Walter de Maria: Meaningless Work

(Hardback)

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Description

As one of the most innovative artists of the last six decades, Walter de Maria challenged art in profound ways. He is known worldwide for his important sculptures such as Lightning Field, but his contributions to the practices of music, drawing, photography, and film have been largely forgotten. Featuring in-depth analysis of many previously unknown works and correspondence, this book offers the first major critical account of de Maria s broader range of interests.

Reviews

McFaddens important monograph on De Maria pulls this famous artist out of the narrow Land Art box. She surveys De Marias career and argues that a broadly conceived and intermedia concept of experience best explains De Marias eclectic oeuvre. The picture that emerges is not that of a Land Artist, but a cross-disciplinary explorer. A much-needed comprehensive study that will go a long way in enriching our understanding of De Maria as well as the era in which he worked. * David Raskin, Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago *
McFaddens book is a brilliant reassessment of the art and career one of the most independent-minded American artists of the post-war generation. Although De Marias Lightning Field has dominated accounts of his art, McFadden shows that this seminal piece was only one of a number of ways in which the artist deftly played in the spaces between immediacy and mediation, between the ping of first-hand experience and the iterative strategies of intermedia. * Matthew Simms, Associate Professor of Art History, California State University *

Author Bio

Jane McFadden is Associate Professor and Chair, Humanities & Sciences at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California.