Did you know that while Grand Rapids is home to the La Grande Vitesse, the United States’ first public spaces art grant (1969), it is also home to the first major art earthwork to be supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and is still visible to this day?
In this new century of art as talks of art bubbles and commodification, it is refreshing to know that these creative works — often in reaction to the consumerism of the art worlds of their day — still pack a relevant punch today.
And while Robert Morris’
The Grand Rapids Project (1974) may not be the subject of Troublemakers, a new documentary, opening at UICA, our giant “X” marks the spot land art piece can seen from major roads like Leonard NE or from satellite images seated just below Belknap Park’s north facing slope.
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Troublemakers” is an unflinching look at the history of the land art scene during the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s and features artists Germano Celant, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Vito Acconci, Virginia Dwan, Charles Ross, Paula Cooper, Willoughby Sharp, Pamela Sharp, Lawrence Weiner, Carl Andre, Gianfranco Gorgoni, and Harald Szeemann.
Described by UICA as a “cadre of renegade New York artists that sought to transcend the limitations of painting and sculpture by producing earthworks on a monumental scale in the desolate desert spaces of the American southwest,” this documentary raises numerous questions about the purpose of art in our lives.
Echoing current headlines, where one’s artistic worth is once again measured through record prices for works of art or if one can dominate the art world headlines, the film’s cast of artists illustrate how they risked career advancement and reputations in the pursuit of a new way of bringing art to the masses in form that could not be easily co-opted for personal gain.
Note: Troublemakers opens on Thursday night but is not screening on Friday through Sunday due to their annual Live Coverage art event on Friday, Mar. 13. Tickets can be secured here.