Customer Reviews

Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape (Abbeville Modern Art Movements)

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a vital survey of the world of land art/architecture. everyone moving about the built environment should check this out to get a new understanding of our common landscape and what it can be/can become. highly recommended!

Earthworks and Beyond is a text-book style read that covers a wide variety of earthworks artists. It is fairly straightforward and easy to understand. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in broadening their knowledge and understanding on earthworks in general. Beginning with Michael Heizer in the 1960's, the book goes on to describe well-known artists such as Andy Goldsworthy, Isamu Noguchi, Maya Lin, as well as many lesser-known artists who have also contributed to the earthworks field. This book provides a fairly objective view of both the artists and their work. It explains how the idea and purpose of an earthwork has expanded and developed over time by presenting not only the work itself, but also the goals or motives of the artist- whether they be aesthetic, conceptual, political, environmental...etc. So, although it did not go very in-depth about any particular thing, Earthworks and Beyond was definitely interesting with a lot of information- a good overview on earthworks.