Review / Informed Opinions

 

September Issue 1998

NOW MADE VISIBLE: Art and Landscape in Charleston and the Low Country

A Book Review

 

by Lese Corrigan

 

The Spoleto Festival USA's Catalogue of the 1997 Site-Specific Exhibition is a 168 page with 139 illustrations hardbound book put together by John Beardsley, the curator for the exhibition. Beardsley is a senior lecturer at Harvard on landscape design as well as a known writer on the subject of environmental art. He was assisted in this publication by Theodore Rosengarten, a senior research associate at Duke University, who contributed a major essay on the history of local land productivity. Roberta Kefalos, the assistant curator for this exhibition, who is an art historian and writer contributed a third of the essays on the artwork. These essays tell us what, why and who concerning the art in Human/Nature: Art and Landscape in Charleston and the Low Country. The artist's intent, his or her background, as well as the purely visual nature of the material and form are described.

 

This lengthy catalogue provides an overview of the twelve projects created and installed by thirteen artists around the Lowcountry. This book became an additional project with the photography provided by Len Jenshel and William Struhs. Jenshel's work is exhibited worldwide and he was recognized in 1996 for producing the best landscape photography book of that year. Struhs is the official photographer for Spoleto Festival USA.

 

Following a brief forward by Nigel Redden, the Spoleto General Manager, Beardsley asks "Why use art to describe the connections between people and their environments?" He says, "Ecology, history, social and environmental ethics and esthetics might coalesce" and "create a cornerstone of environmental stewardship." In describing the connection between humans and the environment especially the transformation of the landscape by human hands, work and path making he provides the reasoning behind the exhibition documented in this publication. He continues by saying "art surely has a role to play in 'preserving the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community' " (quoting Aldo Leopold, a modern conservationist). Beardsley feels "art (does) embody the ethos of a time and place (and) also (can) effect the larger patterns of social discourse" and "help us fathom the complex interplay of natural and cultural forces that give shape to the environment."

 

Rosengarten explores the beginnings of Charleston gardens and the botanical history of the area. The Charlestonians love of land, plants and controlling the plant life as well as developing and naming species new to the area is explained. He also covers the development of the rice culture, from its beginnings to the plantings and the drastic changes caused to the landscape by the large earthworks created in building rice fields and controlling the tidal flooding of the fields.

 

Rosengarten quotes architecture historian Vincent Scully regarding gardens, man's attempt to order nature, as "a vast release, not only of the human spirit, which is liberated into space, but of some great order within the earth itself, now made visible, freed."

 

The words "now made visible" truly express the artist's goal in any medium; to bring to light, to consciousness an image, an awareness. Besides our hands, our family's faces, the landscape is the most visible matter in our experience. What better "material" to deal with? John Beardsley emphasizes a turn to the land by the artists, to nature, the basics, using the earth and its products as well as incorporating the enhancement or decay caused by natural forces including weather. There is a tremendous growth in this arena in numbers of artists creating landscape based art. It is curious that it is just coming to the forefront as to how aware artists are of nature and how much they wish to aid in ecologically sound movements. Artists have been truly moved by nature, accepting of it and aware of man's lack of separation from the natural flow and rhythm for years with cave artists and American Indians fully aware for millennia and expressive of this fact in their artwork.

 

The lengthy essays by Beardsley and Rosengarten are informative, academic commentaries and explorations of the Lowcountry area's landscape influences including the effects of cultural diversity. The writings are thought provoking in many ways. The issue of cultural diversity is strongly expressed in these essays and is something of which the residents have always been aware, perhaps not consistently in politically correct terms. The strong emphasis on the "sin of omission ...[in that they have]... not figured out how to represent slavery" (referring to historic attractions) seems a political issue not subject matter directly related to environmentally based artwork. The cultural diversity of artists involved in these projects echoes the variety of heritages which came together to form the power of the Lowcountry in its social, historical and environmental contexts. This exhibition and the resulting catalogue bring the factual realities of the South and the realities of the visiting artists together in a concrete manner which invokes the spirit of "now made visible" without a written political agenda.

 

Emphasis in this catalogue has been put on the cultural influences on place. The 1991 site specific exhibition Places with a Past explored the historical, architectural spirit of local. "The spirit of place" as Redden puts it in the forward, must also create echoes in man and thereby the artists' work. The exploration of this aspect would provide the whole image and be reflected in the "larger patterns of social discourse" more fully. The pure, unadulterated, truly natural landscape, why it drew settlements and how it influenced what came after would create a wonderful "site-specific" exhibition that was true to nature - human's and the environment's.

The academic meatiness of the essays proposes dialogues to be continued long after the exhibits have gone which is what one would hope for in the creation of an exhibition. The publisher, Spacemaker Press has fulfilled its goal of providing "information and commentary on the world of the built landscape." Beardsley has provided the art commentary as well as the curatorial aspect of the exhibition, Rosengarten the historic understanding of local and Beardsley and Kefalos give the documentation on the artists' creations with the help of Jenshel's and Struhs' photographs.

 

Regardless of background, European, Indian, African, wealthy, poor, exploiter, builder, naturalist, or influences of wind, water, drought, the commonality of living within the environment created by the surrounding land and its trials and tribulations bring man together in a single mindedness of survival. The necessity for food and shelter as well as a need to make a mark upon the land demands a creative drive which is in everyone but most clearly "made visible" by artists.

 

Lese Corrigan is involved in the arts on many levels including creating, teaching, and consulting.

 

Editor's Note: Art and Landscape in Charleston and the Low Country is available for $50 plus shipping costs by calling Spoleto Festival USA at 843/720-1104.

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