Above Double Negative, Mormon Mesa, and the Virgin River, Nevada, 22 September 2017. Photo by Chris Taylor.

Land Arts 2017 Exhibition

Texas Tech University College of Architecture and Museum of Texas Tech University announce the
LAND ARTS 2017 EXHIBITION.

An opening reception will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, February 16, 2018, 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 presenting documents and constructions by students Elmer Guerrero Arrieta, Lyza Baum, Caroline Carney, k. Flint, R. Ilia Reyes, Nicolle LaMere, and Aida Salán Sierra. Within the Texas Tech University College of Architecture, Land Arts is a “semester abroad in our own backyard” where architects, artists, and writers camp for two months while traveling 5,572 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. 2017 field guests included Center for Land Use Interpretation director Matt Coolidge, artist Zoe Leonard, and writer Barry Lopez 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 2017 Exhibition will continue through April 29, 2018.

Gallery Hours and Events
The exhibition is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 10am – 5pm and Sundays 1-5pm. Admission is free.

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About Land Arts 2017

The Land Arts 2017 field crew includes Elmer Guerrero Arrieta, architecture student working on MARCH at Texas Tech, Lyza Baum, artist with BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Caroline Carney, artist with BA in Medical Anthropology from University of Pennsylvania, k. Flint, artist working on MFA at University of California, Riverside, R. Ilia Reyes, architecture student working on MARCH at Texas Tech, Nicolle LaMere, artist with MFA from Texas Tech, and Aida Salán Sierra, architecture student with Masters from ETSAM, Madrid, Spain who joined as a field resident.

Sites on the 2017 itinerary ventured from Cebolla Canyon and Jackpile Mine to Muley Point, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover,  Double Negative, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Chaco Canyon, Brokeoff Mountains, Marfa, Presidio, Cabinetlandia, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Twin Buttes, White Sands, and Lubbock.

Field guests for 2017 were SIMPARCH artist Steve Badgett, poet and translator Curtis Bauer, journalist Betsy Blaney, art historian Kevin Chua, Center for Land Use Interpretation director Matthew Coolidge, architect Upe Flueckiger, geologist Curtis Francisco, artist Zoe Leonard, writer Barry Lopez, cultural activator Andrea Nasher, art historian Monty Paret, artist Deborah Stratman, and archeologist Chris Witmore.

Land Arts 2017 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and the James Family Foundation.

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 over fifty 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 2017 Exhibition at the Museum of Texas Tech University will take place within 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.

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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/.