Mapping the Empty: Eight Artists and Nevada. By William L. Fox

Abstract

How does one review a text released two decades ago? In large part, by recognizing both its relevance within the cultural moment of its initial publication as well as the shortcomings that time has revealed. Reprinted twenty-three years after its original release, Mapping the Empty: Eight Artists and Nevada by William L. Fox strives to demonstrate how contemporary art can teach us to see and interact meaningfully with land traditionally written off as “barren.” Fox is known for nonfiction and poetry detailing human-landscape relationships that emphasize the West as bereft of human presence, including Reading Sand (2002) and The Void, The Grid, and The Sign (2000). As such, Mapping the Empty fits well within his body of work. Specifically, Fox concentrates on Nevadan artists—Jim McCormick, Rita Deanin Abbey, Dennis Parks, Walter McNamara, Robert Beckmann, Michael Heizer, Bill Barker, and Mary Ann Bonjorni—who engage with the desert, mountainous, paranormal, and commercial terrains of the state across media. It is in Chapters 2 and 7, focused on the abstract artist Abbey and graphic artist Barker, respectively, where Fox demonstrates most clearly how our understandings of these landscapes are more complete with the artists’ work in mind.