Hm.

So instead of an actual landscaping/renovation project, you have something just as ugly that serves an ironic reference to said project, while driving you out of your mind in exactly the same way.

there's a quarry down the road from me that has this same 'installation'. other than the ferns on the dirt piles, they are pretty much the same. and they have mulch too--brilliant!

To those who feel that it's necessary to remark sarcastically: who said anything about 'installations' (artistic, political, sociological, architectural, landscape...) having to be uniquely disconnected from other 'realities'--be they sublime, fanciful, natural, even mundane or ugly? Not all installations or statements need to (or should) be as blunt (or populist) as, say, Robert Indiana's LOVE. To make a statement on the essential value of material and its natural decay (physical, chemical, sculptural) or to simply exploit the fact that each pile has a unique color, texture, rate of settlement, etc. is actually quite brilliant in a society possessed with the need to process, manufacture and consume at an enormous rate.

To make a separate but related point: Why bother carving Michelangelo's David when 'pretty much the same thing' can be seen simply by disrobing in front of a mirror?

Love it! Nice to see contemporary art in such a "classic" landscape.
I'd like to see pics of how the project will change in the next months.

More pix please! I see influences of Andy Cao's glass garden in Los Angeles (which I find much more moving and complex). I couldn't find any good links to pictures of that garden other than on Andy's website. Go to 'projects', 'glass garden'. http://www.caoperrotstudio.com/

I clicked through thinking I would see an "after" picture...

C'mon, you don't love the Emperor's new clothes? Clearly you don't understand the subtlety of this concept. Nah, I'm not buying it either. Reminds me of "talking a presentation good" when I screwed off and didn't do my homework in college. Lazy minds in love with their own rhetoric.

e.scott: loved your post, but my mirror must have something wrong with it. Nothing even remotely like David appearing there. Can I come over to your place?

I think I *do* understand the subtlety of the project, the simple beauty of the shapes and materials. What I don't understand, and haven't about other projects this brings to mind such as some by Robert Smithson and others, is the fact that once the project is sufficiently degraded it's going to be a mess for others to clean up and deal with. A neat pile of stones is great in a small confined space, but maybe not so much when that same volume of soil or what have you invades the neatly cultivated ground around it. Pieces like those by Andy Goldsworthy actually go through a process of degradation because they are in a natural setting and are made of materials from that setting. It seems here that the idea of time and degradation is lip service.

Ironic that something described as "zen-like" can stir up so much discord and controversy!

buisinessgypsy: maybe I should have picked something less provocative. Perhaps Goya's The Clothed Maja (no need to disrobe), Warhol's Campbell's Soup (kitchen cupboard), Monet's Haystacks (the front yard after mowing the lawn), anything by any Dutch artist, ever or, simply your pick of still lifes.

In any case--to borrow the metaphor--the ultimate goal of the weavers (or H.C. Andersen in telling the tale) was never to convince the Emperor (Radcliffe, Harvard, art/landscape critics, the American public??) that his new clothes were 'newer', 'better' and 'more original' but to prove that he was selfish, egotistic and materialistic ('...possessed with the need to process, manufacture and consume...'??).

e.scott--

Kudos for trying to make the case, here, for subtle, conceptual art.

"...the fact that once the project is sufficiently degraded it's going to be a mess for others to clean up and deal with."

Maybe that's an important aspect of the piece. Just because things degrade, doesn't mean they disappear completely and cease to have impact (positive or negative).

This is beautiful, poetic work.

I agree with patrick (the other one) - appreciate your thoughtful analysis, e.scott

Still, not buying it at all on any level. No matter how much info I put in my head, the gut says disingenuous. Your results may vary. Member FDIC.

As a landscape designer, I agree with e.scott (however verbose the post...hehehe).

I can't really think of anything erudite to add to the discussion other than the concept of transition and transformation was instantly evident to me. The nature of the piles (being relatively symetrical in their angles of repose), implied a "human hand" and not the forces of nature...which will occur with time as in all things.

I think it's quite brilliant, actually...something I wish that I might have thought of...

Sheila

As a former art teacher, may I say that not all installation art is good installation art, and not all of it is successful.

Andy Goldsworthy does it better.

Just like some interior design, this installation piece to me is "meh". Without arguing that it IS or IS NOT "art".