James Nisbet

"In the decades following World War II, artists and designers developed the land art movement, consisting of outdoor artworks that can exist only in a specific place. Major works within this genre include Walter De Maria's Lightning Field (1977) located on an isolated high-desert plain in New Mexico; Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) in the Great Salt Lake, the concrete cylinders of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (1976), located in the Great Basin Desert in Utah; and other projects that nestle into environments ranging from open fields to concrete cityscapes. These works are typically depicted as they were when originally constructed. Yet their environmental contexts have transformed due to weather, agriculture, climate change, land-use policy, and more. In Second Site, James Nisbet presents the first sustained argument on how to account for the passage of time and environmental change in site-specific artworks, ranging from Richard Serra's Shift (1970)-whose initial small-farm-setting is now a growing exurb of Toronto-to Ant Farm's Cadillac Ranch (1974) and Nancy Holt's Dark Star Park (1984). Nisbet argues for an ecological reading of the artworks' environments, and coins the term "second site" to argue that manmade artworks and non-living things have their own durations but co-exist in the continuous experience of an environment. Any single photograph or experience of a site can provide only one view of an ever-changing existence. Nisbet advocates for new methods of evaluation, conservation, and depiction in order to "read" the content of these sites of time. In doing so, he uses site-specific artworks to help understand what it means for humans and their cultural production to live in an ecologically volatile world"--

Second Site

A meditation on how environmental change and the passage of time transform the meaning of site-specific art In the decades after World War II, artists and designers of the land art movement used the natural landscape to create monumental site-specific artworks. Second Site offers a powerful meditation on how environmental change and the passage of time alter and transform the meanings—and sometimes appearances—of works created to inhabit a specific place. James Nisbet offers fresh approaches to well-known artworks by Ant Farm, Rebecca Belmore, Nancy Holt, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson. He also examines the work of less recognized artists such as Agnes Denes, Bonnie Devine, and herman de vries. Nisbet tracks the vicissitudes wrought by climate change and urban development on site-specific artworks, taking readers from the plains of Amarillo, Texas, to a field of volcanic rock in Mexico City, to abandoned quarries in Finland. Providing vital perspectives on what it means to endure in an ecologically volatile world, Second Site challenges long-held beliefs about the permanency of site-based art, with implications for the understanding and conservation of artistic creation and cultural heritage.

Lyle Massey

Introduction / Lyle Massey and James Nisbet -- Desolate dreams / Joseph Masco -- Air, wind, breath, life : desertification and Will Wilson's AIR (Auto-Immune Response) / Jessica L. Horton -- Notes from bioteknika / Albert Narath -- Troglodyte modernists / Lyle Massey -- Explosive modernism : Hiram Hudson Benedict's Bouldereign and Zabriskie Point at 50 / Edward Dimendberg -- Point Omega/Omega Point : desert In three parts / Stefanie Sobelle -- The desert in fine grain / Emily Eliza Scott -- The desert as black mythology / Bridget R. Cooks -- On the recalcitrance of the desert island, by way of Andrea Zittel's A-Z West / James Nisbet -- Four theses for the coming deserts / Hans Baumann and Karen Pinkus.

Art, Land, and the Politics of Environment

The Invention of The\American Desert

Frank Soulé

John H. Gihon

Written by three journalists who were witnesses to and participants in the extraordinary events they describe, The Annals of San Francisco, originally published in 1855, is both an essential record for historians and a delightful narrative for general readers. Over 100 historical engravings are included.

James Nisbet

About

Books

Join the club