A List on the Burial/Artist Correspondence Project

Sarah Hobbs, Untitled (Perfectionist)

Who would I send correspondence to after burying an object for in the UK? My initial thoughts include:

1. Nancy Holt (address = check)
2. Ed Ruscha (duh = address = check)
3. Richard Misrach (address = check)
4. Suzaan Boettger (email address - will need to find physical address)
5. Fredericka Hunter and Ian Glennie (address = check)
6. Michael Heizer (need to find address)
7. Rebecca Solnit (will need to find her address).
8. Lucy Lippard (will need to obtain mailing address)

How uncomfortable would some of these people feel to receive this correspondence from strangers (Ruscha, Heizer and Solnit would fit the "stranger" category as I have interacted with the rest at one point in my life)? But do I really care? Yes... but will I do it anyway? We all know the answer to that. How many lists will I make before then? Will I save them? Will I count them? Will I photograph them? Will I dig myself into a hole? No pun intended. No I'll keep thinking about it until it's "perfect" as fortunate or unfortunate as that may be.

Nancy Holt's Burial Project

Nancy Holt, The Last Map Used to Locate Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer, 1969-71



Nancy Holt, Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer The Double O, 1971 & Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer, Dark Angel through Double O Arch, 1971

From Phaidon's Land and Environmental Art:

"These poems were private artworks. Holt dedicated the poems to five different people (Michael Heizer, Philip Leider, Carl Andre, John Perrault, and Robert Smithson) and chose the remote sites according to certain physical, spatial, and atmospheric qualities which would evoke a particular person for her. The poems were buried in vacuum containers, and the recipient received a map which contained all the necessary information for the poem to be found and dug up. The map provided Holt with both a physical location and characteristics which she could relate to a specific person, as well as a symbolic space in which to construct the meaning presented in the poems. Along with the instructions on how to find the site she included details of the history, geology, flora, and fauna of the site as well as maps, pictures, and specimens of rocks and leaves."

I have been thinking a lot about Holt's Burial/Mapping project recently as a way to incorporate artist correspondence with interring objects. We are working hard researching the second leg of our journey and I of course, want to continue exploring the object in remote locales. I am not interested in writing poems or cataloging the flora and fauna of the environment but I AM intrigued by responding to something within that place and referring it to the artists who I will send a letter to. The artists will be ones inspirational to our project yet there will be no response anticipated.

Sophie Calle's Burial Project

I was having dinner with Amelia last night and she mentioned a series from Sophie Calle that she saw at her retrospective in Brussels this past summer. Calle was invited with several other artists on an expedition of the North Pole and posted this blog entry about burying her mother's jewels as far north as they would travel.

"She had a dream. Go to the North Pole. It was a part of our life: One day she would go. She died two years ago having preserved her dream. I guess that’s why she never went. I never had this dream. It was hers. But I was invited to go to the North Pole. And may be I went a little for her. To take her there."


Sophie Calle's image of a portrait of her mother, her necklace and ring.

When burying objects at earthworks, I knew they would not stay underground forever. Calle discusses this too when she writes, "I wonder if her glacier will advance or retreat, if the climate changes will carry her to the sea to be taken north by the West Greenland current, or retreat up the valley towards the ice cap, or if she will stay on the beach as a marker in time where the glacier was in the holocene period. And maybe in thousands of years, specialists in glaciology will find her ring and discuss endlessly this flash of diamond in Inuit culture. Or if a treasure hunter or beachcomber will discover it and exchange it for a house in the mountains of Grenoble."

There is an obvious difference in value between the objects Calle buried and the ones that I did. On the other hand, if someone found the photograph in tact (unlikely), there would be a direct identification between owner and their possessions. More often than not, I wonder what state the cup, belt buckle, and pile of papers would be in if indeed someone unearthed them. For the most part, I want them to be disintegrated beyond recognition as a stack of newspapers would be prone to do but not necessarily a porcelain cup or plastic Eiffel Tower.

The Disko Bay expedition sounds phenomenal after reading through the list of participants including Laurie Anderson, Feist, Suzan-Lori Parks, Nicole Krauss, and so on. Now that's the residency we need to get Nancy!!

Some conclusions made during Nancy's visit

Nancy spent a brief 48 hours in Indiana this week. We gave our first joint talk to Natalie's Contemporary Art History class about our general experience visiting the earthworks and our projects in response to them. We learned that next time we need to focus more on the general discussion of our artwork and influences more so than the anecdotes (of which there are many). The talk featured the below seen pink wig, a guest appearance by Val Kilmer, and a 12:30 alarm announcing Mark Sawrie's massage appointment. Overall, we feel it went well but could benefit from doing things differently in the future.

Afterward, Nancy and I then sifted through photographs and narrowed it down to 58 (!). It is more and more overwhelming as time goes on. There were decisions made about the burial photographs, the top 20 overall, and the in between. Below are the final cut and presentation for the burials. Today I can tell you that they are about saying goodbye to three people, two places, and one time period. They are not solely about loss but finality. The studio photograph and the end product underground will be displayed as diptychs (17x22 each) and the performative actions will be seen as a grid or chronological line (yet to be determined but not together with the others). I am hoping that the video that Nancy filmed of me burying the object unearthed at one of the sites will replace the solo Chinati burial photograph at the end as it would be nice to complete the series with video rather than a solitary photograph.


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Spiral Jetty (Person 1), 2009


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Sun Tunnels (Person 2), 2009


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Double Negative (Place 1), 2009


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Roden Crater (Person 3), 2009


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Lightning Field (Place 2), 2009


The Burial of Three People, Two Places, and One Time Period: Amarillo Ramp (Time Period 1), 2009


An Object Unearthed and Reburied at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, July 2009

I came to a conclusion about the object that I don't want anyone to know which one it was that I removed and buried in a better place. I compare it to "lost at sea" grave markers on Stewart Island, New Zealand. There are no bodies underneath those graves - just a headstone marking the emptiness below. One of the earthwork burials is "lost at sea" but it is up the viewer to guess. With most of the locations, I wanted to make my intentions obvious and built cairns over the ground but with Chinati I wanted it to blend in so undisturbed that it was nearly unrecognizable.

Here's to getting the video back soon to complete this small chapter in what must be published as a book as it's extensiveness is mind boggling.

Final Burial at Chinati

I have intentionally not revealed anything about the objects that were buried at each earthwork, preferring to keep silent on the issue. I planned one object for each space hoping they would reveal themselves as to which one would be buried where. One did not feel right the night before and the thought kept nagging at me as I was digging the hole. After the photo shoot, I unearthed it and brought it to Marfa and buried it near this location with only these two photographs to show. Nancy filmed a video which will be included with the series later. This was the hardest one - the object I was least willing to let go but now that they are all gone, there is relief in knowing that I left them all in a very memorable place.

Burial 006: Frog Cup at Amarillo Ramp

Burial 005: New Zealand Cat Box at Lightning Field

Burial 004: Nativity Scene at Roden Crater

Burial 003: Belt Buckle at Double Negative

Burial 002: La Tour Eiffel at Sun Tunnels

Burial 001: Stack of Papers at Spiral Jetty