On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11's lunar landing captured the attention and imagination of people around the world, and it was of particular fascination to artists working in the emergent field of Land Art. Artist Nancy Holt wrote about the parcel of land in Utah she purchased to construct her seminal work Sun Tunnels (1973-76), "So when I would walk on [my land], it was like being the first person on the planet to walk on this particular piece of earth at this moment. That sensation stirred up thoughts of astronauts walking on the moon for the first time."

 

This Doc du Jour event will focus on a recently discovered object made by Holt in 1972 in the wake of the Space Race. This book-object consists of thirteen pages of collaged text excerpts, prints, photographs, and even a consumer product label, all related to the Moon. The extraterrestrial imaginary of science fiction, from H.G. Wells and Frank Herbert, presses against the realities of space exploration in the twentieth century. This book-object opens up broader discussions about the Moon as a real location, made more accessible through technological advances; a locus of competing imperialist and nationalist projects; and a site of cultural imagination, ripe for the mining of symbolism and commodification.

 

Brooke Eastman is a PhD student in the department of Art History & Archaeology, focusing on Land Art in the United States from the late 1960s through 1980s. Her dissertation examines Land Art's relationship to the legal and cultural conceptions of property in the U.S. and works to restore Indigenous land histories and epistemologies to the sites of these earthworks. She holds a Lynne Cooper Harvey Fellowship in American Culture Studies and a Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellowship.

 

The deadline to rsvp for this event has passed.