Output details

Earth-Moon-Earth

The exhibition 'Earth-Moon-Earth' (20 June-9 August 2009), curated by Nicholas Alfrey (with Joy Sleeman), was the first outcome of the AHRC-funded Network ‘Land Art and the Culture of Landscape’ in which Alfrey was Principal Investigator.

The exhibition was based on the idea that the moon landings formed a historical context for land art, though its primary focus was on the recent afterlife of land art and the relationship between different generations of artists. It was timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, and was presented as a dialogue between a key work of 1969 by David Lamelas, 'A Study of the Relationships Between Inner and Outer Space', and an installation by the emerging artist Katie Paterson, 'Earth-Moon-Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)'. Lamelas’s film and Paterson’s installation were shown with others alluding to the moon by contemporaries of Lamelas, while the inclusion of work by British Romantic artists, including Turner, provided a historical perspective for Paterson’s commentary on Romanticism and its legacies.

The research process continued through a series of events in which the curator, Alfrey, and the artists, Lamelas and Paterson, were involved. Among these was an interview with Lamelas conducted by Nottingham Visual Arts (8 July 2009). This interaction was also extended through ‘satellite events’ in London, including a screening of Lamelas’s film (28 June 2009) in the location for which it was first made, the Camden Arts Centre, and a screening and a question and answer session with Lamelas at the National Film Theatre (19 July 2009).

These events informed and extended the research process, feeding into the developing work of the AHRC Network led by Alfrey. The exhibition was therefore more than a display of work and involved a series of interactions between curator and artists.