Land Art and the Moon Landing

Abstract

Land art and NASA’s Apollo project share an historical moment. In the period of Apollo missions 1 to 17, between January 1967 and December 1972, most of the key works and exhibitions that have come to be identified as the founding instances of earth, earthworks or land art happened. Despite vast differences of scale and audience, 40 years ago both the moon and land art became new objects broadcast on television. This article offers an oblique view of land art from a Eurocentric and British perspective, exploring contingent relationships rather than obvious ones and prioritizing works that usually feature on the peripheries of standard accounts, often with a more ‘domestic’ or quotidian scale and reference than the oft-repeated monumental and iconic works.The author considers a range of issues — including colour, materiality, temporality, place, space, geography — and contexts in which the moon, moon landing and land art were caught back in 1969 and through which they might be recaptured meaningfully in the present.