Date of Submission

Fall 2019

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Art History

Project Advisor 1

Alex Kitnick

Project Advisor 2

Julia Rosenbaum

Abstract/Artist's Statement

This senior project examines four works of art—Richard Long’s A Line Made by Walking, Pina Bausch’s choreography for Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring, Gordon Matta-Clark’s Tree Dance, and Ana Mendieta’s Burial Pyramid—produced between 1967 and 1975. It argues that the four works, though coming out different sculptural and performance traditions, and variously associated with such movements as Land art, Performance art, Endurance art, and Body art, are better understood together. Intrinsic to all their work is their navigation of artists’ bodies through, on top of, or underneath the land. Thematic affinities amongst them—the use of repetition and ritual, a sensitivity to the power of time and duration—link them to each other, and to the artistic, cultural, and societal moment which produced them. Collectively, they are best analyzed as examples of what this project defines as “earth-body rites.”

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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