UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES 2013 / 15

residency at SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE, New Mexico, USA 2013 and follow up studio based works in Berlin 2013 / 15 as paintings and as site specific concepts relying on the photographic research during the residency.

solo exhibition at SOMOS Berlin 2015
https://www.somos-arts.org/unsettled-landscapes/ 














NOT EVERY LANDSCAPE IS OF CAPITAL MEANS
(but without means there is no property) 
concept for a wall size installation photography 
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 





As the film of John Ford "The Searchers" with its cliché of John Wayne ́s male role model is still existent to some degree, the real landscape of the American Southwest and its land-rights and property policy is still based on treaties and negotiations of the 19th century and its civil war. How is landscape abused today with its property and sales management? How has property management failed and led financial speculation into current crisis of land, land-use and property? A photographic wall size installation of photos recorded at first nation reservation of Acoma and at the town of Madrid in New Mexico during 2013, to be installed as a wall size installation minimum 200 x 600 cm, combining pigment print on high resolution paper with projection and other materials.






















2015



 
UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES
on land-use and resources
 of the North American South West 

new works by Klaus Hu

at Somos Art Space Berlin
 
solo exhibition
 
 
 










UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES
new works by Klaus Hu / photography / painting
on land-use and resources

Landscape and conflicts of the North American South West.



Historical and experienced landscapes. Photographs as negative b/w and digital images of the residence stay at Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, USA in March / April 2013 are juxtaposed with PAINTED TRANSLATIONS of photographic recordings (and archival photos) while on stay and in my Studio in Berlin. The landscape of the North American South West appears as an ambient room as visual language of lived time. As visual translation, opposites merge into a symbiosis. Do I imagine landscape or does landscape reflect on me? Is landscape a romantic topic of escape, "inspired" by infinity or is it an ecological disaster? While landscape was subject to the will and spirit of the late baroque period in European tradition and degraded to geometric alignments of the nobility, the romantic period of the 19th century projected the "soul" of the author / artist on / into the canvas, and thus into / onto the real landscape. Sometimes landscape disappeared as a longing as in Caspar David Friedrichs paintings. At the beginning of the 20th Century modernity opens the bridge to non-European traditions, without examining in detail the various notions of landscape, the self, the projection, the ritual and transformation. Only the ignition of the first Atomic bomb in 1945 in New Mexico threw an image on the dichotomy of dissolution versus unity (of the self). The result was the counter-movement and the awakening of the 60's generation.  But everything vanished into a daydream. Another 40 years later, after several financial and ecological crises and disasters, the exploitation of resources by transnational corporations, wars of intervention, after 9/11, looking at "LANDSCAPE" is not a marginal subject any more. It is part of the Anthropocene and the discourse upon geological changes by human interventions on a global local scale.


















UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES
installation views / at SomoS Berlin / May 2015
all photos / works © KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN
















UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES
 oil on canvas 200 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN
(inspired by photographs of Timothy O´Sullivan 1872 / 74) 


 


 
 
 
details






























 
 
 
 
 
update 2022


Photos appropriated of Timothy O´Sullivan of 1872 / 74 of survey expeditions as embedded photographer towards West … its blood spilled (of American natives and their land) echo in current wars on resources of consumer filled societies. It does not speak of gender / identity...it speaks of land and of wars fought for profit...only...and of beauty of the land encountered....

This ambiguity along the repainted photos of historical landscape of the South West by Klaus Hu in 2014 as a vertical tableau and its composition as chess pattern laid the ground, and gave its name for the whole work series of 2013 15. Mostly large scale oil on canvas, charcoals on (stonehenge) paper and small scale works, including the photographic research by Klaus Hu of 2013, while on residency at Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, US. Two sets of the photographic research are available as print editions. 
 
UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES had been first presented at SOMOS Berlin as exhibition in 2015.

 
Two adjacent books / hardcover are available as print on demand:

1. NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS, photography (2013)

2. SPIRAL JETTY, ACOMA, MADRID, BANDELIER, photography (2014)

the paintings are included in the chronological survey book / hardcover

3. PAINTING 2006 / 2019 by KLAUS HU see > Books & editions 


















submission for
 
 The Billboard LOS ANGELE
Creative's Annual Billboard 
Exhibition 2021
 
DON´T ESCAPE ! 









layout / photo: © KLAUS HU 2013 / 21
source photo billboard : courtesy LOS ANGELES 
Creative's Annual Billboard Exhibition 2020




















HOW TO TRANSCEND 
A POOL IN SPACE 
oil on canvas 195 x 210 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN
 




for spatial / site-specific installation 

is referring to spatiotemporal/political and economic/ecological conflicts about water-rights, that will be addressing the future locally and globally. How the pool may be transcended poses ironically the question, if economy and science with its materialistic and capitalistic approach are still capable of solving these conflicts. Its reference to land-art projects of the 60´s and 70´s implies its permanent urgency as installation.


















 
NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS / 
WHITE SANDS IV
oil on canvas 120 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN

















ACOMA / PHOENIX / 
PARKING SPOT
oil on canvas 120 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN















SPIRALS 
& BLUE WALLS
gouache on Stonehenge
framed 66 x 86 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN












TUMBLEWEEDS 
& DUSTDEVILS
gouache, pencil on Stonehenge
framed 66 x 86 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN



















WHITE SANDS I - III 
charcoal / oil on Stonehenge
ensemble of 3 each 105 x 135 cm
total: 315 x 135 cm (h x w) vertical hanging
     or 105 x 405 cm (h x w) horizontal hanging
framed glass / maple black
 produced during residency at Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA, 2013
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN








I
Moby is spiralling
Playing along the Pequod
Voices (of time) bubbling
Deep into Hubble´s universe
Entropy

II
Connaitre et savoir
The mailboxes of the students
Rosetta connection
Acoma - Galisteo - Trinity
Roswell for fun

III
Disconnected - reconnected
Morning - awakening
The fishes inside the pond
Cafeteria is closed for distinctive times only

















 
NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS 
ACOMA / PHOENIX
each 8 1/2 x 11"archival prints on Museum Etching 350 g / framed
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN

















BANDELIER
archival prints on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl
each 8 1/2 x 11" / framed
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN










 




WHITE SANDS I - III 
charcoal / oil on Stonehenge
ensemble of 3 each 105 x 135 cm
total: 315 x 135 cm (h x w) vertical hanging
     or 105 x 405 cm (h x w) horizontal hanging
framed glass / maple black

 produced during residency at Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA, 2013
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


















WHITE SANDS I - III 
charcoal / oil on Stonehenge
ensemble of 3 each 105 x 135 cm
total: 315 x 135 cm (h x w) vertical hanging
     or 105 x 405 cm (h x w) horizontal hanging
framed glass / maple black
 produced during residency at Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA, 2013
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN



BANDELIER  
archival prints on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl
each 8 1/2 x 11"
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN














NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS / 
WHITE SANDS IV
oil on canvas 120 x 140 cm


© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


ACOMA / PHOENIX / 
PARKING SPOT
oil on canvas 120 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


 
NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS 
ACOMA / PHOENIX 
each 8 1/2 x 11"archival prints on Museum Etching 350 g
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


HOW TO TRANSCEND 
A POOL IN SPACE
oil on canvas 195 x 210 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN













 
NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS 
ACOMA / PHOENIX  
each 8 1/2 x 11"archival prints on Museum Etching 350 g
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


HOW TO TRANSCEND 
A POOL IN SPACE
oil on canvas 195 x 210 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN


UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES
 oil on canvas 200 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN









NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS
Book hardcover 

available from Sept 2013 on
8 1/2" x 11" / 100 pages / 116 photos 
70 €  / includ. VAT / MwSt
plus costs for shipping
details via BOOKS

 photographic research 
into the vast expansive landscape of New Mexico, USA, 
made possible during residence stay 
at Santa Fe Art Institute 
in March / April 2013.







all photos © KLAUS HU 2013 
except page 57 courtesy Derrick Velasquez 
and page 56 courtesy Georgia O`Keeffe Museum 
& New Mexico Museum Of Art 

"The motorbike of Georgia O ́Keeffe"


While site-specific attempts were lingering in the back of my mind, recalling Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson and Bruce Nauman, I experienced a slow, but vast expansive landscape, full of contradictions and full of colonial and cultural clashes, that emptied my mind and my eyes from pre-conceptions, making me drive out into the unknown, while on stay. What I experienced was a mix of reservations, clinging to casino build resorts for income, the hispanic community living side by side of the old Spanish settlers and their descendants, all reclaiming own territories and land, while some towns of the 60 ́s communities are driven to tourism and real estate sales. New Mexico is the state of the first atomic bomb explosion and of dry high altitude with mountains, valleys and resorts. Being on my own, I enjoyed a photographic research, that can be called an artists journey, discovering a vast expansive landscape, beauty and its conflicts on resources and historic battles for water and land. 







SPIRAL JETTY ACOMA MADRID BANDELIER

Book hardcover
2014 / 2015






8 1/2" x 11" / 60 pages / 33 photos 
60 €  / includ. VAT / MwSt
plus costs for shipping
details via BOOKS
photos © KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN






editions on hahnemuehle fine art pearl

SPIRAL JETTY
ACOMA MADRID BANDELIER 2013/15
each digital print 21 x 29,7 cm
edition 1/1 

SPIRAL JETTY boxed set / 12 prints
ACOMA MADRID BANDELIER boxed set / 15 prints 
 
photos © KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN














further available: edition 1/1
MARS_SPIRIT, ED 1/1, 2010
18 pigment prints, each 63 x 112 cm
on hahnemuehle fine art pearl
photos additional courtesy NASA / JPL-CALTECH
printed 2010 by KLAUS HU
















ART & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Wednesday, 20th of May / 7 PM / 19 Uhr


in conversation with: Prof. Dr. Miranda Schreurs


ARTIST TALK & SCREENINGS
Thursday, 14th of May / 8 PM / 20 Uhr
 







FILM / SCREENINGS  
a fictional reflection about the escapist landscape of Mars. 
source images courtesy NASA / JPL Caltech 
voiceover: Christopher Johnson
 text excerpt: by Peter Allen "2035" editing © Klaus Hu 2013


 UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES keynote 2015, 35 min
keynote on land-use and resources of the North American South-West. 
photos / texts / editing © Klaus Hu 2015
additional courtesy: Timothy O Sullivan courtesy Library of Congress
High Desert Test Site © Andrea Zittel
books © the writers / authors
research photos / re. uranium tailings courtesy Center For Land Use
State of Mind, New California Conceptual Art ca 1970, 
courtesy University of California Press, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive


site-visit of the archeological site in New Mexico, USA near Los Alamos Labs. 
photos / editing © Klaus Hu 2013/15

site-visit of the first nation reservation in New Mexico, USA near Grants.
photos / editing © Klaus Hu 2013/15

site-visit of the iconic land-art work SPIRAL JETTY by Robert Smithson, 1969/70 
at Salt Lake, near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA , 2013
photos / editing © Klaus Hu 2013/15


ALL IMAGES / WORKS © KLAUS HU 2013/15
& VG BILD-KUNST BONN 




video keynote presented during the exhibition 2015
UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES 2015

as text / paper pdf 

video keynote presented at Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA, 2013 



Literary research archive for UNSETTLED LANDSCAPES 2013/15

1: JEFFREY KASTNER / BRIAN WALLIS > Land & Environmental Art
2: ROBERT ADAMS > The Place We Live 
3: JUDY PASTERNAK > Yellow Dirt
4: DANIEL MCCOOL > Native Waters
5: V.B.PRICE > The Orphaned Land
6: LUCY R. LIPPARD > Undermining
7: ROBERT SMITHSON > Collected Writings
8: TIMOTHY O´SULLIVAN >
 Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library Duke University, 
Durham, North Carolina
9: CLUI / CENTER FOR LANDUSE INTERPRETATION 
> On Radioactive Disposal Cells Within The US
10: GOOGLE EARTH IMAGES  
> Uranium Disposal Cells of America 
> Radioactive Disposal Sites In The USA








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following 3 photos by Timothy O`Sullivan 1873















Incredible: Tents can be seen (bottom, centre) at a point known as Camp Beauty close to canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona. Photographed in 1873 and situated in northeastern Arizona, the area is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North American and holds preserved ruins of early indigenous people's such as The Anasazi and Navajo.









Settlement: View of the White House, Ancestral Pueblo Native American (Anasazi) ruins in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in 1873. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi more than 500 years earlier. At the bottom, men stand and pose on cliff dwellings in a niche and on ruins on the canyon floor. Climbing ropes connect the groups of men. Anthropologists and archeologists place the Anasazi peoples of Native American culture on the continent from the 12th Century BC. Their unique architecture incorporated 'Great Houses' which averaged up to 200 rooms and could take in up to 700 people.
 







 

Rocky: The south side of Inscription Rock (now El Morro National Monument), in New Mexico in 1873. The prominent feature stands near a small pool of water, and has been a resting place for travellers for centuries. Since at least the 17th century, natives, Europeans, and later American pioneers carved names and messages into the rock face as they paused. In 1906, a law was passed, prohibiting further carving.


 
photos courtesy
 
TIMOTHY O´SULLIVAN
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
 
 
 
 
 






 
 
 
 
 
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following photos courtesy CLUI 
(Center for Land Use Interpretation)

on radioactive disposal cells within the US
 
view via >

CENTER FOR LANDUSE INTERPRETATION 




































LOS ALAMOS
oil on canvas 120 x 140 cm
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN
 
 
 


 









concept for an installation / tbc


following photos courtesy google earth

Nevada test sites



















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SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE
residency
March / April 2013

DIARY

While site-specific attempts are lingering in the back of my mind, recalling Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson and Bruce Nauman, I experience a slow, but vast expansive landscape, full of contradictions and full of colonial and cultural clashes, that empty my mind and my eyes from pre-conceptions, making me drive out into the unknown, while on stay. What I experience, is a mix of reservations, clinging to casino build resorts for income, the hispanic community living side by side of the old spanish settlers and their decedent followers, all reclaiming own territories and land, while some towns of the 60´s communities are driven to tourism and real estate sales.  
 
all following photos © KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN










a parable line of former resident / after rain












ACOMA, MADRID, BANDELIER


I took the car, hit the road and entered the expansive landscape, that despite its beauty, also carries clashes of waste and destruction, of uranium and water resources, of mining and of lost dreams of the 60´s, transformed into tourist destinations.  Sure, later I discovered the photos of Anselm Adams and Timothy O Sullivan, of the early geological survey expeditions towards West. 
 

ACOMA
 
Driving out to Acoma, high Mesa, oldest American town alive. Sometimes its better just to drive out. "Dakota", the tour guide, insisted, that solar energy is against "our" religious believes. Never heard of that...on my question why still using propane gas for heating. The night before, I had found a last section of route 66 for taking an overnight at "Grants”, an old uranium mining town.


MADRID / GALISTEO
 
Riding out to Madrid, Galisteo and the vast expansive desert. (A school bus driver showed me the way). Now I imagine, why Bruce Nauman, Lucy Lippard and Nancy Holt have their homes here. 
 

BANDELIER
 
Driving up a long and winding route to the "Enemy-ancestors", which the Navajo would call Anaasází. Passing by Pojoaque and its casino build resort, I enter the rocky volcano made land - tuff - compressed by million of years. After some miles of a curvy and cliffy road, I reach the National Monument Park, follow the path along the excavated ruins, along the former communal round house, climb up stairs, while the lungs are already exhausted by the high air pressure. The caves, small in size, nearly indistinguishable from  the water made cracks and voids inside the cliffs are looking like a Swiss cheese. As the wind is moving through the canyon, the silence is filled with a sound made by the gods, reminding to cars passing by on a distant highway. I end up hiking towards the ceremonial cave. In vain. I´m exhausted and enjoy the silence, only haunted by the soft howling by the winds.


how to get there: 

at Bandelier Monument Site - take 285/84 north of Santa Fe - then cross Pojoaque - then West NM 502 - then enter NM 4.


The word Anaasází is Navajo for "Ancient Ones" or "Ancient Enemy". [3] Archaeologists still debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current consensus, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence around the 12th century BCE, during the archaeologically designated Early Basketmaker II Era. Beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers wrote that the Ancient Puebloans are ancestors of contemporary Pueblo people. [1][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Pueblo_Peoples




ARRIVAL SANTA FE 

3rd of March. 



Slowly attaching to the dry high desert climate. So, don´t walk & smoke! There are multiple pathes to Robert Smithson´s "Jetty" to be seen at the moment: in Anne Leibowitz´ show "Pilgrimage" here in Santa Fe - also Tacita Dean is reworking the not found Jetty during the 90´s, now at Arcadia University Art Gallery - till April 21th, titled "JG" - on JG Ballard and Robert Smithson. If smoking a cigarette - feeling dizzy, while walking.I found my thrills / hat in Santa Fe at Suzy´s at railyard. A coyote crossed the Campus last night, while heading to Meowulf.










A fictitious dialogue with Nancy Holt, 

approx 10 - 15 min / b/w, static on terrace in Galisteo. 




1. What brought you here? 


The invitation on Maps and mapping and my previous work, I guess. My interest in Robert Smithson since 2001 and his obsession with landscape, fiction and industrial ruins .... and his collected appendix of fiction / nonfiction, he collected in his library. 


2. How was your relation to him? 
Robert Smithson seemed to be all the time "ON-LINE". His imagination along his projects seemed borderless, sometimes correlating, sometimes confronting my female perspective on things. It has been like a "RUN-THROUGH" or constant "RUN-DOWN", like one of his projects. Always imagining structures of existing and non-existing relations between constellations and landscape and the books he was reading meanwhile. And he needed that perspective as well. 


3. Did he imagine his projects to be seen by alien visitors in a far future distance, who discover the left-overs of humankind, wondering about the mysterious ruins of a species long ago having faded? 




4. May-be yes and no. He didn´t care much about reception and critical feedback - he cared about conflict of being - and how calculus would interact - and then project his ideas of unforeseen re-combinations onto it. I don´t think, he cared much about alien visitors, although he liked science-fiction. In books and in films. 




5. Did you have to emancipate from his visions, or has it been more like a collaboration? 

What was your role in it? And what was your favorite book you had in common with him?




6. Referencing Michael Heizer, for example, who blew up the idea of land-art, of site, and of territory into a gigantic sculpture with enormous funding. Nobody will know, if it ever will open. A negative aspect, how land-art has developed, an aspect of american spirit. In contrast, James Turrell, who also realized his dream of Roden Crater, always returned to either "light spaces" for museums or to small scale projects for commissions.




all following photos © KLAUS HU 2013 / 15 & VG BILD-KUNST BONN




















NEW MEXICAN TRAVELS 2013
ACOMA / PHOENIX
each 8 1/2 x 11"
& size variable
digital print on Museum Etching 350 g
© KLAUS HU 2013
































BANDELIER 
 sizes variable 
archival print on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl
35 mm negative film
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 14






 









ACOMA PUEBLO
 sizes variable 
archival print on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl
35 mm negative film
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 14








MADRID
 sizes variable 
archival print on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl
35 mm negative film
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 14












AT BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT









SPIRAL JETTY
 sizes variable 
archival print on Hahnemuehlen fine art pearl / tinted
35 mm negative film
© KLAUS HU 2013 / 14





















ON THE WAY TO SPIRAL JETTY