Cornell

John Sturgeon: The Cornell years (1968-70)

As a n MFA graduate student at Cornell University, Sturgeon along with fellow MFA

students, including Gordon Matta-Clark from Architecture, assisted the

exhibition’s artists in preparations and installation for Cornell’s Andrew Dickson White

Museum’s landmark The Earth Art Exhibition (1969). The exhibition featured works by

many of the seminal earth artists. Notably, Sturgeon had the formative experience of

assisting Robert Smithson on his site/non-site piece “Cayuga Salt Mine Project”, for

that exhibition. These experiences lead to him to abandon painting and begin working

in an installation or an environmental event f ormat before subsequently focusing on

video art.

Andrew Dickson White Museum,

Cornell University

EARTH ART EXHIBITION 1969

The Earth Art Exhibition:

Prior to the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University the campus museum

was housed in a stately Victorian Gothic mansion - the Andrew Dickson White

Museum. It was there at the A. D. White Museum in the fall of 1968 and spring

of 1969 that the activities and exhibition of The Earth Art Exhibition took place.

Conceived by Willoughby Sharp (1936 –2008), an independent curator, publisher and

artist, the exhibition presented site-specific installations by nine artists: Jan Dibbets

from the Netherlands, Hans Haacke and Günther Uecker from Germany, Richard Long

from Great Britain, David Medalla from the Philippines, and Neil Jenny, Robert Morris,

Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Smithson from the United States. Initially twelve artists

were invited: Michael Heizer and Walter de Maria briefly exhibited in the show but were

not mentioned in the catalogue, which was published a year later. Carl Andre was also

invited but ultimately declined to participate . (Johnson Museum statement)

Comments: as Robert Smithson’s assistant

What’s absent from the more formal statements above are my impressions of

the man and the degree to which our brief contact had on my own trajectory as

an artist and further to my sense of self. In retrospect the experience was

pivotal to my creative path, and provided points learned that I endeavored to

bring forward in later years to my teaching.

I was 23 when I assisted Smithson. So, the profound impact of our interaction

was decidedly one sided. My opinion then as now is that Smithson seemed a

pensive person, perhaps shy, yet seriously focused on getting his work done

right. He was a quiet force among the group of earth artists in the exhibition

and clearly had everyone’s respect and ear.

Smithson’s “Cayuga Salt Mine” piece was particularly well situated within the

exhibition in what may have been the largest room of the A. D. White Museum

of Art, centrally located at the back of the first floor. The gallery lighting he

adjusted to flood the space adding a fortuitous shimmer to the rock salt and

mirror composition that enhanced the overall aesthetic.

As I recall his working process, Smithson took considerable care deliberating

the placement of each element. Yet once a decision was made, in almost

performative fashion, he poured, piled and scattered the rock salt amid his

mirror placements with only minor subsequent adjustments. Eventually he

covered virtually the entire gallery floor with piles of rock salt inset with

embedded mirrors, even utilizing the walls for propping mirror into heaps of

rock salt. Even though the juxtaposition of material might be seen as somewhat

disparate, the whole of the “non-site” installation gave an impression

of natural coherence.

As his grad assistant, I served primarily as Smithson’s driver & gofer for the

project. While chauffeuring him to the various sites including the Cayuga Salt

Mine, our conversations were few, however they were relaxed and non-

hierarchal. I felt he treated me with respect. Our ages were only eight years

apart and I must have seen him not only as an exciting artist, but perhaps

something of an older brother figure.

I understood then that he had and perhaps still has - a reputation for being

dark and somewhat inscrutable. Yet, I found him to be kind with an open and

generous willingness to have a serious conversation with a younger artist. The

last time we were together before the exhibition's opening, he took me to a

local restaurant and we shared tea together. We talked for some length, not

only about his concepts and process, but he took the time to ask about what I

as doing. He was very supportive of my new direction (leaving painting behind)

and moving towards environmental events - installations. Even though my own

work rapidly moved on to video art after graduation, the lasting effect of

involvement with The Earth Art Exhibition has engendered periodic involvement

with ecological or environmental issues particularly in installation and

performance work.

The teaching moment gleaned from my brief contacts with Smithson was: that

over the years I began to realize how important, even vital, for older &/or more

experienced artists to acknowledge younger artists with respect, in whatever

ways the situation offers. Endeavor to instill by those interactions an

acknowledgement that both share this journey as artists - albeit from varying

perspectives - and from different points in time along the road. I have

attempted to do the same when I had interactions with younger artists who may

have been working with me on a project, as I also did with my grad assistants -

share a coffee when the chance comes, or invite them out for a meal and

conversation - thanks in part to the lesson learned from Robert Smithson.

My involvement with that seminal group of earth artists, the exhibition process

and the tangible sense that this was ground zero for a sea change in

international art – certainly changed me. It gave volition and direction towardsfinding forms that fit appropriately my desire to create in an arena more

unbounded by history, than what painting had become for me.

Comments: as Gordon Matta-Clark’s contemporary

Gordon Matta-Clark and I were contemporaries in Graduate School at Cornell

during the time of The Earth Art Exhibition at Andrew Dickson White Museum.

Gordon was in architecture (his 5th yr. of that 5-year program) while I was in

the first year of the MFA program in Fine Arts. The two schools were like most

grad schools, wrapped up in their own worlds, though the Fine Arts Bldg.

(Franklin Hall) was right next to the Architecture Bldg. (Sibley Hall). Gordon and

I were acquaintances, with mutual friends. However, that changed as our

interactions gained enthusiasm with the escalating involvement assisting the

artists of The Earth Art Exhibition.

At the time, the main student hangout for both Architecture and Fine Arts’

students was the Green Dragon Cafe located in the basement of Sibley Hall

(College of Architecture). Gordon and I would occasionally have coffee together

at the Dragon. As the exhibition activities intensified, our impromptu dialogues

did likewise and they became more focused on the exciting creative concepts

spawned by the exhibition. During this Earth Art period, our camaraderie

developed – sitting in the Dragon, heads close together, as if involved in some

kind of clandestine art affair, smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too many

cups of coffee and gabbing on, attempting to decode what we thought was

going on.

Gordon had a unique and intense personality - certainly an impressive being

even then. I do believe there was shared a level of mutual respect - a sense that

we were serious players in the art scene on campus... at a rather exhilarating

moment. Participation in the activities surrounding The Earth Art Exhibition was

like attending a second grad program simultaneously with the one we were

enrolled. These intense exhibition activities on campus came to usurp

everything... sucked up all our time, so much so that I would be hard pressed to

recall being in classes during this period. Though my involvement was

considerable, this was true even more so for Gordon. His appetite for

involvement was insatiable. Although Gordon had been assigned to assist

Dennis Oppenheim on his ice-cut of frozen Beebe Lake (there is a great photo

of Gordon wielding a chain saw over frozen Beebe Lake, forecasting his later -

building cuts ) Gordon’s involvement extended further to as many of the artists

as possible.

Gordon finished his 5-year architecture program in 1969 and left Cornell for

NYC. I still had a year to go. The last time we saw each other was in New York,

during the two days of wedding festivities for a mutual friend Robert Leibel

(former MFA from Cornell). I kept track of Gordon’s activities and his

involvement with his restaurant “Food” and the beginnings of his deconstructedbuildings. But soon after my MFA was over - I headed for Los Angeles... and gradually lost track of Gordon except in the art journals, until I heard of his untimely death at age 35. Years later, I was approached by Gwendolyn Owens to provide firsthand context and research background for her catalogue section on his Cornell Years for the Whitney Museum’s retrospective* of Gordon Matta- Clark’s work - “You Are the Measure”.

*2006 (June-December) I served as a Research Reference for: Gordon Matta-Clark: You

Are the Measure (exhibition catalogue) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Yale University Press, 2007, chapter of the catalogue: "Lessons Learned Well - the

Education of Gordon Matta-Clark" by Gwendolyn Owens; reference for Matta-Clark’s

Cornell years, particularly the first "Earth Art" exhibition of earth works (land art) at

Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell University (Feb. 11- Mar. 16, 1969); specifically,

referenced also in the catalog were my interactions with sculptor Robert Smithson on his

work "Cayuga Salt Mine Project", 1968-69.

Skin Transplant

In the summer of 1969, Cornell MFA colleagues – John Sturgeon & Jud Fine took a cross-country trip (upstate New York to California). For that trip, they decided to create individual art works that involved elements of travel or transformation.

The power of Conceptual Art as a form - its basic tenet – centers on the idea itself as the art and may only require minimal visual, verbal or acoustic reference - to convey conceptual impact. The work Sturgeon executed was entitled “Skin Transplant” and was one of a series of similar such pieces which involved elements of land relocation, which I considered earth art pieces as well as conceptual artworks.

The essence of “Skin Transplant” was to dig up a 2 square foot section of Ithaca, NY (home of Cornell University) and exchange it with 2 square feet of Southern California. The California location was relatively difficult to get to -a section of dirt road along a mountain ridge in Los Padres National Forest just east of Santa Barbara and west of the Sespe Condor Sanctuary.

Metaphorically the piece made obvious references to the planet as a body and the capacity of both the earth and our body/minds to integrate radical change, as well as address the general nature of assimilation itself. Sturgeon returned to the California transplant site a few years later... and even though he had accurate maps of the location, he could not identify exactly where the site was. Nature and time had integrated NY into CA, at least at the visual level. Sturgeon kept a check on the CA exchange plot he brought back to NY until leaving Ithaca in 1971. By then – the California land graft was well on its way to becoming a New Yorker. The integration all happened remarkably fast - considering how drastic the differences in soil composition and general appearance were between the two pieces of land when the work was executed.

Since grad school much of Sturgeon’s career has been devoted to producing videos, installations and performances as well as digital photography. Yet, an abiding concern for the environment has periodically led to the creation of works whose content centered on these issues, or in some cases could be seen as earth art. “Skin Transplant” was one of the first such works that has engendered that continuing passion for work that involves environmental issues.

Distance of Highway

executed fall 1969, roof of Franklin Hall (Fine Arts Bldg.), Cornell University

Franklin Hall Fine Arts, Cornell

An exact map, 1:1 ratio, was made of a section of NY Rt. 38. The highway segment had a slight curve, 125 ft. long, and featured the beginning of a no passing zone. Then this map was utilized to create a replica of the section on the roof of Franklin Hall (Fine Arts) at Cornell University. The highway replica was painted in the official highway colors (white and yellow) and exactly fitting the 125 ft. length of Franklin Hall’s roof. The recreated highway painting ran the length of the building – east/west, seemingly disappearing over Sibley Hall and Cornell’s campus to the east and to the west over Lake Cayuga.

distance between

distance of highway

heard as disappearing

An accompanying audio tape was featured at the Thesis Exhibition’s closing “event” played from speakers set in field adjacent to the woods. The recording was from a section of NY Rt. 96 on Trumansburg Road. Distant sounds of the highway’s auto and heavy truck traffic came and went throughout the event, but enigmatically with no directional indicators via the mono recording.

The exact scale of the mapping was in a sense an homage to Jorge Luis Borges’ 1960 short story that described the ambition of a group of imaginary cartographers to represent an empire to perfection.

‘On Exactitude in Science’ (by Jorge Luis Borges): In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province.

“Thus, in its bid for full and complete representation, the map moved closer and closer to coinciding with the territory to be mapped. Quite literally, the map promised (or threatened) complete coverage. - Borges’s Map of Empire recalls an ideal of representation that, in retrospect, we associate with Cold War intelligence and academic disciplines centered on nations, areas, and regions...” [Barlow, Tani E., Hanawa, Yukiko, LaMarre, Thomas, 1959-Lowe, Donald M., Editors’ Introduction positions: east asia cultures critique – Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 1-8]

John Sturgeon

MFA Thesis Exhibition

Cornell University

Spring 1970

distance between

distance of highway

heard as disappearing

MFA Thesis Poster

John Sturgeon, MFA Thesis Exhibition: Cornell University 1970

Two weeks, no opening - the room appears.

Previously: an exact replica of a section of highway has been painted

on the roof of Franklin Hall, a slight curve, (125' 1), of. Route 38.

Visually, the highway’s space extends off the roof at either end extending over Lake Cayuga and Cornell’s campus, disappearing in the distance.

NOTE: description of - Distance of Highway - (Archive section, “Cornell”)

Franklin Hall Galley is an Irregular space, (37' * 25"), white walls, an entrance,

several doors and one window. The entire floor of the gallery is covered with sections of brown wrapping paper, (36" x 33*), In total the sections form an actual map of the highway space painted on the roof. The drawing has been made with charcoal. The space of the map is far larger than that of the floor; the sections overlap and fragment, curling up against the walls. Infront of the entrance, spaced toward the back wall, sits a trough, (8'1 x 12'wx 2'h), plywood and Masonite construction; the inside is waterproofed with heavy black tar.

Three drains with long, clear, plastic tubes hang from the underbelly at chosen

intervals.

Process: sediment from Fall Creek gorge, mixed in water, filled to the top.

After settling, the water is drained to the first level; the process is repeated to

the second level. The remainder allowed to evaporate, leaving traces, cracking the residue in the bottom.

The trough is placed on a carpet of black velvet. Overhead hangs a 2x4 rack, (4' * 10'), with clamped spotlights. The light around the space of the trough seems burnt; the only artificial light in the room.

A simple 2 x 4 framework, (10'1), forms a double wall, parallel to and between the center poles. A corridor of space is enclosed by the walls, open at the poles at either end. The channel is large enough to look down, but too small to enter. Clear plastic covers the outer framework, stapled on with the excess left.

Process: plastic was prepared dally with ashes and rusty water from an old basement water heater – then left to dry.

At the bottom of the corridor is an old paper bag, containing the marked twine rolled on wooden stakes used to measure the highway, On the floor, near the wall, a fan oscillates into the plastic.

The window is opened slightly; the shade partially drawn. In the area of natural light, two heavy armchairs sit opposite each other about 5' apart. Thay are covered with sheets, but still available as seating. In the corner, a group of 4 color snapshots of the highway on the roof are hung. A selection of poetry has been placed next to the chairs for perusal by the gallery attendees.

In the alcove, the door is open to a small, hand plastered closet. The space is the door's opening brought back 2'; nothing else can be seen except the signs of its making. Emanating from the closet, a hidden tape recorder playing sounds of a person alone in a house, the incidental shuffling - coming and going; the sounds of a walk in the snow-covered woods at dawn. These sounds pervade the gallery space. During the making of the exhibition, the brown paper scrolls on the floor pick up traces of the gallery’s foot traffic. Around the closet, dry plaster footsteps collect; the charcoal map smudges, patterns form. When the exhibition opens, footsteps begin to accumulate overlays, as people come and go.

An ending into the hills:

As the exhibition nears its end, quests have been invited to drive to a “closing-event” ten miles into the hills outside Ithaca an hour before sunset. Following sounds, they walk into a pine forest to a point where direction first becomes a question. Ten yards in from a break in the forest, a hole has been dug, with roots exposed. Electric cords trail into the hole; the bulbs light the space. Beyond, the forest breaks to a field on a hilltop. From that field, sounds of a recorded highway are played. Silence, then traffic sounds coming from no direction (mono recording), noise mixes with attendee voices, disappearing into silence again. As the sun sets, frequency of the traffic continually decreases; darkness comes and the hole glows, illuminating the people. We drink wine and go home.

During the ending-event, Chain Man (Robert Ely III) walks through the crowd wearing a tape recorder rigged backpack with earphones. Totally cutoff from audible communication, he appears vacant, somewhere else. Chain Man has a tape recorder in his backpack, which collects all sounds around his body-space as he surveils the forest & field, recording Incidental comments, interactions, questions; though he remains separate and silent. Photographs of the closing-event have been taken into darkness.

Back in the gallery, the recorded sounds of the ending-event are played and a series of black and white photographs taken at during the evening are displayed. As night descended - gradually the figures of attendees began to blur in these photos - fading into darkness. The photographs of Chain Man – signify - absence.