american soil

american soil remains of a land art journey

in 1968 i set foot ashore in the north east of the united states as a dutch student of the american feld service. this post war organization aimed at promoting understanding between people from all over the world. i lived and went to school in north tonawanda, new york. the north east became a second home.

one day i planned to map american space 50 years after my frst stay. i travelled in opposite directions, to the south west, to see the land art of the pioniers of the sixties: robert smithson, jenny holzer, michael heizer, james turrell and walter de maria. at remote distance from musea, the landscape of the south west seemed the best artistic realm for earth works. being also a geographer i chose to make a soil map of their working grounds.

the land is actually indian country; an interesting fact in today’s context of the revival of white supremacy. this begs a color statement. in window rock, arizona, i learned about the navajo’s four cardinal directions: the color of the east is white, of the north; black, of the south; blue, of the west; yellow. whilst working on the color cycle in my work i kept in mind a quote on navajo directions:

“east: this is the direction of the dawn and it is our thinking direction, we should frst think before we do anything. south: this is our planning direction, where we plan what we are going to do. the sun sets in the west: this is our life and plan and where we do our living. here is where we act out our plan and out thoughts of the east and south directions of our lives. the sun sets in the west. north: this is the evaluation portion of our lives. this is were we get our satisfaction and evaluate what we frst stated in the east. here is where we determine to change things and make it better, or to see we are in the right path and should continue the cycle”.

i’m there ended where i started.

lies holstein the netherlands I 2018