to the artists, but rather the caretakers and curators of the works. Virginia Dwan was an integral part of earth art’s emergence. Her galleries in New York and Los Angeles were both vital to contemporary art during the late 60’s. The Dwan Gallery in New York hosted the groundbreaking exhibitions “10" (1967) and “Earthworks” (1968), shows which defined the imagination and risk of the era.
Dwan was Michael Heizer’s patron during the creation of epic sculpture “Double Negative”, a made-made cleavage splitting a Nevada mesa. In 1985, she donated the piece to LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The acquisition marked a turning point for the institution.
“There is MOCA’s collection before ‘Double Negative’ and there is MOCA’s collection after ‘Double Negative’… [Dwan] forced us to do something very special. [She] forced us to care for something which is bigger than us,” said Phillipe Vergne the current director of MOCA.
It would be ridiculous to say that land art has not left its mark. “Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art” proves that. James Crump and his team succeed in making a documentary that let the art and artists speak for themselves. And they speak volumes.
“Troublemakers” combines grainy archival footage with soaring high-def aerials of the land art canon. From the bird’s eye view, you will see monumental works of art like Heizer’s “Double Negative.”
“I was really interested in how some of these artists used media at the time and I really tried to own the look of some of the lo-fi media — early video, 8mm, 16mm film… I wanted to make new footage using technology that we have today to blend really with some of these very important, iconic pieces of work that were done by the artists themselves in the late 60's early 70’s. So I wanted to do something that is respectful to that period but I also wanted to use lively storytelling and use technology to my best advantage as a director, to make it a story worthy of an audience for today and to be able to appeal to a 21st century audience,” said Crump.
Other than an introductory voice-over, the film is entirely told through interviews, newsreels, and other archives, letting the artists’ personalities unfurl into full blown characters. There is DeMaria, the enigmatic prankster; Heizer, painted as a disgruntled genius full of marlboro-individualism; and Smithson: the playboy of the group, charismatic and much adored. He and Heizer were both collaborators and rivals. The film is ripe with this tension.
Editing by Nick Tambouri is the perfect complement to Crump’s historical and aesthetic goals, letting the work speak for itself. Serious atmospheric gravity is provided by Los Angeles composer Travis Huff’s original music, a dark blend of minimal sounds.
With an already calcified love for land art, I found myself seduced once more by the vastness of red dirt and ideas from “Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art.” The film is saturated with feelings of risk and awe. So if anyone’s down for road-trip, you can hitch a ride to “The Lightning Field” with me.
“Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art” will get it’s European premiere October 10th at the Foundazione Prada Milan and will be touring the states through the new year. For more information about the film and a list of screenings, visit their site or follow Troublemakers on Facebook for updates.
To get a taste of trouble, you can watch James Crump’s short of Michael Heizer’s epic sculpture “Double Negative” in HD at MOCA.org.
