ROBERT SMITHSON'S SPIRAL JETTY | SERIUS DROUGHT

Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson (1970)
Photo via Wikipedia

The Great Salt Lake in Utah, which houses Robert Smithson's famous land work, Spiral Jetty, is facing the most critical drought in history.

Water is dropping south of the lake's historic low, set in 1963. According to a story by the Salt Lake Tribune, reported in February, the lake level was at an all-time low at 4,193.8 feet and "many observers expect it to dip to a new historic low within the year, depending on precipitation this winter."

Smithson's Spiral Jetty is a 1,500-foot-long work created in 1970 during a drought and subsequently was submerged for more than three decades before resurfacing in 2002. As a result of the new record lows, the winding basalt rocks are perhaps more exposed than ever before.

According to the Art Newspaper, which has the story, the consensus among the three organizations that oversee the work—the Dia Art Foundation, the Great Salt Lake Institute, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts—is that there is no need to take action in order to protect it. Although there is "concern from an ecological point of view that the lake is shrinking," the director of the Great Salt Lake Institute, Bonnie Baxter, says, "The current thinking by most is that Robert Smithson would have loved to see the environmental changes that occur around his artwork, so there is no real talk of intervention."

A spokesperson from Dia told the Art Newspaper the drought has affected the work, but said "While we will continue to work with our partners to maintain the site, there are no plans for any intervention."

Smithson chose the north arm of the lake to place his work since the water levels are lower and the water's hue is a crystal pink.

Other famous earth works by Smithson include Broken Circle (1971) in the Netherlands, Amarillo Ramp (1973) in Texas, and Asphalt Run (1969) in Italy. Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973 at the age of 35.

Follow artnet News on Facebook.

Thanks to Christie Chu - ARTNET  https://news.artnet.com/art-world/robert-smithsons-spiral-jetty-drought-336138

Follow artnet News on Facebook.

THING NOTHING | VAN ABBEMUSEUM

Imme van der Haak, Beyond the Body, 2015. Thing Nothing 17 October–15 November 2015 Opening: 17 October Van Abbemuseum Bilderdijklaan 10 Eindhoven The Netherlands T +31 (0)40 238 1000 info@vanabbemuseum.nl www.vanabbemuseum.nl

During Dutch Design Week (DDW) 2015, Design Academy Eindhoven and the Van Abbemuseum organise the exhibition Thing Nothing—a research into the meaning, value and future of things. The exhibition addresses the relation between form and counter-form, between the real and the virtual, between technological possibilities and moral issues. It looks at the way design, in dealing with actual materials, shapes and production processes, can also script the intangible qualities of the material world. Over the years, Design Academy has encouraged its students to look beyond the material properties of things, and to search for a presence that Taoists might describe as "nothingness": the space in and around the object. As virtual space becomes an integral part of our daily environment, designers venture more and more into this world of the unseen, the unspoken, the unmade. Participating designers / artists Auger & Loizeau, Mark Bain, Aldo Bakker, James Bridle, Heath Bunting, Committee, Alison Crank, Edith Dekyndt, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Portable Palace, Studio Drift, Dunne & Raby, Alix Gallet, Imme van der Haak, Olivier van Herpt & Sander Wassink, Hannah Hiecke, Niels Hoebers, HRL Laboratories, Floris Kaayk, Chris Kabel, Marlies Kolodziey, Guillemette Legrand & Eva Jaeger, Lucas Maassen, Metahaven, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Atelier Monté, MVRDV, Bastiaan de Nennie, Ted Noten, Emilie Pallard & Niels Heymans, Ceramics Museum Princessehof, Unknown Fields Division, Julijonas Urbonas, Ai WeiWei, The Why-Factory, Jólan van der Wiel, Atelier Yuri Veerman, Giuditta Vendrame, Yaolan Luo, Jetske Visser Ongoing dialogue  Thing Nothing is the third exhibition on which Design Academy Eindhoven and the Van Abbemuseum collaborate. The first, Self Unself was sparked by the unselfish inclination of present day designers. The second, Sense Nonsense embraced the irrational as a creative force. Together with Thing Nothing they form a trilogy about new positions in design. It is part of the museum's series "Invitation to dialogue," a programme in which top institutes and individuals—experts in their own field—will be invited to develop new projects in the Van Abbemuseum. They will contribute new knowledge and expertise, leading to different cooperative ventures and strengthening the links between design, art and society. Curators Thomas Widdershoven, Jan Konings, Ina Hollmann and Agata Jaworska For more information on Thing Nothing you can visit www.vanabbemuseum.nl Or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

NEW YORK | FILM SOCIETY | LINCOLN CENTER

Ernst Karel, Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ah humanity! (still), 2015. Film, 22 minutes. Japan/France/USA.

New York Film Festival
Experimental cinema and artists' moving image at NYFF

Projections: October 2–4, 2015
Retrospective: September 28–October 2, 2015

Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65 Street
New York, NY 10023

www.filmlinc.org/nyff




The New York Film Festival's Projections section presents an international selection of film and video work that expands upon our notions of what the moving image can do and be. Drawing on a broad range of innovative modes and techniques, including experimental narratives, avant-garde poetics, crossovers into documentary and ethnographic realms, and contemporary art practices, Projections brings together a diverse offering of short, medium, and feature-length work by some of today's most vital and groundbreaking filmmakers and artists.

In its second edition, Projections presents 54 films, including the US premiere of two new films by Ben Rivers(A Distant Episode and THE SKY TREMBLES AND THE EARTH IS AFRAID AND THE TWO EYES ARE NOT BROTHERS). Highlights also include Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's return to the festival after Leviathan with the world premiere of Ah humanity!, co-directed with Ernst Karel. The program also showcases new short-form works by artists and filmmakers returning to the festival, including Peggy Ahwesh, Victoria Fu, Lewis Klahr, Laida Lertxundi, Dani Leventhal, Sara Magenheimer, Jodie Mack, Lois Patiño, Michael Robinson, Ben Russell, and Fern Silva. Projections will also present restorations of the late Chick Strand's Soft Fiction and Curt McDowell's Confessions, both on 16mm and restored by the Academy Film Archive.

Artists making their first appearance at the NYFF this year include James Richards (Radio at Night), Simon Fujiwara (Hello), Michael Bell-Smith (Rabbit Season, Duck Season), Takeshi Murata (OM Rider), Cécile B. Evans (Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen), Jon Rafman (Erysichthon), Hannah Black (All My Love All My Love),Basim Magdy (The Everyday Ritual of Solitude Hatching Monkeys), Beatrice Gibson (F for Fibonacci),Nicolás Pereda (Minotaur), Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias (Santa Teresa & Other Stories), and Louis Henderson, who has two films in the festival, including the world premiere of Black Code/Code Noir.

Projections is curated by Dennis Lim, Aily Nash, and Gavin Smith. Sponsored by MUBI

Retrospective
This year, the NYFF Retrospective features Luminous Intimacy: The Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler. For the last six decades, Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, partners in life and in cinema, have taken their cameras out into the world and filmed gestures, moods, atmospheres, states of being, light and darkness, movement and stillness. Hiler's register is ecstatic and polyphonic, Dorsky's devotional and poetic. The duo's contemporary, experimental films will be shown in the festival with 33 of Dorsky's works, including world premieres of Intimations and Prelude, and New York premieres of Summer, December, February, and Avraham and six of Hiler's films. All work shot and screened on 16mm. Made possible by the generous support of the Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Inc. Filmmakers in person!

Visit filmlinc.org/nyff for more program and ticket information.

RICHARD T. WALKER | CARROL/FLETCHER | ANGELS BARCELONA

Richard T Walker, the predicament of always (as we are) (video still), 2014. 2-channel HD video installation, sound, 12:02 minutes. Courtesy of the artist, àngels barcelona and Carroll/Fletcher.

Richard T. Walker

in accordance with things 15 September–6 November 2015 àngels barcelona c/ Pintor Fortuny 27 08001-Barcelona Spain everything failing to become something 25 September–15 November 2015 Opening: Thursday 24 September, 6–8pm Performative tour with Richard T. Walker: Friday 25 September, 7pm Carroll / Fletcher 56-57 Eastcastle Street London, W1W 8EQ UK carrollfletcher.com angelsbarcelona.com Download the art-agenda iPad App Share

This autumn, San Francisco-based British artist Richard T. Walker is showing in two concurrent solo exhibitions at Carroll / Fletcher, London and àngels barcelona. At Carroll / Fletcher, everything failing to become something furthers the artist's ongoing research into the American West. Drawing on experimental sound-making and the combined legacies (and clichés) of land art and romanticism, Walker's latest work explores the relationship between sincerity and experience, feeling and understanding, music and language. The exhibition features a recent body of work never before shown in the UK, including a two-channel video shot in Southwest Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Lightboxes present rocks turning into mountains, while reproductions of etchings taken from a 19th century Alpine travelogue bear cut-out mountain tops rolling at the bottom of the frames in which they are displayed. The video the predicament of always (as it is) (2014) begins with Walker in the pose of the Rückenfigur, a solitary presence seen from behind, amid deserted expanses. Clad in his signature red t-shirt, the artist sits enplein air in various natural locales while a recorded soundtrack of his own voice plays, as if he was attempting to converse with the awe-inspiring—but frustratingly mute—nature around him. Throughout the piece, Walker films a series of static instruments placed within multiple landscapes and proceeds to activate each one by throwing a rock at it from outside the frame. The modest, verging-on-pathetic gesture has an existentialist quality: motivated by the vital urge to fully commune with one's environment, it sharply highlights the virtual impossibility thereof. At àngels barcelona, in accordance with things is Richard T. Walker's third solo exhibition. Curated by David Armengol It's a matter of scale. Each stone is a potential mountain, as suggested by French sociologist Roger Caillois in his 1966 essay "Stones." In this text, he discusses his fascination with the world of minerals. It is a work of scientific contemplation, a fabulous and passionate meditation that leads you to understand that each stone is an ancestral, pre-civilized and authentic natural cosmogony. If we think about the relationship between distance and proximity when confronted with the sublime landscape that Walker activates through his actions on the natural environment, we have a physical and mental analysis of the territory as observed by Caillois. In both cases, the landscape of stones becomes a particular universe; in both cases, the usual relationship of the individual with nature fades in favour of a more introspective, even mystical connection. In short, an activation of the scenery in Walker's work always has to do with the emotional charge of music. In this sense, this exhibition revises the landscape of the American West as typified by the simple and magnificent prominence of the stone. It is an exercise of correlation between video, photography, sculpture and sound works in which the perception of wilderness—or, at least, of that which is not domesticated—depends on the multiple functions and symbols that Walker gives to the stone, which sometimes functions as a mere object, sometimes as a performative medium, and sometimes as a whole landscape in itself. Richard T. Walker (b. 1977, Shrewsbury, UK) is based in San Francisco. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University College (1999) and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London (2005). For more information, please contact: Carroll / Fletcher, London Khuroum Bukhari: T +44 207 323 6111 / khuroum@carrollfletcher.com àngels barcelona Quico Peinado: T +34 93 412 54 00 / info@angelsbarcelona.com

DIA ART FOUNDATION | ALLORA & CALZADILLA

Allora & Calzadilla, Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos), 2015.  Guayanilla–Peñuelas, Puerto Rico. © Allora & Calzadilla. Photo: Myritza Castillo

Allora & Calzadilla Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos)  Opening: September 23, 2015 Puerto Rico www.diaart.org

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla | Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos)  September 23, 2015 - September 23, 2017 Opening on September 23, 2015, the autumnal equinox, Dia Art Foundation presents Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) (2015), a new long-term work by Allora & Calzadilla on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, inside a remote cave at El Convento Natural Protected Area. Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) is the newest iteration in a series of system-based sculptures by Allora & Calzadilla. Central to this commission is a solar energy converter that captures and stores sunlight, which is then used to power Dan Flavin's Puerto Rican Light (to Jeanie Blake) (1965). For Dia's commission, the artists ambitiously expand this sculptural gesture by installing Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) in a cave in Puerto Rico. The journey is part of the viewer's experience, similar to other Dia sites, including Walter De Maria's The Lightning Field (1977) in New Mexico and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) in Utah. Allora & Calzadilla address light (both natural and electrical), as well as its representations and meanings throughout modern history, within an environment that predates and may survive human civilization. Reminiscent of myths associated with the symbolism of the cave, Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) also directly addresses this natural setting as the scene of the first human artistic manifestations, which appeared in the form of cave paintings thousands of years ago. "Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) demonstrates Dia's commitment to long-term commissions, which is at the center of our mission," said Jessica Morgan, Director, Dia Art Foundation. "It has been a privilege to work with Allora & Calzadilla in realizing this work, which explores the connections between body, space, time, energy, and environment." Co-curated by Yasmil Raymond and Manuel Cirauqui, Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) is Dia's first long-term installation outside the continental United States since Joseph Beuys's 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks) in Kassel, Germany, in 1982. This project is informed by Dia's commitment to Flavin, a core artist in Dia's collection. Major presentations of Flavin's light sculptures are on view at Dia:Beacon (Beacon, New York) and at the Dan Flavin Art Institute (Bridgehampton, New York). Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) is organized in collaboration with Para la Naturaleza, the nonprofit unit of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico. A special thanks to the Museo de Arte de Ponce for their partnership. Visitor Information Guided visits for small groups are available Wednesday through Sunday at noon. Visits include a moderate hike and last approximately two hours. Arrangements will be made for school and special groups. The work is situated between Guayanilla and Peñuelas, Puerto Rico. Travel times by car are: Ponce: 30 minutes San Juan: 2 hours Dorado: 2 hours, 45 minutes Aguadilla: 1 hours, 30 minutes Reservations are required. For more information, visit www.puertoricanlight.org. Publication  An illustrated publication will be available in winter 2016 in English and Spanish. It will investigate the work's creation and its place at the intersection of art history, environmentalism, philosophy, and scientific research. Funding Lead support is from project sponsors Robert and Encarnita Valdes Quinlan. Major support is provided by the Teiger Foundation. Generous support has been provided by the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation and Dia's Commissioning Committee: Marguerite S. Hoffman, Fady Jameel, Jill and Peter Kraus, and Leslie and Mac McQuown. Additional support is provided by Tony Bechara, the Leon Levy Foundation, and Pedro Jimenez. Generous funding for the publication is provided by VIA Art Fund. Additional support is provided by Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; Kurimanzutto, Mexico City; and Lisson Gallery, London and Milan. Para la Naturaleza Para la Naturaleza is dedicated to integrating society in the conservation of natural ecosystems. For more information, visit www.paralanaturaleza.org. Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is committed to initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving extraordinary art projects. For more information, visit www.diaart.org. Contact: press@diaart.org / T +212 293 5598 Art_prospect