“Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974” [opening April 2012 at LAMOCA] will feature more than 100 sculptural and media-based works by more than 80 international artists in the muse­um’s vast Geffen Center. Kaiser and co-curator, Miwon Kwon, an art historian at the University of California in Los Angeles, want to revise the popular image that land art is primarily a US movement, dominated by monumental sculpture in the desert. Another aim is to acknowledge the role of gallerists, collectors, curators and critics. They have frequently been misrepresented in art history and museums, “as backdrop with artists as makers”, says Kwon.

Kaiser and Kwon will focus on three historical exhibitions including “Earth Art” from 1969, considered to be the first Land Art show that involved both US and international artists. Organised by curator Wil­loughby Sharp at the Cornell University Art Museum, this show also encountered difficulties. Heizer and De Maria accepted Sharp’s invitation to create site-specific works for the show, exhibited briefly, but then withdrew for reasons that remain unclear. Reflecting on the exhibition 40 years later, Sharp said:

“I tried to do what the artists wanted done.”

In 1969 the art dealer Virginia Dwan funded the purchase of the 60-acre site for Double Negative and in turn the artist transferred the property deeds to Dwan. In 1971 Heizer prevented the Dwan Gallery from selling the work. Dwan then donated Double Negative to MoCA in 1984, with Heizer’s blessing, to coincide with “In Context: Michael Heizer, Geometric Extraction”. For this solo exhibition, MoCA was able to include a photographic pan­o­rama of Heizer’s work.

After showing at MoCA, “Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974” is due to travel to Haus der Kunst in Munich in autumn 2012.

EXIT ART - ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES

Fall 2010 - Alternative Histories is a historical exhibition about the rise of the alternative art spaces in New York City from 1970-1990. Through audio interviews, documentation, ephemeral material and narrative descriptions, the exhibition and catalog will tell the story of spaces like White Columns, Artists Space, Fashion Moda, Threadwaxing Space, ABC No Rio, Franklin Furnace, The Franklin Street Arts Center, and dozens more.

A Google search for The Franklin Street Arts Center at 112 Franklin Street NYC, founded in 1975, yields no results as of July 19, 2010. A comprehensive chronology of The Franklin Street Arts Center (FSAC) and the LIP/FSAC (Live Injection Point at the Franklin Street Arts Center) is being prepared along with a video oral history of the LIP/FSAC. EXIT ART will exhibit archival material associated with the founding of the FSAC and the activities of the LIP/FSAC. Stay tuned for details...

"Willoughby died this morning at 4:45 a.m New York time. I was at home when I received the call. My last contact with him was last evening when I read several new posts on Sharpville and read the names of each of the 81 members out loud. Then I stroked his head and talked to him about how he would always be with all of us and that we would always be with him... how much I love him and that the best years of my life were those I spent with him."