Land Arts 2016 Exhibition
Texas Tech University College of Architecture and Museum of Texas Tech University announce the LAND ARTS 2016 EXHIBITION.
An opening reception will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, February 17, 2017, in Leonardo’s Kitchen at the Museum of Texas Tech University at 3301 4th Street in Lubbock, Texas.
The exhibition culminates the semester-long transdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West with the Texas Tech University College of Architecture presenting documents, objects and constructions by students Roberto Becerra, Liz Janoff, Matthew Mendez, Kaitlin Pomerantz and Claudia Vásquez. Land Arts is “semester abroad in our own backyard” where architects, artists, and writers camp for two months while traveling 5,820 miles overland to experience major land art monuments—Double Negative, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels—while also visiting sites expanding our understanding of what land art might be such as pre-contact archeology of Chaco Canyon, scientific exploration at the Very Large Array, and military-industrial operations in the Great Salt Lake Desert. To negotiate the multivalent meaning of these places and shed light on strategies to aid their comprehension we invite the wisdom of field guests—writers, artists and interpreters—to join specific portions of our journey. 2016 field guests included Center for Land Use Interpretation director Matt Coolidge, art collective Post Commodity, and writer Lucy Lippard among many others. Land Arts hinges on the primacy of first person experience and the realization that human-land relationships are rarely singular. The Land Arts 2016 Exhibition will continue through April 23, 2017.
Gallery Hours and Events
The exhibition is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 10am – 5pm and Sundays 1-5pm. Admission is free.
About Land Arts 2016
The Land Arts 2016 field crew includes Texas Tech architecture graduate student Roberto Becerra, artist and urbanist with BFA from New York University Liz Janoff, San Antonio based artist and writer Matthew Mendez, interdisciplinary artist Kaitlin Pomerantz with an MFA from the University Pennsylvania, and Claudia Vásquez an artist based in Santiago, Chile who joined as a field resident.
Sites on the 2016 itinerary ventured from Chaco Canyon to Muley Point, Spiral Jetty, Antelope Island, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover, Sun Tunnels, Double Negative, North rim of the Grand Canyon, Jackpile Mine, SITE Santa Fe, Plains of San Agustin, Very Large Array, White Sands, Cabinetlandia, Mimbres River, Gila Hot Springs, Chiricahua Mountains, Valentine, Marfa and Lubbock.
Field guests for 2016 were musician, artists and performers Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, SIMPARCH artist Steve Badgett, poet and translator Curtis Bauer, Post Commodity members Raven Chacon and Kade Twist, Center for Land Use Interpretation director Matthew Coolidge, Utah Museum of Fine Arts director Gretchen Dietrich, Big Beard Films director Sam Douglas, artist Boyd Elder, architect and professor Upe Flueckiger, writer Lucy Lippard, writer Barry Lopez, producer and Austin Film Society chief operating officer Sarah Ann Mockbee, cultural activator Andrea Nasher, art historian Monty Paret, artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman, and Utah Museum of Fine Arts curator Whitney Tassie.
Land Arts 2016 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher. Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Emily Rabinowitz from Taos and New Jersey.
About the College of Architecture
The College of Architecture at Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock where architectural education has been offered since 1927. The college includes undergraduate, graduate and PhD students and 51 faculty members. Graduate certificate programs are offered in Historic Preservation, Visualization, Community Design, Rural Health Care Design, and Digital Design Fabrication, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Land-Use Planning, Management, and Design. To extend the academic offerings on campus every undergraduate student participates in directed summer study abroad offerings in places such as France, South Korea, Spain, and Chile. The presence of Land Arts within the college expands the range of field study connecting teaching and research directly to landscapes we inhabit.
About the Museum of Texas Tech University
Established in 1929, the Museum is an educational, scientific, cultural, and research element of Texas Tech University. It is a not-for-profit institution by virtue of being a part of Texas Tech University. The Museum’s purpose is to support the academic and intellectual mission of Texas Tech University through the collection, preservation, documentation, and research of scientific and cultural material and to disseminate information about those collections and their scientific and cultural topics through exhibition, interpretation, and publication for primary, secondary, and higher education students, the scholarly community, and the general public. The Museum aspires to provide the highest standard of excellence in museological ethics and practices, while pursuing continuous improvement, stimulating the greatest quantity of quality research, conservation, interpretation, exhibition, and education, and providing support for faculty, staff, and students. The Museum is a multi-faceted institution that includes the main building, the Helen Devitt Jones Auditorium and Sculpture Court, Moody Planetarium, Natural Science Research Laboratory, and Lubbock Lake Landmark, an archaeological and natural history preserve.
Land Arts 2016 Exhibition at the Museum of Texas Tech University will inaugurate Leonardo’s Kitchen, a gallery of new ideas, research, and creativity established to present a changing array of exhibitions that examine the research and creativity of Texas Tech University across science, technology, engineering, math, humanities, and the arts.
For additional information about Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech or to schedule an interview with Chris Taylor contact him by phone at 806-834-1589 or email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu. Information about the College of Architecture can be found at http://arch.ttu.edu, and the Museum of Texas Tech University by visiting https://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/.