The art historian and former ranger Emily Scott offers a complex approach to the theme of “desert and snow.” She begins with the American Land Art of the 1960s and 1970s, whose protagonists such as Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt used the eternal ice of the poles and the desert as a resonance space for their artistic practice. The artists saw themselves as pioneers who were able to leave their marks in the supposed emptiness of the untouched landscape. Contemporary artists, on the other hand, take a critical look at human intervention in these places. Scott reports on the restricted military area in the Nevada desert. She also reflects on the visual representation of desert and ice, based primarily on aerial and satellite photographs. Images of melting polar ice and glaciers as well as the desertification of landscapes shape our perception of climate change.
“Contemporary artists engage the desert as a locus of dramatic erasures, highlighting the systematic colonization and militarization of these spaces.”
— Emily Eliza Scott
