The Landscape Art + Architecture Alphabet
From the designer of Versailles to the man who creates art by walking, MVT presents The Landscape Art + Architecture Alphabet. Canonical histories of landscape art and architecture often point toward America and Europe respectively, but as we add to this work in progress we are interested in broadening our understanding of landscape art and architecture's past to be more global in scope. We invite you to participate: please send mvt.journal@gmail.com the names of landscape artists, architects, and designers and we will add them to the list.
Collected by Sasha Amaya.
A is for Alice Aycock, the American sculpture and installation artist known for her large scale landscape works and a signature use of spiral forms. A is also for Carl Andre, Lucien den Arend, and Vito Acconci.
B is for Capability Brown, the "Shakespeare" of English landscape architecture. B is also for Trish Brown and Joseph Beuys.
C is for Cristo and Jean-Claude, the artist-couple famous for their large scale wrappings of buildings, monuments, and islands. C is also for Guo-Qiang Cai.
D is for Jim Denevan, the American artist famous for his massive, temporary works of land art made from sand, ice, and soil. D is also for Walter De Maria.
E is for Shahram Entekhabi, the Iranian-born video and installation artist who creates public installations that seek to question social communication and the ownership of public space.
F is for Hamish Fulton, the English artist who creates works based on his walks, but also advocates for walking as a form of land art in its own right. F is also for Margaret Feilman.
G is for Goldsworthy, the English-born, Scottish-based artist and environmentalist famous for his striking, delicate works created from natural materials. G is also for Dan Graham.
H is for Nancy Holt, the American artist known for her large scale land art, her use of land massing, and the filtering of sunlight. H is also for Ian and Sue Hamilton Finlay, Mikael Hansen, Michael Heizer, and Audrey Hemenway.
I is for Teiji Ito, Japanese landscape scholar and author.
J is for Gertrude Jekyll, the prolific 19th century English landscape gardener who created over 400 gardens and contributed significantly to gardening literature.
K is for Manfred Kleinhofer, the Austrian artist who is known for his eerie, ambiguous public sculptural installations.
L is for Peter Latz, the German landscape architect known for his focus on the reclamation of industrial sites. L is also for Richard Long.
M is for Mary Miss, the American landscape artist and designer whose interest in public art and engagement has prompted collaborations with architects, engineers, scientists, and bureaucrats. M is also for Sylvain Meyer.
N is for André Le Nôtre, the French landscape architect who designed the park at the Palace of Versailles, Louis the XIV's principal garden designer, and the epitome of the French formal style.
O is for Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect and designer of New York's central park.. O is also for Dennis Oppenheim.
P is for Andrea Polli, the American artist interested in art and science whose projects take the form of experimental architecture, light installation, and the sonification of the environment. P is also for Jody Pinto.
Q is for Qi Biaogia, who wrote one of the earliest robust accounts of Chinese garden planning.
R is for Andrew Rogers, the Australian artist who creates large form line drawings which can be seen from an aerial view.
S is for Robert Smithson, the American artist and key figure in the American landscape art movement with interests in temporality and scale. S is also for Martha Schwartz, Nobuo Sekine, Mirei Shigemori, Alan Sonfist, Carl Theodor Sorensen, Danae Stratou, and Akio Suzuki.
T is for Athena Tacha, the Greek environmental and conceptual artist focused on rhythm and form played out in a large scale in the public realm. T is also for Can Togay and Gyula Pauer, and James Turrell.
U is for Nils-Udo, the German artist famous for his constructed nest sculptures who places great importance on site-situated work inspired by the surrounding environment.
V is for Strijdom van der Merwe, the South African artist who uses materials found on site to create his work and is an active organiser in the land art community. V is also for Herman de Vries.
W is for Elisabeth Wierzbicka Wela, the Polish-born artist who creates installations focused on the translation of traditional sculptural materials, volumes, and textures into the public realm.
X is for Sislej Xhara, the Kosovar Albanian, New York-based artist who investigates social, political, and economic questions through striking public art works. X is also for Iannis Xenakis.
Y is for Young British Artists such as Michael Landy and Damien Hirst who brought, respectively, flora and fauna inside galleries in installation form.
Z is for Andrea Zittel, the American sculptor, installation, and social practice artist whose work spans the creation of functional objects to experiments in embodying utopianism and frontierism living as part of the landscape.