Second Site - James Nisbet
Dr.
James
Nisbet,
Associate
Professor
of
Art
History
and
Visual
Studies
at
the
University
of
California,
Irvine,
will
present
a
lecture
based
on
his
new
book,
Second
Site
(Princeton
University
Press,
2021).
He
is
the
author
of
Ecologies,
Environments,
and
Energy
Systems
in
Art
of
the
1960s
and
1970s
and
the
coeditor
of
The
Invention
of
the
American
Desert:
Art,
Land,
and
the
Politics
of
Environment.
He
lives
in
Irvine,
California.
About
Second
Site:
In
the
decades
after
World
War
II,
artists
and
designers
of
the
land
art
movement
used
the
natural
landscape
to
create
monumental
site-specific
artworks.
Second
Site
offers
a
powerful
meditation
on
how
environmental
change
and
the
passage
of
time
alter
and
transform
the
meanings-and
sometimes
appearances-
of
works
created
to
inhabit
a
specific
place.
James
Nisbet
offers
fresh
approaches
to
well-known
artworks
by
Ant
Farm,
Rebecca
Belmore,
Nancy
Holt,
Richard
Serra,
and
Robert
Smithson.
He
also
examines
the
work
of
less
recognized
artists
such
as
Agnes
Denes,
Bonnie
Devine,
and
Herman
De
Vries.
Nisbet
tracks
the
vicissitudes
wrought
by
climate
change
and
urban
development
on
site-specific
artworks,
taking
readers
from
the
plains
of
Amarillo,
Texas,
to
the
field
of
volcanic
rock
in
Mexico
City,
to
abandoned
quarries
in
Finland.
Providing
vital
perspectives
on
what
it
means
to
endure
in
an
ecologically
volatile
world,
Second
Site
challenges
long-held
beliefs
about
the
permanency
of
site-based
art,
with
implications
for
the
understanding
and
conservation
of
artistic
creation
and
cultural
heritage.
