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Discussion & Book-Signing Marks 40th Anniversary of Artist's
Time Landscape
The
second event in NNYN's Human/Nature Art & the Environment series
featured Alan Sonfist, well known for his exploration of form
and processes derived from the landscape. Unlike the earth artists
of the 1960s and 1970s who saw the landscape as means of formal
modification, Sonfist became concerned with preservation and
renewal of the environment.
In 1965 he created The Time Landscape at the intersection of
Houston Street and LaGuardia Place as a replanted pre-colonial
forest to reveal the physical environment of Manhattan before
the city was the city. Recognizing the ecological benefits of
mini-landscapes sprouting around New York City, New York City's
Parks Department eventually folded Sonfist's Time Landscape,
the first urban forest to feature pre-Colonial plants, into
its Greenstreets program.
Sonfist says he thinks of himself as a visual archaeologist,
"to bring the past into the present." His principal strategy
has been to provide actual examples of the natural environment
that existed prior to human intervention. To achieve this he
used actual natural settings which use period vegetation and
plantings that evoke in artful fashion the history of specific
sites.
The discussion and book-signing at the Gabarron Foundation Carriage
House Center for the Arts also featured Alex Brash, regional
director of the National Parks Foundation Association, and Steven
Madoff, art critic and author of Christopher Wilmarth: Light
& Gravity.
Brash was appointed director by the National Parks Service of
its New York office when that office was opened in 2004. A champion
of urban park spaces, Brash and the regional National Park Foundation
currently manage 27,000 acres of urban protected areas. Although
thirteen percent of New York City is already in parks, Brash
hopes to add another 5-6,000 acres in the next couple of years.
He also has plans to bring NYC school children to the urban
parks, which he views as the "biotic libraries for the world's
educational institutions."
Steven Madoff is well known as a prolific writer and columnist,
a teacher, a critic and activist who has been working across
print and Web publishing, business development, the art world
and the corporate world for more than fifteen years. He is a
founding partner of 5ive which works with museums and cultural
institutions, corporate clients, publishers, and information/technology
companies to create new strategies and new products. Most significantly,
Madoff is an acute observer of media, art and architecture related
issues which he critiques through his blog, Steven Madoff's
Contentsphere. (http://stevenmadoff.blogspot.com/)
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