Formations of Erasure and Over Sonoma
January 21 - October 19, 2003
Formations of Erasure: Earthworks & Entropy and Over Sonoma:
Aerial Views of Unusual and Exemplary Land Uses
The Sonoma County Museum continues its commitment to ‘Where Land Meets Art’ through the presentation of two new exhibitions organized by Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) opening concurrently with James Turrell: Light and Land.
Over Sonoma: Aerial Views of Unusual and Exemplary Land Uses Sonoma County Museum has invited CLUI to conduct new fieldwork and to explore the identity of Sonoma County as it is reflected in the area’s physical landscape.
Over Sonoma is an exhibition developed for the Museum, involving extensive research into Sonoma County. The exhibition features large-scale aerial photographs of unusual and exemplary places, presenting a cohesive portrait of Sonoma County. These places such as a housing subdivision, a landfill, a dam, a Buddhist temple, the Geysers, represent human interaction with the landscape. Exploring the identity of the county, as it is reflected in the physical landscape of the region, the exhibition will offer a visual narrative, an interpretation based on views of iconic places.
Formations of Erasure: Earthworks and Entropy
Formations of Erasure revisits celebrated earthwork projects from across the United States particularly sites constructed in the 70s that have been transformed over the last several decades by natural processes such as weather and erosion. The sites documented include Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake (which emerged from under the lake this past summer for the first time in several years) and Michael Heizer’s Double Negative in the Nevada Desert.
The exhibition, which consists of contemporary photographs, text panels, and an extensive database, contemplates the interesting dynamic at play between artistic intention and natural processes in land art projects. The show puts into question whether an earthwork’s meaning can outlast a work’s physical form or if nature ultimately subsumes these impermanent human interventions in its ceaseless processes of change.
About the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI)
Founded in 1994 the Los Angeles-based Center for Land Use Interpretation is a research organization that cleverly fuses artistic and geographic interests to "stimulate discussion, thought, and general interest in the contemporary landscape. Dedicated to the increase and diffusion of information about how the nations lands are apportioned, utilized, and perceived." CLUI studies "unusual and exemplary" land use sites across the country. Since its inception the group has organized dozens of compelling exhibitions Mona wide range of subjects and themes, led bus tours into the field, and published scores of catalogues and guides. CLUI exhibition sand public programs are supported by The LEF Foundation and Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District.
