Presented in chronological order
Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974, exhibition at MOCA, Los Angeles. 2012.
Charles Simonds, Birth, 1970, 16mm film transferred to DVD; color and sound, 3 minutes. Fair Use.
Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 “is the first large-scale, historical-thematic exhibition to deal broadly with Land art, capturing the simultaneous impulse emergent in the 1960s to use the earth as an artistic medium and to locate works in remote sites far from familiar art contexts. Organized by MOCA Senior Curator Philipp Kaiser and co-curator Miwon Kwon, Professor of Art History at UCLA, the exhibition highlights the early years of untested artistic experimentations and concludes in the mid-1970s before Land art becomes a fully institutionalized category. Rather than romanticizing notions of ‘return to nature’ or an ‘escape from culture’, the exhibition provides a comprehensive overview that reveals the complexity of the movement’s social and political engagement with the historical conditions of its time. Ends of the Earth exposes Land art as a media practice as much as a sculptural one, focusing on the extent to which language, photography, film, and television served as an integral and not a secondary or supplementary part of its formation. Over eighty artists and projects from United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Iceland, Eastern and Northern Europe, as well as North and South Americas are included in the show. Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 is organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, in collaboration with Haus der Kunst, Munich.” Image featured above is from the short film Birth by Charles Simmonds, shown here with Body – Earth (contains nudity).
The New York Earth Room by Walter De Maria. 1977 – present.
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977. Long-term installation at 141 Wooster Street, New York City. Photo: John Cliett. Copyright Dia Art Foundation. Photo by Aaron Jimenez. Fair Use.
When in NYC, visit Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room, at 141 Wooster Street, and tell us what you think.
River and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer. 2001.
Internationally celebrated artist, Andy Goldsworthy, creates sculpture in natural settings using natural materials such as driftwood, ice, mud, leaves and stones. It is a meditation on the artist’s process and thinking, as well as the temporality of life. Over time, his work falls apart, melts or drifts away, as he notes: “The very thing that brings the work to life is the thing that will cause it’s death.” We can imagine such pieces as temporary markers within green cemeteries.
Ghost Cats by Linda Bremmer, Eastern State Penitentiary. Installation. 2005-2011.
Linda Brenner, Ghost Cats. Installation from 2005-2011. Eastern State Penitentiary. Fair Use.
“For twenty-eight years Dan McCloud (Dan the Cat Man) came to the prison three times a week to care for and feed his 30-40 jailhouse cats. In 1993 the cats were trapped and neutered by the Spayed Club. The population dwindled and several years later Dan turned the cat care over to the staff at ESP. The ‘ghosts’ of these cats are represented by white castings and were modeled to reflect the physical body type of the animals from the original colony. The installation debuted with 39 sculptures.” The installation is dedicated to the memory of Dan McCloud. Click here for more information.
Earthscape Art by Andres Amador
Andres Amador. Labyrinth-1 at Hulaween. Installation. 2013. 2.93 M. Fair Use.
Andres is a San Francisco-based artist. His artwork has appeared on beaches in the US and internationally. His primary canvas is the Northern California coastline, although there have been some forest and other installations. Many ideas for a beachside goodbye ceremony, or for a conservation cemetery installation. added 12/20/13
Untitled, a personal memorial for a wife’s gravesite, 2012
“I sculpted my wife, and our dog, for my wife’s grave.” A portrait artist who had never sculpted before, created this artistic tribute. “After they found the tumor my wife adopted a small dog found on the streets of Naples. This is her dog, Emma, on her cushion, in marble. She slept with her ears down for a couple of days after my wife’s death. I tried to capture that.” It was installed at her grave (while not a green burial, we are featuring the relationships we have with other species in life, in dying, in death, and in mourning). added 4/21/15
Teddy Bear Unnatural History by Stephanie Metz, 2015-16
Artist Statement: “Teddy bears at first appear trivial: playthings for children and symbols of innocence, comfort, and nostalgia. But the teddy bear is also an allegory for the way humans manipulate the natural world to our own ends. The anatomy of the teddy bear is designed to appeal to the biological response of human adults to care for their cute, round-featured, helpless babies. The tiny, sharp teeth in my teddys’ skulls serve as a reminder of the apex predator that inspired them.
To create my teddy bear natural history pieces I start with various breeds and reverse engineer the physical ‘evidence’ of their biological history in needle-felted wool, a material perfectly suited to representing fuzzy and soft yet firm and structural bones and tissues of stuffed animals.
Original artworks and photographic prints of some of these works are available through the online shop.” added 12/25/22
updated December 25, 2022
Green Pet-Burial Society 