Lita Albuquerque is an American installation artist who recently recreated her 1980 internationally acclaimed piece entitled, Spine of the Earth. Albuquerque graduated with a BFA from the University of California before emerging onto the California performance art scene in the early seventies. She was apart of Light and Space, a movement influenced by John Dwyer McLaughlin (1898 – 1976), characterized by perceptual phenomena, such as light, volume and scale. She has earned international recognition for creating large-scale temporary installations.
Albuquerque’s epic ephemeral pigment piece Spine of the Earth, gained her first national acclaim. This piece was originally created on the El Mirage Dry Lake bed in the Mojave Desert of California in the Fall of 1980. It was a pigment based land work that was commenced with a performance by Long Beach State University art students who laid red, yellow and black pigment on the desert floor in a geometric pattern over six hundred feet in diameter.
Spine Of The Earth 2012, was a re-imagining, in an entirely new context, of her seminal project. Over 500 volunteers and one skydiver participated in the performance for January’s Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival. The new work embodied a spectral line connecting the Earth’s core to the sky above. Albuquerque used the earth as a drawing surface and the volunteers were commenced in red jumpsuits and represented her paint strokes. The final piece could only be seen in its entirety from the sky above.
Volunteers were given a red piece of paper with the following words:
THE LANDSCAPE IS LISTENING
THIS IS SUNDAY, JANUARY 22 OF THE YEAR 2012
CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WESTERN HEMISPHERE
PAY ATTENTION TO THE FEET
YOU EXTEND FROM EARTH TO SKY
RED EARTH
BLUE
FROM INSIDE THE RED
BLUE PLANET
YOU ARE
SURROUNDED IN BLUE
ONE VERTEBRAE IN THE SPINE OF THE EARTH
Albuquerque’s work is powerful live poetry regarding perception, our relationship to our planet, universe and our selves.
– Photos and Article by Estée
18th Street Arts : http://18thstreet.org/events/remake-of-lita-albuquerques-spine-of-the-earth-for-pst
Lita Albuquerque’s: http://litaalbuquerque.com/
