| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction, syllabus review, assignment of presentations |
Constitution of the Iroquois Nations c. 1400-1600. “Landscape, n.” and “Landscape, v.” Oxford English Dictionary OED Online. Oxford University Press. Before class meeting, please consult these items: Wikipedia Contributors. “Mayflower Compact.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Jefferson, Thomas. “Query VI, A Notice of the Mines and Other Subterraneous Riches; Its Trees, Plants, Fruits, &c.,” In Thomas Jefferson: Writings. Library of America, 1984, pp. 150–162. ISBN: 9780940450165. Matilsky, Barbara C. “Mel Chin: Revival Field.” In Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists’ Interpretations and Solutions. Rizzoli International Publications, 1992, pp. 108–111. ISBN: 9780847815920. |
| 2 | Out to Work: Landscape-Labor-Commodity |
Thoreau, Henry David. “Economy.” In Walden. The Project Gutenberg Ebook. (Read from “We don garment after garment… " to end of chapter.) Marx, Leo. “Two Kingdoms of Force.” In The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195133516. [Preview with Google Books] Kohler, Robert E. “A New Natural History.” In Landscapes and Labscapes. University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226450100. [Preview with Google Books] Smith, Kimberly K. “A Land Cursed by Injustice.” In African American Environmental Thought: Foundations. University of Kansas, 2007. ISBN: 9780700615162. Recommended: Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” 1836. Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. Poe, Edgar Allen. “Domain of Arnheim.” 1942. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. ———. “Landor’s Cottage.” 1849. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. Marx, Karl. Chapters 7 and 16. In Capital, Volume 1. 1867. Semonin, Paul. “‘Monarch of the Wilderness’.” In American Monster: How the Nation’s First Prehistoric Creature became a Symbol of National Unity. New York University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780814781203. [Preview with Google Books] Griffin, Patrick. “American Leviathan: The Covenant for Commonwealth.” In American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier. Reprint edition. Hill and Wang, 2008. ISBN: 9780809024919. |
| 3 | MIT holiday, no formal class meeting |
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| 4 | Minimalism, Monument, Money, Mortgage | Workshop on field trip readings; run-through of Lavine lecture presentations |
| 5 | What is/is not a landscape? |
Heidegger, Martin. “Creative Landscape: Why Do We Stay in the Provinces?” In The Weimar Republic Sourcebook. Revised edition. University of California Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780520067752. [Preview with Google Books] Cronon, William. “Preface” and “Seasons of Want and Plenty.” In Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and dthe Ecology of New England. Revised edition. Hill and Wang, 2003. ISBN: 9780809016341. [Preview with Google Books] Cosgrove, Daniel and Stephen Daniels, eds. “Introduction: Iconography and Landscape.” In The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments. Revised edition. Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780521389150. [Preview with Google Books] DeLue, Rachael Z. and James Eklins, eds. “The Art Seminar” and “The ‘Actual Landscape,’ or Actual Landscapes?” In Landscape Theory. Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415960540. David, Bruno and Julian Thomas eds. “Topographies of Value: Ethical Issues in Landscape Archaeology” and “Contested Landscapes—Rights to History, Rights to Place: Who Controles Archaeological Places?” In Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 9781598746167.
Recommended: Cronon, William. “The View from Walden.” In Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and dthe Ecology of New England. Revised edition. Hill and Wang, 2003. ISBN: 9780809016341. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 6 |
“Preserving” “Natural” “Culture” Guest visit: Mark Jarzombek |
Catlin, George. “Letters No. 2, 3, 4: Mouth of Yellow Stone.” In Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians. Nabu Press, 2010. ISBN: 9781174010590. [Preview with Google Books] Olmsted, Frederick Law. The Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees: A Preliminary Report, 1865. Yosemite Conservancy, 1995. ISBN: 9780939666690. Muir, John. “Yosemite Glaciers.” 1871. Sierra Club. ———. “Snow Banners.” In The Yosemite. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. ISBN: 9781502702906. Nash, Roderick F. American Environmentalism: Readings In Conservation History. 3rd edition. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 1989. ISBN: 9780070460591. Read the following selections:
Klesert, Anthony and Alan Downer, eds. Preservation on the Reservation Native Americans, Native American Lands and Archaeology. Navajo Nation, 1990. Skim:
Vankin, Deborah. “Obama designates Nevada area surrounding Heizer’s ‘City’ a national monument.” Los Angeles Times. July 10, 2015. |
| 7 | Urban Counterparts? Part 1 |
Jacobs, Jane. “The Kind of Problem a City Is.” In The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Reissue edition. Vintage, 1992. ISBN: 9780679741954. O’Doherty, Brian. “Art: [Kaprow’s] ‘Environment: Words’ Exploits Law of Chance.” New York Times. September 15, 1962. McHarg, Ian L. “The Place of Nature in the City of Man” and “Ecological Determinism.” In The Essential Ian McHarg: Writings on Design and Nature. Edited by Frederick R. Steiner. New edition edition. Island Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781597261173. [Preview with Google Books] Wagstaff, Samuel. “Talking to Tony Smith.” Artforum 5:4 (December 1966): 14–19. Kepes, Gyorgy. “The Artist’s Role in Environmental Self-Regulation” and “The City as an Artwork.” In Arts of the Environment. George Braziller, 1972. ISBN: 9780807606209. Goldring, Elizabeth. “‘Desert Sun/Desert Moon’ and the SKY ART Manifesto.” Leonardo 20, no. 4 (1987): 339–48. Baum, Kelly. “On the Road.” In New Jersey as a Non-Site. Princeton University Art Museum, 2013. ISBN: 9780300174373. Recommended: McLuhan, Marshall. “Art as Anti-Environment.” Art New Annual 16 (1966): 54–57. Deutsche, Rosalyn. “Uneven Development: Public Art in New York City.” October 47 (1988): 3–52. Kepes, Gyorgy. “Art and Ecological Consciousness.” In Arts of the Environment. George Braziller, 1972. ISBN: 9780807606209. |
| 8 | Landscape Perception |
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice and Patricia Allen Dreyfus. “Cézanne’s Doubt.” In Sense and Non-Sense. Northwestern University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780810101661. [Preview with Google Books] Appleton, Jay. “The Imagery and Symbolism of the Prospect.” In Experience of Landscape. John Wiley & Sons, 1975. ISBN: 9780471032564. Koerner, Joseph Leo. “Part 1: Romanticizing the World.” In Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape. 2nd edition. Reaktion Books, 2009. ISBN: 9781861894397. [Preview with Google Books] Ketner, Joseph D. “The Best Landscape Painter in the West.” In The Emergence of the African-American Artist: Robert S. Duncanson, 1821-1872. University of Missouri Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780826208804. [Preview with Google Books] Barrett, Ross. “Bursting the Bubble: John Quidor’s Money Diggers and Land Speculation.” American Art 30:1 (Spring 2016): 28–51. Recommended: De Bolla, Peter. The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Stanford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780804748001. [Preview with Google Books] Read the following selections:
Wallach, Alan. “The Battle over ‘The West as America.’” In Exhibiting Contradiction: Essays on Art Museum in the United States. University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. [Preview with Google Books] Hemingway, Andrew and Alan Wallach, eds. “Thomas Cole and Transatlantic Romanticism.” In Transatlantic Romanticism: British and American Art Literature, 1790-1860. University of Massaschusetts Press, 2015. ISBN: 9781625341143. |
| 9 | Urban Counterpoints? Part 2 |
Odum, Eugene. “Introduction: The Scope of Ecology” and “Applications: Natural Resources.” In Fundamentals of Ecology. 3rd edition. W.B. Saunders Company, 1971. ISBN: 9780721669410. Zukin, Sharon. “The Urban Landscape.” In Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World. University of California Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780520072213. [Preview with Google Books] Carson, Rachel. “A Fable for Tomorrow.” In Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1962. ISBN: 9780395075067.[Preview with Google Books] Waldheim, Charles. “Terra Fluxus” and “Landscape as Urbanism.” In The Landscape Urbanism Reader. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781568984391. [Preview with Google Books] Spirn, Anne W. “Prologue.” In The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. Basic Books, 1985. ISBN: 9780465027064. ———. “The Poetics of City and Nature: Towards a New Aesthetic for Urban Design.” (PDF - 5.9MB) Landscape Journal 7, No. 2, (Fall 1988): 108–126. ———. “Polemical Landscapes.” The Language of Landscape. Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780300082944. ———. “Ecological Urbanism: A Framework for the Design of Resilient Cities.” (PDF) Recommended: Lefebvre, Henri. “The Worldwide and the Planetary.” In State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Edited by Stuart Elden and Neil Brenner. Translated by Gerald Moore. University of Minnesota Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780816653171. [Preview with Google Books] Brenner, Neil and Christian Schmid. “Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban?” City 19.2‐3 (2015): 151–82. Galison, Peter. “Remember Us: Memorializing Nuclear Waste.” TEDx Hunter College Campus Schools, 2011. YouTube. |
| 10 |
Holiday, no regular class meeting Class will meet at List Visual Arts Center for the Lavine Lecture |
Prior to Lavine Lecture by James Nisbet, please read:
|
| 11 | Politics of Nature |
Zelko, Frank and Carolin Brinkmann. “The Early Years of the Green Politics Movement in the United States.” In Green Parties: Reflections on the First Three Decades. Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2006. Mitchell, W. J. T. “Introduction” and “Imperial Landscape.” In Landscape and Power. 2nd edition. University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226532059. [Preview with Google Books] Latour, Bruno. “Why Political Ecology Has to Let Go of Nature.” In Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Translated by Catherine Porter. Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674013476. [Preview with Google Books] Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.” (PDF) Environmental Humanities, vol. 6 (2015): 159–165. Klein, Naomi. “Love Will Save this Place: Democracy, Divestment, and the Wins So Far.” In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Reprint edition. Simon & Schuster, 2015. ISBN: 9781451697391. [Preview with Google Books] Scott, Emily Eliza and Kristen J. Swenson, eds. “Introduction: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Land Use.” In Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, Politics. Univeristy of California Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780520285491. [Preview with Google Books] Steffen, Will, Reinhold Leinfelder, et al. “Stratigraphic and Earth System Approaches to Defining the Anthropocene.” Earth’s Future, 4: 324–345. Recommended: Grosz, Elizabeth. “Sensation. The Earth, A People, Art.” In Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth. Columbia University Press, 2008. ISBN: 97-0231145183. [Preview with Google Books] Klein, Naomi. “You and What Army? Indigenous Rights and the Power of Keeping our Word.” In This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Reprint edition. Simon & Schuster, 2015. ISBN: 9781451697391. [Preview with Google Books] Graham, James, Caitlin Blanchfield, et al., eds. “The Universals and Particulars of Climate.” In Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary. Lars Müller, 2016. ISBN: 9783037784945. |
| 12 | Final Research Paper presentations | No assigned readings |
| 13 | Final Studio Project presentations | No assigned readings |
Readings
Below is a list of readings for the optional field trip to visit major works of land art in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas during the summer preceding the term. For related films, see the Bibliography.
[AA] = Schipsi, Lauren and Josef Helfenstein, eds. Art and Activism: Projects of John and Dominique de Menil. The Menil Collection, 2010. ISBN: 9780300123777.
| DAY # | AGENDA & LOCATION | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | On airport wifi (i.e. before departure) |
Land Arts of the American West Great Salt Lake Exploration Platform (GSLEP) The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) Land Use Database |
| 1 | Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels |
Smithson, Robert. “The Spiral Jetty.” In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. Revised edition. Edited by Jack Flam. University of California Press, 1996, pp. 143–153. ISBN: 9780520203853. [Preview with Google Books] Alloway, Lawrence. “Site Inspection.” Artforum, October 1976, 49–55. Coolidge, Matthew. “Introduction.” In Overlook: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America with the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Edited by Matthew Coolidge and Sarah Simons. Metropolis Books, 2006, p. 16. ISBN: 9781933045337.
Kennedy, Randy. “How to Conserve Art That Lives in a Lake?” New York Times, November, 17, 2009: C1. Rubio, Fernando Domínguez. “The Material Production of the Spiral Jetty: A Study of Culture in the Making.” (PDF) In Curatorial Sociology 6:143 (2012): 143–161. Landi, Ann. “Discovering Tunnels in the Sand.” The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2012. |
| 2 | Wendover/CLUI, Double Negative |
Glueck, Grace. “Moving Mother Earth.” New York Times, October 6, 1968: D38. Heizer, Michael. “You Might Say I’m in the Construction Business.” ArtNews 76: 10 (December, 1977): 97–99. Fox, William L. “Michael Heizer: The Perforated Object.” In Mapping the Empty: Eight Artists and Nevada. University of Nevada Press, 1999, pp. 103–122. ISBN: 9780874173147. ———. Chapter 2. In The Void, The Grid, and the Sign: Traversing the Great Basin. University of Nevada Press, 2000, pp. 23–52. ISBN: 9780874176186. [Preview with Google Books] Lippard, Lucy. Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West. The New Press, 2014, pp. 26–30; 81–120. ISBN: 9781595586193. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 3 | Route 40 Driving Day |
Auping, Michael. “The Ecology and Economics of ‘Earth Art’,” Artweek (June 18, 1977): 1. Butzer, Karl W. “Indian Legacy in the American Landscape.” In The Making of the American Landscape. Edited by Michael P. Conzen. Routledge, 1990, pp. 27–50. ISBN: 9780415911788. Wescoat, James L. “Watering the Deserts.” In The Making of the American Landscape. Edited by Michael P. Conzen. Routledge, 1990, pp. 186–203. ISBN: 9780415911788. Frank, Della. “I Hate to See…/For Those Who Suffer in Life.” In Storm Pattern: Poems from Two Navajo Women: Poems by Della Frank & Roberta D. Joe. Navajo Community College Preses, 1993, pp. 20–21. Blahut, Chelsea. “City Under Siege.” In Architect, 104: 5 (May, 2015): 40. Optional: Hofmann, Irene, Candice Hopkins, et al. “The Ties That Bind Us.” In Much Wider Than a Line. SITE Sante Fe, 2016. ISBN: 9780985660239. |
| 4 | Drive to El Paso (Car 1)/Drive to White Sands (Car 2) |
Thompson, A.R., B.G. Clark, et al. “The Very Large Array.” In The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 44, (October 1980): 151–167. Masco, Joe. Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico. Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 1–18; 311–27. [Preview with Google Books] Kett, Robert J. “Monumentality as Method: Archaeology and Land Art in the Cold War.” Representations, Vol. 130 (Spring, 2015): 119–151. Optional Car #1: Kripa, Ersela and Stephen Mueller. “Infrastructure of Dust: Managing Particulate in the Borderland.” (PDF) ———. “Domestic Insecurities: Informal Housing and the Future of Low-Intensity Conflict.” (PDF) In MONU, Issue on Domestic Urbanism, 2016. Day after lightning Field (car specific): Beardsley, John. “Art and Authoritarianism: Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field.” October 16 (Spring 1981): 35–38. Nisbet, James. “A Brief Moment in the History of Photo‐Energy: Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field.” Grey Room 50 (Winter, 2013): 66–89. Optional Car #2: Building Technology Inc., Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, and National Park Service. “Historic Properties Report: White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and Subinstallation, Utah Launch Complex, Green River, Utah.” (PDF - 7.9MB) 1984. |
| 5 | Drive to Marfa |
Judd, Donald. “Specific Objects.” In Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959–1975: Gallery Reviews, Book Reviews, Articles, Letters to the Editor, Reports, Statements, Complaints. Judd Foundation, 2016, pp. 181–189. ISBN: 9781938922930. Tillim, Sidney. “Earthworks and the New Picturesque.” Artforum 7: 4 (December 1968): 43–45. Smithson, Robert. “Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape.” In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. Edited by Jack Flam. University of California Press, 1996, pp. 157–171. ISBN: 9780520203853. [Preview with Google Books] Larson, Kay. “New Landscapes in Art.” New York Times. May 13, 1979. Wilsey, Sean and Daphne Beal. “Lone Star Bohemia.” Vanity Fair. July, 2012. Optional: Judd, Donald. “It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp” Talk Series. Kennedy, Randy. “Robert Irwin’s Big Visions, Barely Seen.” New York Times. January 1, 2016. |
| 6 | Marfa |
Tomkins, Caivin. “The Benefactor.” The New Yorker. June 8, 1998, pp. 52–67. ———. “The Mission.” The New Yorker. May 19, 2003, pp. 46–53. Kimmelman, Michael. “The Dia Generation.” The New York Times Magazine. April 6, 2003. Colacello, Bob. “Remains of the Dia.” Vanity Fair. September, 1996. Seman, Michael. “No Country for Old Developers: The Strange Tale of an Arts Boom, Bohemians, and ‘Marfalafel’ in the High Desert of Marfa, Texas.” (PDF) Applied Research in Economic Development 5:3 (December, 2008): 25–31. Optional: “Chinati Foundation Announces Major New Work by Robert Irwin.” Chinati Foundation. Vasquez, Sarah M. “With Controversy Behind Them, Irwin Project Under Way.” Big Bend Now. October 8, 2015. Garcia, John Daniel. “Chinati Unveils Major New Work by Robert Irwin, Finally.” Big Bend Now. July 21, 2016. “A One-Day Excursion from Marfa to the South.” VisitMarfa.com. |
| 7 | Drive to Austin |
Potts, Alex. “Tactility: The Interrogation of Medium in Art of the 1960s.” Art History 27: 282–304. Chave, Anna. “Revaluing Minimalism: Patronage, Aura and Place.” (PDF) Art Bulletin 90:3 (September 2008): 466–486. Ginsburgh, V. and A.F. Penders. “Land Artists and Art Markets.” In Journal of Cultural Economics 21 (1997): 219–228. Deitch, Jeffrey. “The New Economics of Environmental Art.” In Art in the Land: A Critical Anthology of Environmental Art. Edited by Alan Sonfist. Plume, 1983, pp. 85–91. ISBN: 9780525477020. |
| 8 | In Houston |
[AA] “Aesthetics as a Vocation.” [AA] “Two Museums and Two Universities: Toward The Menil Collection.” [AA] “Regard the Light: The Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall.” Kaplan, Barry J. “Houston: The Golden Buckle of the Sunbelt.” In Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II. Edited by Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice. University of Texas Press, 1984, pp. 196–212. ISBN: 9780292775800. [Preview with Google Books] |
