Maya Lin "Three Ways of Looking at the Earth"
The Pace Gallery (545 W 22nd St)
This event has ended.
In "Three Ways of Looking at the Earth," Lin has subjected three very different topographies (two real and one imagined) to dramatic shifts in scale that allow a re-imagining of our natural world as three-dimensional environments recreated in the interior space of a gallery. Lin further transforms viewers’ perspectives about the land and the sea by inviting them to navigate around, through and under these site-related installations. "2 x 4 Landscape" was initially conceived by Lin as a way to bring landscape into an architectural setting. The installation’s pixilated form, consisting of over 50,000 vertical two-by-four pieces of Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified wood, resembles a wave or hill that swells to 10 feet high at its peak and occupies a total of 2,400 square feet. Based on terrain from the Rocky Mountains, "Blue Lake Pass" explores a specific region of Southwestern Colorado that is personally familiar to Lin, whose family vacations there each summer. Lin imposed a 3 x 3 foot grid on the topography, which was then scaled down and sectioned into 20 individual units that form narrow passageways through the mountain pass. "Water Line" maps the ocean floor along the Mid-Atlantic ridge as it ascends to Bouvet Island, one of the most remote islands in the world, located roughly 1,000 miles to the north of Antarctica. Working with scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, Lin created a topographic rendering based on research gathered by scientific expeditions of the ocean floor. The result is a 19' x 34' 8" x 29' 2" suspended, painted aluminum wire lin drawing that invites viewers to pass underneath and around a landscape hidden miles beneath the ocean. Bouvet Island is depicted as the highest point of the installation, and at certain points, visitors are at eye level with what is meant to be sea level, thus heightening the experience of the changing terrain as it moves from air to water to earth.
[Image: Maya Lin "Water Line" (2006) aluminum tubing and paint, dimensions variable]
Media
Schedule
from September 10, 2009 to October 24, 2009
Opening Reception on 2009-09-10 from 17:30 to 19:30
The artist will be in attendance.
Artist(s)
Reviews
gorgeous, thoughtful work. she makes this stuff look too easy! which... could have been a bad thing if I looked at these pieces in the wrong mood.