Constructed out of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks, the Spiral Jetty in Utah juts out of the Great Salt Lake and serves as an example of land art. Students in this course had the opportunity to visit the Spiral Jetty during an optional field trip. (Image courtesy of Ray Boren and used with permission. Photo taken on August 26, 2009.)
Instructor(s)
Dr. Rebecca K. Uchill
Prof. Caroline Jones
MIT Course Number
4.S67
As Taught In
Fall 2016
Level
Graduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
This seminar explores “land” as a genre, theme, and medium of art and architecture of the last five decades. Focusing largely on work within the boundaries of the United States, the course seeks to understand how the use of land in art and architecture is bound into complicated entanglements of property and power, the inheritances of non-U.S. traditions, and the violence of colonial ambitions. The term “landscape” is variously deployed in the service of a range of political and philosophical positions.