Hélio Oiticica, Invenção da cor, Penetrável Magic Square #5, De Luxe, 1977, photo by Eduardo Eckenfels, courtesy of Instituto Inhotim
Near Brumadinho, Brazil, about 60 kilometers from Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, the Instituto Inhotim is an open-air museum that combines art and nature with site-specific contemporary art in a sprawling landscape of botanical gardens.
In a remote valley of central eastern Nevada, a complex of shaped landmasses and monolithic structures is thought to be the largest sculpture in the world. Composed of rocks, compacted dirt, and concrete, a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, Michael Heizer’s City is a vast work of Land Art.
In 1970, the
Austrian artist and architect Max Peintner imagined a small forest contained
within a stadium in a drawing titled The
Unending Attraction of Nature. In it, a sprawling, smoky, industrial city
has subsumed the natural world, and thousands of spectators pack the stadium to
look at a few hundred trees.
In Paso Robles, California, a hillside meadow is illuminated each night with thousands of colorful glowing orbs. The temporary installation, Field of Light, is the latest and largest version of the itinerant project by Bruce Munro.
Pekka Niittyvirta and Timo Aho, Lines (57° 59′N, 7° 16’W), 2018-19, Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, image courtesy of Pekka Niittyvirta and Timo Aho
On the island of North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides archipelago on the northwest coast of Scotland, a site-specific installation shows the impact of future climate change with a visual reference to rising sea levels.
In May of 1983, eleven islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay were surrounded with 6.5 million square feet of floating pink fabric. It was an incredibly vibrant spectacle – green islands, pink fabric, turquoise water, and blue skies – realized by the conceptual and environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The project, Surrounded Islands, is the subject of an exhibition now at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake), 2016-2018, photo by Wolfgang Volz
In London’s Hyde Park, a monumental form floating on the Serpentine Lake is a feat of engineering and a spectacle many years in the making. Titled The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake), it is a temporary installation by the conceptual and environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
The Friedrichsplatz and Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, photo by Carroy via Wikimedia Commons
Every five years in Kassel, Germany, documenta is a contemporary art exhibition lasting 100 days. Each edition presents hundreds of works in and around the city, typically conceptual and frequently site-specific. Of the thousands of works shown since the first documenta in 1955, sixteen have become permanent installations in Kassel.
Bigert and Bergström, I stormens öga, installation view, 2017; photo by Jean-Baptiste Béranger, courtesy of Artipelag
At Artipelag, a museum overlooking a bay in the Stockholm archipelago, an exhibition by Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström considers the intersection of culture and climate change. I stormens öga (In the storm’s eye) comprises works from 1990 to 2017 focusing on weather, climate, and human activity.
On Viðey Island, near Reykjavík, Iceland, a beam of light shines up into the sky, penetrating the clouds up to an altitude of at least 4,000 meters. The light comes from the Imagine Peace Tower, a work conceived by Yoko Ono as a memorial to John Lennon and dedicated to peace.