From Library Journal
Basing her study of leading Sixties artist Robert Smithson (1938-73) on a collection of his personal papers and his library, which were donated in 1987 to the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art, Reynolds (art & art history, Univ. of Texas, Austin) focuses on the historical and ideological thinking of the 1960s and early 1970s in an effort to delineate Smithson's complexity, both artistically and philosophically. Smithson challenged the established art world's narrow vision and limited boundaries: for him, New Jersey became the prototype of "elsewhere," a place where he could create works for specific sites while engaging the outside, natural world in the creative process. Reynolds allows the reader to follow Smithson's process of creation through his own notebooks and sketches, his interviews and articles, the images he clipped from magazines, and the photographs he took. This admirable project, however, is studded with jargon and an idiosyncratic approach that may baffle the reader. Extensive notes and epigraphs are included, and the bibliography lists Smithson's library, itself a fascinating study of the artist. For large academic art collections. If Reynolds takes a focused look at one of the major artists of the 1960s, art critic and historian Boettger turns a wide-angle lens upon the era's Earthworks movement and its exponents. His chronological survey covers the early Claes Oldenburg Hole dug in Central Park (1967), the pivotal Dwan Gallery exhibition of Earthworks a year later, and the turbulent artistic, political, and philosophical activities of the late part of the decade. In the process, she touches on Smithson as both stimulus and catalyst for the movement. During this period, there was great ambivalence about the purity of art, the need for a market to support it, and the juxtaposition of the minimalist vision with the monumental effect of the works. With clarity and insight, the author traces the careers of the artists and their relationships to their work, one another, and the world of art critics and dealers. The result is a remarkable combination of insight and intellectual enthusiasm that, rare in a scholarly work, is easily accessible and a pleasure to read. With 12 color and 99 black-and-white images; highly recommended for all art collections, academic libraries, and large public collections as well.Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The full story of the rapid coalescence and far-reaching influence of earthworks-- defined by art historian and critic Boettger as "sculptors' direct manipulation of soil and terrain," and taking the form of massive yet usually subtle and always provocative outdoor sculptures--is fascinating, significant, and untold until now. Writing with unfailing clarity and momentum, Boettger sets earthworks firmly within the artistic, social, and political sensibilities of the times, highlighting the rise in ecological awareness and protests against the Vietnam War. She begins by assessing the emergence of large-scale, abstract public sculptures by artists such as Tony Smith, and pop art's obsession with objects and mechanical processes, trends that inspired Robert Smithson to go back to the source, the earth itself, to regain a "sense of the sacred" and to liberate art from artificiality. As Boettger expertly chronicles the making and reception of innovative earthworks by Smithson (who coined the term), Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, and Walter De Maria, she illuminates crucial facets of our perception of both nature and art then and now. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

James Croak, Sculpture
"Boettger has produced a major historical document. . . . [M]eticulously researched, the writing engages with the timbre of a joyful storyteller."

Book Description
Suzaan Boettger offers the first comprehensive history of the Earthworks movement in the United States, providing a fascinating and in-depth analysis of the monumental forms that initiated the broader genre of Land Art. Examining the art, the artists, their dealers and proponents, Boettger interprets Earthworks as a manifestation both of artists' personal stories and of the late 1960s social and political tumult. Boettger overturns many commonly held notions of Earthworks' origins and intentions. She argues that Robert Smithson's work on the Dallas-Fort Worth airport stimulated his thinking and that his writing about it catalyzed the movement. The visionary environments that followed, often sculpted in expansive and remote western terrains, were idealized by Americans and Europeans alike as displays of cowboy bravado. Boettger identifies earthworkers Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Morris, Walter de Maria, and Stephen Kaltenbach as former Californians whose treatment of the landscape reflects a western spirit. Her international purview integrates early work by the Europeans Barry Flanagan, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, and Pino Pascali as precedents and parallels. Her examination of Earthworks' relationship to the ecology movement perceptively corrects a popular misconception about the artists' goals while acknowledging the social and cultural complexities of the period. Insightful discussions of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Claes Oldenburg--in addition to the artists mentioned above--are accompanied by many rare and new photographs of both the art and its creators. Witty, accessible, and scrupulously researched, Earthworks constructs day-to-day chronologies of the development of the artistic movement and its intersections with the larger public events of the time, including specific accounts of galleries, exhibitions, and criticism. Boettger's dynamic social history and psychological insights bring new meaning to this pivotal movement that both embodied and disrupted contemporary notions of art, nature, society, and their relationship to each other. Illustrations: 14 color illustrations, 97 b/w photographs

From the Back Cover
"Suzaan Boettger brings alive the kaleidoscopic reality of late 1960s American culture in this elegantly written account of the radical style and ecological ambiguities of the Earthworks movement. The best book on art in the 1960s that I've read in years."-David Farber, author of The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s "Given its epic intellectual scope, amazingly reader-friendly. This book will become the major source on Earthworks."-Ann Gibson, author of Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics "Has the potential to be the definitive book on the subject."-Frances Colpitt, author of Abstract Art in the Late Twentieth Century "A good read . . . a page turner, it brought back the flavor of the era with new historical insights-made me want to go out and dig!"-M. Louise Stanley, painter

About the Author
A prominent art critic in northern California in the 1980s, Suzaan Boettger (pronounced BET-ger) is now an art historian and active critic based in New York City. A popular speaker, she has lectured at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Queens Museum, and the Oakland Museum, and she regularly writes for Art in America.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Suzaan Boettger offers the first comprehensive history of the Earthworks movement in the United States, providing a fascinating and in-depth analysis of the monumental forms that initiated the broader genre of Land Art. Examining the art, the artists, their dealers and proponents, Boettger interprets Earthworks as a manifestation both of artists' personal stories and of the late 1960s social and political tumult." "Boettger overturns many commonly held notions of Earthworks' origins and intentions. She argues that Robert Smithson's work on the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport stimulated his thinking and that his writing about it catalyzed the movement. The visionary environments that followed, often sculpted in expansive and remote western terrain, were idealized by Americans and Europeans alike as displays of cowboy bravado. Boettger identifies earth-workers Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Morris, Walter De Maria, and Stephen Kaltenbach as former Californians whose treatment of the landscape reflects a western spirit. She highlights the instrumental participation of dealer and patron Virginia Dwan and considers the lack of women artists among the first earth-workers and their contributions in the 1970s. Her international purvue integrates early work by the Europeans Richard Long, Jan Dibbets, Barry Flanagan, and Pino Pascali, as well as the Canadian Iain Baxter, as precedents and parallels. Her examination of Earthworks relationship to the ecology movement perceptively corrects a popular misconception about the artists goals while acknowledging the social and cultural complexities of the period." Insightful discussions of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg and Peter Hutchinson - in addition to the artists mentioned above - are accompanied by many rare and new photographs of both the art and its creators.

SYNOPSIS

12 color illustrations, 99 b/w photographs
Suzaan Boettger offers the first comprehensive history of the Earthworks movement in the United States, providing a fascinating and in-depth analysis of the monumental forms that initiated the broader genre of Land Art. Examining the art, the artists, their dealers and proponents, Boettger interprets Earthworks as a manifestation both of artists' personal stories and of the late 1960s social and political tumult.
Boettger overturns many commonly held notions of Earthworks' origins and intentions. She argues that Robert Smithson's work on the Dallas-Fort Worth airport stimulated his thinking and that his writing about it catalyzed the movement. The visionary environments that followed, often sculpted in expansive and remote western terrains, were idealized by Americans and Europeans alike as displays of cowboy bravado. Boettger identifies earthworkers Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Morris, Walter de Maria, and Stephen Kaltenbach as former Californians whose treatment of the landscape reflects a western spirit. Her international purview integrates early work by the Europeans Barry Flanagan, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, and Pino Pascali as precedents and parallels. Her examination of Earthworks' relationship to the ecology movement perceptively corrects a popular misconception about the artists' goals while acknowledging the social and cultural complexities of the period.
Insightful discussions of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Claes Oldenburg—in addition to the artists mentioned above—are accompanied by many rare and new photographs of both the art and its creators. Witty, accessible, and scrupulously researched, Earthworks constructs day-to-day chronologies of the development of the artistic movement and its intersections with the larger public events of the time, including specific accounts of galleries, exhibitions, and criticism. Boettger's dynamic social history and psychological insights bring new meaning to this pivotal movement that both embodied and disrupted contemporary notions of art, nature, society, and their relationship to each other.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal