Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, and Journeys 1967-2017

Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, and Journeys 1967-2017 is a 50 year survey exhibition that considers the themes of action and various ways, including walking, cartography, land use, endurance, and the consideration of public space. This exhibition highlights a variety of art practices, dating from the late 1960s and continuing through present day.

For  the first time, this exhibition brings together regional, national and international artists that focus on actions in and with the landscape through various practices. No longer separately relegated to “walking” art or “land” art, but including action-based processes, Wanderlust allows viewers to experience 50 years of artistic practices that are intertwined while highlighting diverse approaches to contemporary art. By experiencing the gallery exhibitions and participating in public programs, viewers will gain an understanding of working outside the box. Artwork in the exhibition ranges in medium from drawing, photography, sculpture, installations, film, and video to performance and social practice taking place in both urban and rural landscapes. Taking its name from Rebecca Solnit’s book Wanderlust: A History of Walking, the exhibition will include works that are narrative, political, performative, and conceptual examples of contemporary art. Represented works vary in process—some artists work as solitary figures implanting themselves physically on the landscape while others form actions and create movements in a collaborative manner or in public. The exhibition will not be installed chronologically; historic artworks will be juxtaposed with recent and commissioned artworks that relate to each other through influence from previous decades and artistic intention.

Beginning with significant historical works from artists such as Richard Long, who was one of the first artists to make walking his art form, to Ana Mendieta, who carved and shaped her own figure into the earth and documented these private sculptural performances, to Michelangelo Pistoletto’s performance, Walking Sculpture, in which he and a group of people walked a large newspaper ball down the streets of Turin, the exhibition will include works from all decades since the 60s and commission artists to create new work for 2017. Commissions of new work will include: a two-channel video piece by William Lamson, who will explore a double mirror video project filmed on a boat; and a new walk by artist Carmen Papalia; and The Grass is Always Greener—a collaboration with art collective Fallen Fruit to bring fruit trees back to Buffalo’s Fruit Belt neighborhood.

Artists include Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Nevin Aladag, Francis Alÿs, Janine Antoni, John Baldessari, Kim Beck, Roberley Bell, Blue Republic, Sophie Calle, Rosemarie Castoro, Cardiff/Miller, Zoe Crosher, Fallen Fruit, Mona Hatoum, Kenneth Josephson, William Lamson, Richard Long, Marie Lorenz, Mary Mattingly, Anthony McCall, Ana Mendieta, Wangechi Mutu, Efrat Natan, Gabriel Orozco, Carmen Papalia,
John Pfahl, Pope.L, Michael X. Ryan, Todd Shalom, Mary Ellen Strom, and Guido van der Werve.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether or not you go, the exhibition catalog, Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967--2017, highlights artists as voyagers who leave their studios to make art. This book (and the exhibition it accompanies) is the first comprehensive survey of the artist's need to roam and the work that emerges from this need. The book presents the work of under-recognized yet pioneering artists alongside their well-known counterparts, and represents works that vary in process, with some artists working as solitary figures implanting themselves physically on the landscape while others perform and create movements in a collaborative manner or in public.

Select Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967--2017 to place this book in your Amazon shopping cart.