Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art | Little White Lies

Trou­ble­mak­ers: The Sto­ry of Land Art

13 May 2016 / Released: 13 May 2016

Words by Phil W Bayles

Directed by James Crump

Starring Carl Andre, Germano Celant, and Vito Acconci

Fiery storm clouds over an arid, mountainous landscape with a spiralling symbol in the sky.
Fiery storm clouds over an arid, mountainous landscape with a spiralling symbol in the sky.
3

Anticipation.

Another art advocacy doc... always worth a watch though.

3

Enjoyment.

An intriguing look at a creatively charged period of art history.

3

In Retrospect.

More context would be useful for the art dunces in the room.

A mild­ly fas­ci­nat­ing look at the Land Art move­ment that emerged in the US dur­ing the 60s and 70s.

How do you doc­u­ment some­one else’s art in a way that does it jus­tice? Art his­to­ri­an Ger­mano Celant neat­ly sums up the para­dox: Pho­tog­ra­phy nev­er rep­re­sents the object. It is yours, not the artist’s. But at the same time, you have to talk about [the art]. If you don’t, what will hap­pen in 100 years?”

Enter James Crump and his film Trou­ble­mak­ers: The Sto­ry of Land Art, which explores the Land Art move­ment that emerged in the US dur­ing the 60s and 70s. Celant has a point. Can works like Spi­ral Jet­ty’, a 1,500-foot coil of rock jut­ting out into Utah’s Great Salt Lake, ever look as impres­sive on a screen? Edi­tor Nick Tamburri’s splic­ing of archive footage and sweep­ing aer­i­al video cer­tain­ly comes close.

How­ev­er, Crump choos­es to focus on the artists them­selves: nomads who wan­dered into the desert to make works which would last for cen­turies. Crump doesn’t descend into out­right hagiog­ra­phy, but he goes to great pains to make us aware of his admi­ra­tion for the likes of Robert Smith­son, Wal­ter De Maria and Michael Heiz­er. He brings plen­ty of back­up: crit­ics, con­tem­po­raries and financiers line up to swap sto­ries and impart rev­er­en­tial praise on the dar­ing and genius of these rebel artists. Yet their moti­va­tions remain frus­trat­ing­ly unclear.

Land Art is not new. Its roots can be found in Stone­henge and the Naz­ca
Lines of ancient Peru. But the move­ment was born at a time of huge polit­i­cal upheaval. The space race instilled a sense of unbri­dled opti­mism in the Amer­i­can peo­ple, even as the Viet­nam War sapped it away. While the open­ing touch­es light­ly on the broad his­tor­i­cal con­text, the film does rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle to explain the con­di­tion of the art world at that time. Exact­ly who, or what, were Smith­son and co rebelling against?

Per­haps it’s bet­ter to view Trou­ble­mak­ers not as a doc­u­men­tary, but a cin­e­mat­ic to-do list. The Spi­ral Jet­ty’, De Maria’s Light­ning Field’ in New Mex­i­co, Heizer’s Dou­ble Neg­a­tive’ in the Neva­da desert – Crump can show us these pieces exist, but will it ever com­pare to see­ing them for ourselves?

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