Sunday, October 24, 2010

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.

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