Descending Ashtray

Sarah and I visited my friend Sara Kennedy in Seattle this weekend, and ended up checking out two museums on the University of Washington campus.

At the Henry Museum, there was an amazing Maya Lin exhibition called “Systematic Landscapes.” Basically, it involved repetition of common objects to form perceived landscapes. The largest piece was a miniature hill made of 2×4 lumber stood on end, about 80×40 feet and probably 12-15 feet high at its pinnacle. An immense amount of wood, and very incredible to see. Sara told us that Maya Lin had intended visitors to the exhibition to walk/climb on the piece, but the curators had vetoed the idea. It was very hard not to. I think if I ever create a piece like that, I will insist on my vision. When you’re Maya Lin, I think you get to be difficult. In fact, I think you’re supposed to be.

There were several great pieces there, including another large installation of a segmented countour made of bandsawn and laminated MDF. The edges were so crisp, I can’t imagine how they installed it or moved it from place to place. It must have weighed a ton, as well. Very impressive, though.

On a much smaller scale, there was a great piece where she had cut shapes/contours from old atlases to create 3D lake-like depressions in the pages. Difficult to explain, but PBS’ Art 21 web site has a short video.

I got to thinking more about the exhibition later, and the artist’s responsibility to his work. Is Maya Lin required to personally install or supervise installation of each of her artworks forever? What about after she dies? You can imagine that as your body of work grows in number, installation/repair activities could take so much time it would prevent you from creating new work at all … especially when you consider that her works are literally all over the world …