Environmental Art, Public Art & Historic Monuments

International Directory of Sculpture Parks & Gardens
http://www.artnut.com/intl.html

Landmarks - "The core of the program is an exhibition/residency program in which we invite artists to explore and react to Landmarks' properties and collections and create site-specific installations. By providing an experimental atmosphere in which artists are free to create new work and question basic assumptions of historical preservation, we hope to stimulate discourse and challenge."
http://www.philalandmarks.org/projects.aspx

Musketaquid - Seeks to link discovery of art with passion and respect for nature. -
http://www.emersonumbrella.org/i05.html

The International Council on Monuments and Sites - (ICOMOS) - "An international nongovernmental organization composed of 110 national committees and 23 international specialized committees which form a worldwide alliance for the preservation and protection of historic buildings, districts and sites. Founded in 1965, it maintains a secretariat in Paris that serves as a central point for exchange of information. ICOMOS is the official advisor on cultural heritage to the World Heritage Convention, an international treaty designed to protect the world's great cultural and environmental sites."
http://www.icomos.org

The Townscape Institute - "The term townscape design has been defined as the art of giving visual coherence and organization to the collage of buildings, streets, and spaces that make up the urban environment.
http://www.townscape.org

snacks for humans - 'Vegetable Liberation Project' ("Rows of identical daikon without a stem out of place betray a strict discipline. Where do the imperfect vegetables go?") - 'A fountain made from commonly found household items' -' Flipbook Madness' - "For seven years Rania Ho, the daughter of Chinese immigrants born and raised in San Francisco, has lived in Beijing, where she runs a small gallery in a hutong, or alley, near one of the city's main temples." (NYTimes 1/10/10)

Regional and Local Guides - International and National listings and Alphabetical by country, region, state or city.
http://www.noteaccess.com/DIRECTORIES/RegLocGuide.htm

Our Earth as Art - (USGS) - "Here you can view our planet through the beautiful images taken by the Landsat-7 satellite - and most recently, the Terra Satellite's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). This gallery of images uses the visceral avenue of art to convey the thrilling perspective of the Earth that satellites provide to the viewer."
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/earthasart
http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.htm

Inhabitat - "A weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future."
http://www.inhabitat.com

Environmental Art from Finland
http://www.environmentalart.net

Tales of the Unexpected - "Art made in unofficial and unannounced sites as part of MORE Cornwall, 2007. New works and new artists will be added throughout the Summer, so come back often."
http://www.talesoftheunexpected.blogspot.com

Risks and Rewards of Art in the Open - "The phrase "successful public art project" may sound like an oxymoron. The world is full of forlorn statues that go unnoticed. A gallant faith in the alchemical power of art to interact with "the public" has inspired generation after generation of American artists and public officials to pursue well-meaning endeavors that too often have turned out to be visually disappointing or alien ("plop art" is one term arisen to describe what has resulted) or that have become public-relations debacles. (See Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" for Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan, commissioned in 1979 by the General Services Administration, removed a decade later.) New York's Percent for Art program has had its share of duds and crises. But it has had some triumphs, too, almost all of them below the radar of the commercial art world, which usually pays minimal attention to government-supported public art."

Mel Chin - Ecological Artist - "Mel Chin, through his art, is fostering a new awareness of the importance of bioregions based on healthy, ecologically conscious approaches to living." -- Interviews at art:21 (PBS)
http://www.melchin.org . . . . . . http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/chin

Public Art on the Net
http://www.zpub.com/public

Public Art Web Links - Conferences, Articles, Discussions & Exhibitions, Specific Artists, SPecific Locations, Temporary Pieces, Web-based projects, University Courses, Awards, Competitions & Commissions
http://public-art.shu.ac.uk/weblinx.html

Green Arts Web - "A resource for those who want to be more informed about the practices and theories of environmental art."
http://www.greenarts.org

MIT Public Art Collection Map - (Cambridge, MA) (Be sure to download the descriptive map)
http://web.mit.edu/lvac/www/collections/map.html

Art in the Public Interest - "Art in the Public Interest (API) is a nonprofit organization that supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, and that community-based arts provide significant value both to communities and artists. To that end we are involved in the following programs and services: Community Arts Network, APInews, High Performance Magazine."
http://www.apionline.org

Public Art Resource Center - European Portal on Public Art
http://www.art-public.com

Public Art Research Archive - Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
http://public-art.shu.ac.uk

Sculpture by the Sea - Call for submissions
http://www.sculpturebythesea.com

Greenmuseum.org - "A nonprofit, online museum of environmental art, advances creative efforts to improve our relationship with the natural world." - Links for Ancient sites, Environmental Art, Residencies / Parks, Green Architecture and Design, Collaboration, FUnding, Solstice
http://www.greenmuseum.org

Earthworks - "Continuous project altered daily . . . . "
http://www.earthworks.org

Andrea Zittel -"To some degree her home has already become an art laboratory, design repository and exhibition venue. She has opened her doors to a stream of artists, students, curators, and writers, and shared her 80 acres of land with other artists for a series of earthworks exhibitions called "High Desert Test Sites," which began in 2002. For the last Whitney Biennial, she created a PowerPoint presentation, "Sufficient Self," that offered an intimate tour of A-Z West and a meditation on the American tradition of rugged individualism. . . . . " - ('Art as Roadside Attraction' - By Jori Finkel - NYtimes - Published: September 25, 2005)

The Environmental Art and Poetry Gallery - Kid's Pages from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Department of Health and Human Services - Many Links to 'Just Kids' environmental art resources, national and international
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/gallery.htm

art / in partnership - Established in 1985, Art in Partnership was the first public art commissioning agency in Scotland and is one of the leading agencies of its kind in the UK. We provide artistic advice and a curatorial and project management service for public and private sector organisations considering commissioning works of art or developing collections of contemporary art and craft. We offer a creative approach to the development of public art strategies and visual art projects. Art in Partnership Scotland Ltd is a charitable company limited by guarantee.
http://www.art-in-partnership.org.uk

Wallace Foundation Knowledge Center Partnerships for Parks "Public-private partnerships for parks are proliferating across the country, helping to create new and refurbished parks, greenways, trails and other community assets --often in the face of municipal budget constraints. This report, based on lessons from Wallace's Urban Parks Initiative, offers guidance to practitioners, managers and innovators in the parks field in planning, developing and assessing partnerships between public agencies and nonprofit organizations to build, renovate and operate urban parks."
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/AreasOfContinuingInterest/Parks/PartnershipsforParks.htm

The Social and Public Art Resource - "Founded in 1976 by muralist Judith F. Baca, painter Christina Schlesinger, and filmmaker Donna Deitch. The Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) is an arts center that produces, preserves and conducts educational programs about community based public art works. . . . "
http://sparcinla.org

California Current - "Art and the State of the Ocean. "The project was initiated to stimulate discussion and awareness in order to foster support for restoration, preservation and sustainable practices for this precious biome, and the greater ocean environment."
http://calcurrent.greenmuseum.org

Walking in Place - Documentation. "Walking as knowing as making." (University of Illinois, URbana-Champain)
http://walkinginplace.org

The Global Directory for Environmental Technology
http://www.eco-web.com

EnvironmentalArt.net Gallery - "Environmental Art from Finland"
http://www.environmentalart.net

Robert Smithson -- and --- A Park in Orbit

Grazing in Brooklyn - "New York-based landscape designer Julie Farris has transformed the Art Lot, a typical chain-link fenced vacant lot on the corner of Columbia and Sackett in the heart of Brooklyn's Columbia waterfront district, into a three-dimensional pastoral landscape. "Temporary Landscape: a Pasture for an Urban Space" evokes a 19th-century agrarian Brooklyn with sculpted rolling hills and grassy planes. At sunset (approx. 8:45pm) on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays now through Labor Day weekend, the lot's adjacent back wall serves as the backdrop for a film montage, by cinematographer Shane Sigler, of pastoral scenes with grazing cows, trees, and open sky - a Brooklyn of long-ago. "Temporary Landscape" marks the launch of Farris' design studio, XS space, and she is currently in discussions with the NYC Parks Department to create temporary "landscapes" throughout the city." (eOcculus)

Rock Art --- Rock Art Studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art -- and -- http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/rockart.html

Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. - "one of the few art & technology *members* organizations in the USA. Established primarily as a network for artists who either use or are inspired by science and technology, ASCI has become a magnet for some of the best examples of this type of contemporary art and for scientists and technologists wishing to collaborate. ASCI programs and services provide members with opportunities for professional growth, increased public visibility, and a supportive community."
http://www.asci.org

Percent for Art in NYC, Department of Cultural Affairs - "The Percent for Art Program offers City agencies the opportunity to acquire or commission works of art specifically for city-owned buildings throughout the five boroughs. The purpose of the Program is to bring artists into the design process and enrich the City's civic and community buildings." - Artists, Locations, Sponsor Agencies, Slide Registry Form, Internship Program, Timeline. PUBLICATION: 'City Art: New York's Percent for Art Program' (Merrell Publishers, London and New York) was made possible by a generous grant from The Joy of Giving Something, Inc. Additional publishing support was provided by Furthermore: A Program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. EXHIBITION: City Art: New York's Percent for Art Program (Public Programming at the Center for Architecture)
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/panyc.shtml

'Dialogues in Public Art' by Tom Finkelpearl - "By the 1990s, public art had evolved far beyond the lonely monument on an open plaza. Now public artists might design the entire plaza, create an event to alter the social dynamics of an urban environment, or help to reconstruct a neighborhood. Dialogues in Public Art presents a rich blend of interviews with the people who create and experience public art , , , , " (Amazon.com)

'Boundaries' by Maya Ying Lin - "In Boundaries, Lin's lucid, soft-spoken collection of writings, she discusses how her work evolves, after a lengthy gestation, as a way of heightening viewers' awareness of a specific environment and perception of the passage of time. This temporal aspect can be a sequence of historical events (as in the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama) or a purely aesthetic quality, like the shifting play of light over a grassy field of sculpted earth (Wave Field at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). "I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person," Lin writes, "no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present." (Amazon.com)

'Art and the Public Sphere' by W. J. T. Mitchell, Editor - "What is the fate of art in an age of publicity? How has the role of traditional public (i.e., government-owned) art changed in contemporary culture, and how have changing conditions of public space and mass communications altered the whole relationship between art and its potential audiences? With contributions from the arts, philosophy, criticism, and the law, the thirteen essays in this volume explore the aesthetic, social, and political dynamics that make contemporary public art so controversial, and that that have placed recent art work at the center of public debates." (Amazon.com)

'Public Art' by Florian Matzner, Editor - "Few topics in the visual arts in recent years have created such controversy as the debate surrounding the significance and potential of public art. In this massive book, over 50 authors take a critical look at the theme; the result is a fascinating compendium of opinions and statements, experiences and reports. The wide-ranging material by curators, art historians and artists--including Vito Acconci, Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Kasper Konig, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra, Harald Szeemann, Lawrence Weiner and many more--is divided into sections entitled "Art and the City," "Art and Architecture," "Art and History," "Art and Society" and "Art and the Public." (Amazon.com)

'One Place after Another : Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity' by Miwon Kwon - "Site-specific art emerged in the late 1960s in reaction to the growing commodification of art and the prevailing ideals of art's autonomy and universality. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as site-specific art intersected with land art, process art, performance art, conceptual art, installation art, institutional critique, community-based art, and public art, its creators insisted on the inseparability of the work and its context. In recent years, however, the presumption of unrepeatability and immobility encapsulated in Richard Serra's famous dictum "to remove the work is to destroy the work" is being challenged by new models of site specificity and changes in institutional and market forces. One Place after Another offers a critical history of site-specific art since the late 1960s and a theoretical framework for examining the rhetoric of aesthetic vanguardism and political progressivism associated with its many permutations. Informed by urban theory, postmodernist criticism in art and architecture, and debates concerning identity politics and the public sphere, the book addresses the siting of art as more than an artistic problem. It examines site specificity as a complex cipher of the unstable relationship between location and identity in the era of late capitalism." (Amazon.com)

'Urban Surprises: A Guide to Public Art in Los Angeles' by Gloria Gerace (Editor), Margie J. Reese (Introduction), Dennis Keeley (Photographer) - "Los Angeles is the home of the largest public art program in the country. The City's commitment to the arts was affirmed in 1989 by landmark ordinances that defined the meaning of public art and created a mechanism to foster the creation of art throughout the community that is unparalleled in its scope and quality. Urban Surprises invites its readers to explore the hundreds of public works of art in Los Angeles: some awe-inspiring, some poignant, and some controversial. Enhanced with neighborhood maps and beautifully-reproduced color images by photographer Dennis Keeley, the book also contains a list of program sponsors and an index to the artists themselves. "

'Plop: Recent Projects from the Public Art Fund' by Jeffrey Kastner, Anne Weher, Tom Eccles - "Thanks to the bold vision of the Public Art Fund, for over twenty-five years New York City plazas, buildings, parks and streets have been the sites of astonishing public art installations - from Jeff Koons's gigantic puppy, made of flowering plants, in the Rockefeller Center, to Mariko Mori's dreamy spaceship-shaped sculpture, Wave UFO, on Madison Avenue. Plop: Recent Projects of the Public Art Fund - its title a reclamation of the term Plop Art, sometimes used to refer to public art that is considered unrelated to its setting - features projects by forty-five internationally acclaimed artists whose installations were made possible by the Public Art Fund, one of the most innovative supporters of contemporary art in America. Presented here are works by Vanessa Beecroft, Rachel Whiteread, Christian Boltanski, Tony Oursler, Roxy Paine, Takashi Murakami, Louise Bourgeois, Dan Graham, Barbara Kruger, Nam June Paik, Juan Mu-oz and Pipilotti Rist, among others. Plop examines the diverse ways in which artists have created a participatory experience of contemporary art in public spaces, and documents the changing city and the evolution of what it means for art to be public." - About the Author: "Tom Eccles has been Director of the Public Art Fund since 1996. Anne Wehr is Communications Director of the Public Art Fund. Jeff Kastner writes regularly about contemporary art for The New York Times, ArtNews and other publications."

'Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art' by Grant H. Kester - "A definitive study of a coherent and fascinating set of art practices. Kester makes the concept of dialogical art more textured and complex with each new work he discusses, providing both richness of description and depth of understanding. Without being authoritarian or heavy-handed, the book is definitive, exhaustively researched, and comprehensive. It is likely to remain the premier resource of information on community-based dialogical art for years to come and will be required reading for all courses that deal with the social implications of art."-Norman Bryson, Professor of Art History, University of California, San Diego - "Some of the most innovative art of the past decade has been created far outside conventional galleries and museums. In a parking garage in Oakland, California; on a pleasure boat on the Lake of Zurich in Switzerland; at a public market in Chiang Mai, Thailand-artists operating at the intersection of art and cultural activism have been developing new forms of collaboration with diverse audiences and communities. Their projects have addressed such issues as political conflict in Northern Ireland, gang violence on Chicago's West Side, and the problems of sex workers in Switzerland. Provocative, accessible, and engaging, this book, one of the first full-length studies on the topic, situates these socially conscious projects historically, relates them to key issues in contemporary art and art theory, and offers a unique critical framework for understanding them. Grant Kester discusses a disparate network of artists and collectives-including The Art of Change, Helen and Newton Harrison, Littoral, Suzanne Lacy, Stephen Willats, and WochenKlausur-united by a desire to create new forms of understanding through creative dialogue that crosses boundaries of race, religion, and culture. Kester traces the origins of these works in the conceptual art and feminist performance art of the 1960s and 1970s and draws from the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, Jürgen Habermas, and others as he explores the ways in which these artists corroborate and challenge many of the key principles of avant-garde art and art theory. Illustrations: 32 b/w photographs"

'Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art' by Erika Suderburg (Editor)

'Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy' by Harriet F. Senie (Editor), Sally Webster (Editor) - Card catalog description: "In this anthology, twenty-two artists, architects, historians, critics, curators, and philosophers explore the role of public art in creating a national identity, contending that each work can only be understood by analyzing the context in which it is commissioned, built, and received. They emphasize the historical continuum between traditional works such as Mount Rushmore, the Washington Monument, and the New York Public Library lions and contemporary memorials such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Names Project AIDS Quilt. They discuss the influence of patronage on form and content, isolate the factors that precipitate controversy, and show how public art overtly and covertly conveys civic values and national culture. Complete with an updated introduction, Critical Issues in Public Art shows how monuments, murals, memorials, and sculptures in public places are complex cultural achievements that must speak to increasingly diverse groups."

'Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzer' by Mark Rosenthal - "When we think of installation art we imagine enormous, perhaps bewildering, multi-media environments. But the world's earliest known installation projects were created millennia ago on the walls of caves in Lascaux, France. Although the genre has been evolving ever since, its primary impulse --a dialogue between artist and space --remains the same. In Understanding Installation Art, Mark Rosenthal offers an historical interpretation and concise critical analyses that will help deepen readers' appreciation of this often confusing medium."

'Installation Art in the New Millennium: The Empire of the Senses' by Nicolas De Oliveira, Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry - From Booklist: "The term installation art describes a diverse array of provocative artworks that bring viewers inside an artist's creation rather than allowing them to stand passively before a static image. Artists' installations feature intense sensory experiences that go beyond the visual and incorporate a vast range of materials and media from household objects to mist to chain saws to naked people to state-of-the-art computer imaging and sound technologies. As de Oliveira and his contributors explain in this exciting international survey, an ever-increasing number of contemporary artists are creating environments that resemble everything from a living room to a library, theater, or hospital in order to explore the nature of time and memory, the relationship between body and mind, ecological concerns, the distinction between private and public space, and the implications of the digital explosion. As documented in this worthy volume's 268 colorplates and definitive commentary, the resulting installations vary from stunning to silly, frightening to pleasurable, futuristic to funky, but all are mind expanding and all extend art's capacity for reflecting and influencing our lives. (Donna Seaman Copyright - American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.)

'Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society' by Lucy Lippard - New York Times Book Review: "Lippard overwhelms us with the breadth of her reading and the comprehensiveness with which she considers the things that define place. . . [The Lure of the Local] could equally well turn up in areas like environment, planning, women's studies, geography, and current affairs."

'Passage' by Andy Goldsworthy - "To achieve the quiet beauty of his art, Andy Goldsworthy spends long hours in rough weather, engaged in a tug-of-war with nature. He wrestles heavy stones on top of one another to form tall, egg-shaped landmarks known as cairns. He painstakingly covers fallen logs with bright golden bands of Dutch elm leaves --a last hurrah for a proud species decimated by disease. He pulverizes white chalk to lay a long, wandering path in the woods that gleams in the moonlight. Works like these are as much about the transience of life as they are about a sense of place and the pleasures of color, light and form. In Passage, the British artist's latest book, he once again provides diary excerpts that chronicle his daily successes and failures. The lush color photographs he takes to document peak moments of the birth, glory and decay of his art are as beautiful as ever. Unlike the other books, however, Passage--which begins in 2000 and darts back and forth over the next few years--is shadowed by a more urgent sense of mortality. Goldworthy's recently deceased father is in his thoughts, and a major project he tackles is the memorial Garden of Stones for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. The garden's giant boulders pose many difficulties--finding the right ones, acquiring them, moving them, experimenting with cutting processes and coping with the elderly stonecutter's frequent tantrums. Hollowed out, the stones will be filled with trowels of earth (a ritual recalling burial) and tiny oak saplings, symbolic of life. "The partnership between tree and stone will be stronger for the tree having grown from the stone, rather than being stuck into it," Goldsworthy writes in his straightforward style. (An essay about this project by the historian Simon Schama, previously published in The New Yorker, is one of several pieces by other writers included in the book.) Once again, Goldsworthy succeeds in showing how seemingly simple ideas and actions can deeply engage both natural forces and human emotions. " - Cathy Curtis. Other Books by Goldsworthy: 'Hand to Earth' - 'Time' - 'Stone' - 'Wall' - 'Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature'

'Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides' - DVD - "In the timeless tradition of Winged Migration and Koyaanisqatsi, the theatrical phenomenon Rivers and Tides depicts the magical relationship between art and nature while painting a visually intoxicating portrait of famed artist Andy Goldsworthy. Gorgeously shot and masterfully edited, the film follows the bohemian free spirit Goldsworthy all over the world as he demonstrates and opens up about his unique creative process. From his long-winding rock walls and icicle sculptures to his interlocking leaf chains and multicolored pools of flowers, Goldsworthy's painstakingly intricate masterpieces are made entirely of materials found in Mother Nature, who threatens and often succeeds in destroying his art, sometimes before it is even finished. With over ten four-star reviews from the nation's top critics, Rivers and Tides serenely captures Goldsworthy in the midst of constructing his trademark ephemera on-camera creating a mesmerizing cinematic experience that helps us to appreciate nature in new and enchanting ways. "

'5 Films About Christo and Jeanne-Claude - A Maysles Films Production' - DVD - "After you've seen 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude, your appreciation for art and artists will be permanently enlightened. Spanning three decades of unique collaboration between controversial public-art creator Christo, his creative partner and wife Jeanne-Claude, and cinema verité pioneers David and Albert Maysles (Salesman, Grey Gardens, and many other award-winning films), this DVD set of five captivating, unscripted documentaries is a living chronicle of art as a public challenge, inviting the viewer to witness the creation and installation of temporary artworks that triumphantly illustrate (as noted by Salon.com essayist Charles Taylor) "the collision between art and everyday life." Whether they are raising a massive "Valley Curtain" of vibrant orange nylon across a Colorado mountain range; a 24-mile "Running Fence" in Northern California; surrounding islands in Florida with gigantic rings of hot-pink fabric; or simultaneously erecting a total of 3,100 huge umbrellas across rolling landscapes in Japan and California, the Christos (who self-finance all of their expensive installations) are both deliriously self-indulgent and open-heartedly generous about their work and the impressive engineering that goes into creating it. For these and other time-consuming but fleetingly visible endowments of beauty on an epic scale, the Maysles were there with camera and microphone, capturing the impact, controversy, humor, and ultimate glory of Christo's wondrous vision. Accompanied by an engaging 2004 interview between Christo, Jeanne-Claude, and Albert Maysles (David died in 1987), and an 80-page booklet including Taylor's excellent essay and detailed statistics on each of the featured projects, 5 Films is a timeless testament to Christo's assertion that "all of our art is about freedom." It comes as no surprise, then, that the experience of viewing these inspiring films is so joyously liberating." --Jeff Shannon

'Ecovention, Current Art to Transform Ecologies' by Sue Spaid - "Coined in 1999, the term ecovention (ecology + invention) describes an artist initiated project that employs an inventive strategy to physically transform an ecosystem. This exciting publication has been designed and written to attract a diverse audience. Ecovention juxtaposes interesting ecological facts alongside case studies of projects artists have realized, in tandem with scientists and community members. Active ecovention sites that span the globe, from Australia to Kenya and Italy to the United States are documented in this book. This is a refreshing look into how artistic ideas can be combined with the sciences to create a healthier and more meaningful world!"

'Land and Environmental Art (Themes and Movements)' by Brian Wallis, Jeffrey Kastner - "This book fully documents the 1960s Land Art movement as well as surveying later examples of environmental art to the present day. Earthworks, environments, performances and actions by artists ranging from Ana Mendieta, Robert Smithson or Walter de Maria in the 1970s-80s to Peter Fend and Mierle Laderman Ukeles in the 1990s are all illustrated with breathtaking photographs, sketches and project notes. They are accompanied by documents which chart the ideas, their critical reception and the broader philosophical and cultural context which framed them." - From Library Journal: "If ever a series could elucidate the many forces active in contemporary art, it is Phaidon's "Themes and Movements." Divided into three major sections beginning with a survey by cultural critic and curator Brian Wallis, the book defines land and environmental art and places it in a broader context. The second section, presented by critic and editor Kastner, contains classic examples of work starting in 1947 with a maquette by Isamu Noguchi and ending with a 1996 proposal by Mark Dion. Each work is illustrated chronologically with expanded captions noting intention, process, and exhibition history. The last section is loaded with articles, reviews, and artists' statements that directly support both the survey and the works. A book like this is badly needed to consolidate a subject that has often been scattered into many categories; here Smithson, De Maria, and Christo appear alongside Ukeles, Mendieta, and Chin. Some of the artists are more conceptual while others are more sculptural, but nearly all have taken their work outside the museum setting. A virtual tour of an exhibition that spans more than four decades and thousands of miles; highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.ASusan M. Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc."

'Aesthetics of Ecology: Art in Environmental Design: Theory and Practice' by Heike Strelow, Editor - "Numerous tendencies in landscape architecture, science and theory have driven research and landscape transformation for over thirty years. Approaches as different as Ecological Aesthetics, Art in Nature, Ecoart and Reclamation Art are united by a search for dialogue with natural processes. This book describes the diverse aspects of ecological aesthetics from the point of view of artists, landscape architects, scientists, philosophers and politicians. . . . "

'Dancing in the Landscape : The Sculpture of Athena Tacha' by Harriet F. Senie, James Grayson Trulove (Editor) - "Dancing in the Landscape: The Sculpture of Athena Tacha is the most comprehensive presentation of Athena Tacha's outdoor public art of the past 25 years. One of the initiators of "site-specific" architectural sculpture, Tacha has been a finalist in more that 135 national and international competitions. Of the 42 commissions she wonb, 30 have been executed throughout the United States, from New York to Arizona, Florida to Alaska, including an entire city block park in downtown Philadelphia."

'Groundswell: Contructing The Contemporary Landscape' by Peter Reed - "Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape presents 23 projects that reveal the surge of creativity and discussion surrounding the designed landscape in a broad, principally urban, international context. In the last 20 years, many significant new public spaces have been created for sites that have been reclaimed from conflict, environmental degradation, and abandonment. The projects, found throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, were selected for their outstanding design, and for their variety of contexts, materials, scale, and types of spaces. . . . "

'Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews With Environmental Artists' by Edward Lucie-Smith (Forward) and John K. Grande - "John Grande's new book Art Nature Dialogues is not only informative, but it presents the scuptors and artists ideas, points of view without the usual critical control or monologue. Included are David Nash, Nils-Udo, Hamish Fulton, Patrick Dougherty, Bruni Babarit, Bill Vazan, Alan Sonfist, Betty Beaumont, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Peter von Tiesenhausen and herman de vries (a pioneer of earth art from the 1950s in Holland). This is one book thatshakes the art world softly, gently and with a sense of the physical, realworld of nature . Bye Bye PostModernsim. Hello respect for the Earth." (S. MacLeod)

'Moving Horizons : The Landscape Architecture of Kathryn Gustafson and Partners' by Jane Amidon, Aaron Betsky (Contributor) - "American landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson, long one of the most respected in her field, recently garnered international acclaim with her Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, London. Moving Horizons, the first comprehensive monograph on her work, showcases her recent projects for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Millennium Garden in Chicago, the Great Glass House in Wales, the Amsterdam Westergasfabriek Park, and the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut. In total, thirty projects underline Gustafson's distinctive and highly artistic style, characterized by sensual sculptural forms that have made her the landscape designer of choice for architects like Norman Foster, Mecanoo, and Renzo Piano."

'Earthworks : Art and the Landscape of the Sixties' by Suzaan Boettger - From Booklist: "The full story of the rapid coalescence and far-reaching influence of earthworks-- defined by art historian and critic Boettger as "sculptors' direct manipulation of soil and terrain," and taking the form of massive yet usually subtle and always provocative outdoor sculptures--is fascinating, significant, and untold until now. Writing with unfailing clarity and momentum, Boettger sets earthworks firmly within the artistic, social, and political sensibilities of the times, highlighting the rise in ecological awareness and protests against the Vietnam War. She begins by assessing the emergence of large-scale, abstract public sculptures by artists such as Tony Smith, and pop art's obsession with objects and mechanical processes, trends that inspired Robert Smithson to go back to the source, the earth itself, to regain a "sense of the sacred" and to liberate art from artificiality. As Boettger expertly chronicles the making and reception of innovative earthworks by Smithson (who coined the term), Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, and Walter De Maria, she illuminates crucial facets of our perception of both nature and art then and now." (Donna Seaman)