"This major work, Untitled 1969/2009, takes the form of skywriting that will say, with Nauman's classic mischievous humor, 'Leave the Land Alone.'"I read that publicity phrase before yesterday's art installation but didn't understand it. How is "leave the land alone" funny or mischievous, let alone classy?
But I went to the La Loma Bridge to watch yesterday, because I wondered if there might be something more to this piece by artist Bruce Nauman. There was and there wasn't. By the time I left, the planes had written in the sky four times, "LEAVE THE LAND ALONE." The crowd on the bridge loved it, I think.
I wasn't disappointed but I might have been, had it not been for the Armory Center for the Arts. The project was initiated by Andrew Berardini, Adjunct Assistant Curator, and organized by Director of Gallery Programs Jay Belloli and Gallery Programs Manager Sinead Finnerty-Pyne. I assume it's thanks to these people that there happened to be, on the bridge, a very pleasant woman with printed information about the artwork.
This information explained that Nauman was directing his phrase at his contemporaries in the movement known as Land Art or Earth Art, questioning the artist's intervention with landscape.
Ah.
Ah!
Aha!
Cagey, doing that from the sky.
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