Description
Since the 1960s, Peter Hutchinson has been working with land art alongside his friends and contemporaries Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, and Michael Heizer. With the publication of Thrown Rope, his evanescent work has finally been given its proper due. Like those of his peers, Hutchinson's conceptual pieces - whether trails of molding bread strewn about a volcano in Mexico or strings of calabashes stretching beneath the waters of the Caribbean - exist outside the gallery walls. His delicate, ephemeral works are subject to chance and the whims of nature. Many of them are the product of his "thrown rope" method - literally throwing ropes across an expanse of land, then placing lime or planting flowers along the lines determined by the ropes, resulting in a snakelike garden or swerving lines of bleached land.Much of Hutchinson's beautiful but fleeting work exists only in the photographs presented here, accompanied by his own handwritten notes providing insight, levity, and riddles spanning his more than four-decade career. Essays by fellow artist Bill Beckley and critic Carter Ratcliff round out this long-overdue portrait of one of the most underappreciated artists of our time.
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Although Peter Hutchinson has been working with land art since the 1960s, he has yet to receive his proper due. His work isn't found in galleries and he doesnt practice the kind of sensationalism that is typical of the art world. He is a refreshingly modest artist, and his delicate, fleeting work is extraordinarily beautiful, remarkably intelligent, and endlessly charming. It is our hope thatThrown Rope will place Hutchinson where he belongs: in the canon of modern art alongside Andy Goldsworthy and Robert Smithson.Hutchinson's works are ephemeral and evanescent, produced out in the open, where they are subject to the whims of nature. Much of it is the product of his "thrown rope" methodliterally throwing ropes over an expanse of land, then placing lime or planting flowers along the lines deter-mined by the ropes. The result is a snakelike garden or swerving lines of bleached land. Hutchinson has even thrown ropes underwater, planting flowers at the bottom of a lake or stringing oranges or onions beneath the water's surface. Such projects are just a slice of Hutchinson's many conceptual pieces. The photographs withinThrown Rope are all that exists to document Hutchinson's career. Reproduced here along with Hutchinson's own hand-written notes, they provide an inspirational look at one of the most underappreciated artists of our time.
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