LAND BODY

Ogden Contemporary Arts Center
December 10, 2021 - March 13, 2022

LAND BODY is a contemporary exploration of the connections between the human body and the landscape from the perspectives of eleven female artists. Working in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, exhibited artists pay particular attention to desert environments while speaking to relevant topics in today’s world such as environmental issues and climate concerns, cultural histories in relation to the land, female identity, and more. The show specifically draws metaphorical and physical correlations between desert landscapes and women’s bodies, while broadly reflecting on the interconnectedness between humans and the natural world. Artists work in a range of mediums including installation, photography, sculpture, painting, and video.

LAND BODY is curated by Kelly Carper and made possible by Weber County RAMP, Utah Office of Tourism, Utah Legislature and Utah Division of Arts & Museums.

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*Chelsea Call, Muley Memory 1, 2 3, photo: archival print, 32” x 48”*

Introduction

The body and the landscape have been comparatively explored throughout art history, particularly with feminine connotations: from the personified concept of Mother Earth in Ancient times as a nurturing and life-giving entity, to reclining nudes in symbolically fruitful garden scenes in Renaissance paintings, to more radical depictions by Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning and his Woman as Landscape. While women and their bodies were common subjects, male perspectives dominated these movements.

Earth-body connections were more tangibly explored in the land art movement of the 1960s and 70s, which was conversely associated with male bravado and strength as powerful, physical engagements with the land aimed to heighten our awareness of the natural world. This period was commonly characterized by influential male artists such as Robert Smithson and his Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake, however, many female artists pioneered the movement such as Nancy Holt, whose Sun Tunnels can be experienced in Utah’s Great Basin Desert, and Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, whose feminist approach involved physically imprinting her silhouette onto the landscape to exhibit oneness with the earth.

LAND BODY at Ogden Contemporary Arts Center is a contemporary exploration of this inherent land-body connection from the perspectives of eleven female artists working today. Exhibited artists are specifically influenced by desert environments as they draw physical and metaphorical connections between the body and the land in relation to their female identity and cultural history, while addressing important topics such as climate change and other human impacts on the environment. Performative practices are a common thread throughout the show as artists integrate themselves physically and emotionally with the landscape in order to create. As a whole, the exhibition reminds us of the interconnectedness between our bodies and the earth, while calling us to live more consciously aligned with nature.