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Alan Sonfist, Planting of "Time Landscape", Lower Manhattan, New York, 1978.

Alan Sonfist

Described as "the ultimate purist of the Earthworks movement" and one of the early pioneers of eco-art, Alan Sonfist has dedicated much of his life to the restoration and celebration of native ecosystems throughout the world. Since the late 1960's he has worked with city parks, major museums, botanical gardens and art galleries to create large scale outdoor projects that recreate natural landscapes as well as indoor pieces which highlight displaced local ecosystems.

Best known for his "Time Landscape", (proposed in 1965, planted 1978) in Manhattan, New York City, Sonfist proposed a radical new purpose for art by transforming a city lot into a site-specific forest of native plants similar to what might have grown in the area prior to human intervention. This project was seen at the time as the polar opposite of fellow Earth Artist Robert Smithson's efforts to apply art concepts directly onto the earth in remote places (which often polluted the land in the process). Sonfist has since created numerous "Time Landscapes", planting historically accurate native landscapes in other parts of the world.

Additional projects have included installations which address the issue of forest fires in New Mexico, proposing a museum of air, providing offices with core samples of the earth beneath their buildings, creating circular clay-lined seed catching spaces in polluted areas, as well as designing numerous parks and public spaces which celebrate biodiversity and geological time.

In 1968, Sonfist declared that "as in war monuments that record the life and death of soldiers, the life and death of natural phenomena such as rivers, springs, and natural outcroppings need to be remembered... Public art can be a reminder that the city was once a forest or a marsh." That statement has informed his work ever since and in a world in need of natural heroes, we can be most grateful for his efforts to reconnect us to that heritage.

Information

Artist Website

Artist in Ecovention

Artist in World of Art Magazine

Interview with the critic John K. Grande

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